Chaire de Professeur Junior INRAE/ONIRIS (Junior Professorship-CPJ) (https://jobs.inrae.fr/chaire)

Project summary:

Combining vaccines can modulate immune responses and induce trained immunity, whereby a primary vaccine primes the immune system and enhances responses to subsequent, unrelated vaccines. These effects depend on both the vaccine platform (e.g. inactivated, live attenuated, or RNA-based vaccines) and the targeted pathogen. To fully exploit these synergistic effects, it is essential to characterize the immune responses elicited by different vaccine combinations and identify the most effective associations.

Building on swine influenza and Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) vaccines currently used in pig production, as well as novel vaccine candidates developed by our partners, this Junior Professorship will identify and validate optimal vaccine/immunostimulant combinations using innovative organoid models. Their effects on innate immune training and adaptive immune responses will be evaluated in vitro. The resulting datasets will be integrated into within-host mathematical models that leverage artificial intelligence to formalize biological knowledge and establish a computational pipeline for optimizing vaccine combinations. The most promising strategies will subsequently be validated in vivo in both experimental facilities and field conditions.

Partners:

The project builds upon the Immunocare–BIOEPAR projects ECSCreen, FluOrganoVax, FluTrain, and VaccScreen PRRSV, together with their associated academic and industrial partners.

BIOEPAR researchers involved:

• Nicolas Bertho - nicolas.bertho@inrae.fr
• Pauline Maisonnasse - pauline.maisonnasse@inrae.fr
• Caroline Hervet - caroline.hervet@inrae.fr
• Hélène Cécilia (DYNAMO team) -  helene.cecilia@inrae.fr
• Sébastien Picault (DYNAMO team) - sebastien.picault@inrae.fr

Project coordinator and contact :

Nicolas Bertho -  nicolas.bertho@inrae.fr

Additional information:

Funding: Chaire de Professeur Junior INRAE/ONIRIS (Junior Professorship-CPJ)