Profile

I am originally from the French part of Switzerland. But now I live in Salisbury.

I arrived in Salisbury 18 months ago when I started working at Public Health England in Porton Down as a senior scientist. Before Salisbury, I was living in Dublin (Ireland). Salisbury and Dublin are quite different. Here, countryside is very close, life is peaceful. Salisbury is a lovely city where I enjoy living.

My main activity in my life is science because scientist is not only my job but science is my passion. I love science movies or documentaries. The last movie I watched was Radioactive dedicated to the famous scientist Marie Curie. I also like detective movies.

I also love music. When I was a child and a teenager, I played the piano, the guitar and I sung in a choir. Later, I started meeting my favourite artists especially French singers. I was involved in fan communities for several years but step by step I was involved in more important tasks for them like communication and in 2016, I even organised a concert tour for one singer in France and Switzerland. During the weekday, I was in the research lab in Dublin and one weekend per month, I was leaving Ireland to coordinate the concert tour. Fantastic period !

Now, life is changing due to the current health situation. I am contributing to research about the novel coronavirus so I nearly work 7 days a week. Before this, I was still working as community manager for one artist in France and was travelling a lot. But with the situation everything stopped and in addition, this artist got COVID and passed away. Every day, this sad event gives me energy for the battle against the coronavirus.

But even though I am currently working a lot in the lab, I decided to volunteer in a community farm near Salisbury. I collect eggs and I look after chicken fortnightly. It changes my mind and I meet nice people.

My passion is science but as you can see, I enjoy doing so many other things unrelated to science. I love music, art, philosophy. It is important for me to have other inputs. In 6 months, I will move to Oxford to pursue my research about coronavirus and will also develop my own research project at the University of Oxford. It will be a new adventure for me… I hope I will be able to start my own research group !

Oh, last point about me… I have a collection of Giant Microbes. I love these plushes… And it is very useful to speak about microbes. I also have big coronavirus !

My background is biologist but I am specialised in Immunology. I could say I am immunologist.

My current work is to analyse immune responses post-administration of candidate vaccines or following a natural infection either in animal models (mice, ferrets, monkeys) or in blood/fluids of humans who survived to Ebola virus disease or in COVID-19 convalescents.

I compare immune responses with one hypothesis: if survivors survived, it means they generated a good immune response, not too weak, not too strong and at the right time. The idea is to mimick immune responses observed in survivors using some vaccines to be able to protect healthy people with a vaccine.

For example, I measure  the amount of antibodies specific to the above-mentioned virus in blood of humans or tissues/organs of animals. I also determine if the antibodies can neutralise the virus and consequently if they can be protective using in vitro assays. I can also measure the activation of some immune cells ex vivo. I stimulate them and I see if they can be activated.

When I manipulate the pathogen or some samples which could contain some viral particles, I use a safety cabinet to protect myself.

Before my work on Ebola virus and coronavirus at Public Health England, I worked on other infections and pathogens using mouse models. In Dublin, I worked on bacteria inducing diarrhea especially found in low-income countries and oral vaccine strategies. For example, I worked on an oral vaccine in the context of cholera. In Switzerland, during my PhD, I worked on intestinal immune responses in the context of Shigella and Clostridium infections and during my Master, I worked on the vaccine against Human Papillomavirus, Gardasil.

Following the experiments, when data were collected, I have to analyse them. For this purpose, I use some specific softwares. At this stage, I have to determine the confidence in the data I generated. I have to determine which immune responses I can consider as a real response. It is the reason why positive and negative controls in each experiment are crucial. Then, after the analysis, I have to show my data and make some graphs or tables. For this, I also use some specific softwares. Finally, I have to interpret the graphs and try to understand what they mean.

In science, we always have a main question and we try to answer the question by making some experiments. When there are enough data to make a story, we write publications. Writing a publication, takes a while but it is rewarding.

Another part of my work is also to share the results with other scientists at national or international meetings. Currently, most meetings are organised online.

As a scientist and especially if I plan to stay in academia and start a research group, it is essential to apply for funding. Applications are a very long process, a lot of efforts and success is never guaranteed but it is an important part of my work as well.

Another part of my work I love is supervision of students. As senior scientist, I have to supervise some students (Master students, placement students). It is a huge commitment but I am always so happy when I see the work of my students and what I can learn from them. I also gives some lectures about pathogens at the University of Bath. Teaching activities are always nice moments with students.

Finally, as a scientist, I consider it is essential to share results with a wide audience and I consider it is also a part of my work to meet people who are not scientists, to discuss with them and answer their questions. I am involved in a lot of public engagement activities.

To summarise my work: every day is a different day with a lot of suspense. No routine at all !

Day: Lab work

I wake up at 6:30. I take the bus in Salisbury at 7:30. Twenty minutes later, I am at work. I always check my emails and check if some meetings are planned. Then, I go to the lab and I prepare my materials and samples for my experiment. And I start my experiment. Each experiment can be different according to the technique I use. Sometimes there are some incubation steps, so I can go back to the office and analyse some previously generated data. Usually, I finish between 18:00-19:00 but there is no rule. It depends on the type of experiment.

Day: Reading scientific literature

I read a lot of papers to improve my knowledge and to know the latest findings and discoveries in my field. When I decide to spend one day to read papers, I focus on specific topics based on my current interests or my future plan of experiments. Reading papers helps in experimental design.

Day: Writing publications

I organise the figures of the paper. Then, I start writing some paragraphs. Usually, I start with the introduction and Methodology. Then, I can spend several days or even weeks on the section focused on results and discussion.