CIIL - NEWSLETTER , november 2026 - N° 20

I began my academic education with pharmacy studies in Lyon, during which I also completed several research internships in bacteriology and immunology. As part of my pharmacy residency, I continued pursuing research by completing a Master’s degree in immunology, also in Lyon. Then, I moved to Lille in 2023 to carry out my second-year Master’s internship in the RMB team (Research on Mycobacteria and Bordetella), where I am currently pursuing my PhD.

My thesis, co-supervised by Nathalie Mielcarek and Carine Rouanet, focuses on host-pathogen interactions between Bordetella pertussis, the bacteria responsible for whooping cough, and alveolar macrophages, the main resident immune cells in the lungs. Although B. pertussis has been shown to be efficiently cleared by alveolar macrophages following infection, several studies have reported that some bacteria can persist and even replicate within these cells in the days following internalization. In particular, B. pertussis has been observed within non-acidified vacuoles, suggesting that the bacterium may escape intracellular degradation mechanisms. Autophagy, together with phagocytosis, is one of the major intracellular degradation pathways in alveolar macrophages. While the role of phagocytosis in the clearance of B. pertussis has been extensively documented, the contribution of autophagy to the macrophage response to B. pertussis has, to our knowledge, not yet been investigated. Therefore, the main objective of my thesis is to investigate the intracellular fate of B. pertussis within alveolar macrophages and to determine the contribution of autophagy mechanisms to the intracellular uptake and degradation of the bacteria. We are also investigating the impact of bacterial virulence factors on the intracellular survival of B. pertussis in alveolar macrophages, as well as their ability to promote bacterial evasion of intracellular degradation mechanisms and to modulate autophagic flux.

Alongside this work, as part of my pharmacy thesis which I defended in June 2026, I worked on the optimization of the culture conditions of MPI cells, a model of alveolar macrophage used in our laboratory to study the intracellular fate of B. pertussis. The aim was to develop culture conditions that better mimic the environment of the pulmonary alveolus. We developed a new culture medium, referred to as “OptiMA”, which improves the differentiation of murine fetal liver cells into cells displaying a phenotype more closely resembling that of primary alveolar macrophages, compared with the medium currently used for MPI differentiation. Over the next year, we also aim to assess whether the OptiMA medium can promote the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) into human alveolar macrophages