Among respiratory diseases, allergic asthma and pulmonary infections represent major problems of public health. These diseases affect millions of people, are in constant increase and are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Although considerable therapeutic progress has been made over the last 20 years, there is still no treatment able to modify the natural course of chronic respiratory diseases. These diseases share common key target cells involved in their pathogenesis: the endothelial cells (EC) as a barrier allowing the recruitment of inflammatory cells in the tissues, and the lymphoïd cells, as major actors of the immune response to environmental challenges. Our goal is to evaluate how these cells and their mediators can orchestrate the host inflammatory reaction and tissue remodeling in response to allergens, bacteria or stress and to characterize some of the mechanisms involved in the immune response associated with these respiratory diseases in order to highlight potential therapeutic strategies.
The project focus on the mechanisms involved in the regulation of pulmonary immunity by endothelial cells in sepsis and asthma and by lymphoid cells in asthma including T cells and Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC).