Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
The Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) is one of the major Belgian Universities with a main focus on research. It has yielded four Nobel Prize winners, two of which in Physiology and Medicine. The Faculty of Medicine contains several outstanding research laboratories in different fields, including clinical research. One of them is the Laboratory of Vaccinology and Mucosal Immunity (LoVMI), where the work of this project will be carried out. It is situated within the Faculty of Medicine, nearby the Academic hospital, the Hôpital Erasme, and it has a long experience in the field of mucosal immunology, neonatal immunity and cellular immune responses to pathogens, including Bordetella pertussis.
The tasks within this project are mostly within WP5: The team will participate to the EuroFlow-based dissection of blood leukocytes and to the development and standardisation of T cell assays to characterize specific cellular immune responses induced by different vaccines and different schemes of administration of these vaccines. The team will also be involved in other work-packages (especially WP2 and WP3) by providing expertise in implementing rapid and easy T-cell assays.
Françoise Mascart is Professor of Immunology at ULB, and is director of two laboratories of Immunology, one at the Hôpital Erasme and one at the faculty of Medicine. She has more than 25 years of experience in the field of cellular immune response analysis in humans, and more than 15 years specifically in the field of B. pertussis.