People

Paolo Pierobon (PI)

Paolo is an Italian physicist that crossed the borders many years ago and travelled around Europe for his master and PhD. In his journey he moved from theoretical physics to immunology and on the way picked up passion for statistical physics, soft matter physics, microscopy, single molecule, microfluidics, cytoskeleton, cell polarity, cell motility, B cell, inflammation, data analysis etc etc. He spent 16 years in Institut Curie and 13 in the Immunity and Cancer unit in A.M.Lennon’s Lab. Besides family, science, and traveling, he loves music (he plays acoustic guitar, e-guitar and bass guitar) and currently learns not to massacre music at the piano! Recently he has also picked up a passion for urban sketch (but you still have to wait a while to see some decent work)!

Luisa Bruno (PhD student)

Luisa is a biomedical engineer who is trying to uncover the secret of lymphnode mechanics and the impact on the function of immune cells. She moved from Naples to Grenoble for her Master Thesis and then to Paris for her PhD.

Alexia Charamel (Lab technician - IE)

Alexia helds a bachelor in biochemistry from Montepellier University and a master degree in pharmacology and toxicology from University of Strasbourg. She joined the group in January 2024 to support different experiments, in particular microfluidic in vitro approaches.

Zoé Fusilier (PhD student)

Zoé is co-supervised by P.Pierobon and H.Moreau and works at Institut Curie in the team of A.M.Lennon Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of immune cells. She works on the topographical and mechanical properties of extracellular matrix in tumors.

The team @ Cochin

We are part of the group Immune cell signaling and retroviral infection that will become the group Dycric (Dynamics of cytoskeleton related response in immune cells) in January 2025 co-directed by Paolo Pierobon and Jérôme Delon. Check the projects currently running!

Collaborators

• Ana-Maria Lennon’s team
• Jacques Fattaccioli’s team
• Emmanuel Donnadieu’s team
• Jean Francois Rupprecht
• Pierre Henry Puech
• Julien Husson
• Yolanda Carrasco
• Martial Balland

Alumni

PhD students

• Judith Pineau (currently postdoc in Institut Curie UMR144) 2017-2021: Polarization dynamics and force generation at the B lymphocyte immune synapse
• Lea Pinon (currently postdoc in Institut Pasteur) 2017-2021: Emulsion droplets and microfluidic traps to study the B cells polarization and its mechanics
• Anita Kumari (currently working for PSL University) 2013-2017: Mechanics of antigen extraction

Master students

• Mostafa El Raies (Interdisciplinary Master AIRE, Paris Cité University) 3/2024-7/2024: Polarity of B cell, experimental microfluidic approach and simulation with Cytosim.
• Oriol Capel Sandin (Master Microfluidics, Paris Jussieu University) 2/2024-7/2024: Deformability cytometry chip to characterize the mechanical properties of cells.
• Mehdi El-Gorhi (M2 Nanotechnologies, Paris-Saclay University, Co-supervised with B. Bartenlian (C2N, Saclay) 3/2023-7/2023: Cell mechanics in microfluidic chip.

In Curie

• Pierre-Gabriel Roche (M2, ENS-Lyon, Ecole de Medecine INSERM, Co-supervised with Dr. Hélène Moreau) 2/2021-6/2021: Activation of T cells in microfluidics traps.
• Judith Pineau (M2, AIV-Paris Descartes) 3/2017-6/2017: 3D force measurement during antigen acquisition.
• Anna Manoux (M2, AIV-Paris Descartes) 10/2016-12/2016: B cell polarization in microfluidic traps.
• Uchenna Anyaegbunam (M2, AIV-Paris Descartes) 10/2015-12/2015: Actin Flows and Force Generation in B Cells.
• Anita Kumari (M2, AIV-Paris Descartes) 12/2012-3/2013: B cell mechanics tested by optical tweezers. 3/2013-6/2013: Analysis of single B cell receptor trajectories.
• Naga Venkata Gayathri Vegesna (M2 Nano-Biophotonics, ENS Cachan) 2/2012-9/2012: Single molecule study of the B cell receptor diffusion.
• Vinoth Edal Sundar-Rajan (M2 Nano-Biophotonics, ENS Cachan) 11/2010-10/2011: Effect of tacol in intracellular transport.
• Violaine Randrian (medical school, Paris Descartes) 7/2010-8/2010: Quantum dots internalization in dendritic cells.
• Magali Florens (M2 ENS Cachan, co-supervised with G. Cappello) 3/2008-6/2008: Study of the intracellular traffic by single molecule approach.
• Simone Liuzzo (Leonardo Student, cosupervised with G. Cappello) 9/2008-12/2008: Real time detection of nano particles.
• Dejan Skrelik et Hiba Sarrouj (M1 Paris VI, co-supervised with G. Cappello) 2/2008-7/2008: Detection of Myosin V steps by travelling wave tracking.
• Sarra Achouri (M1 Ervy) 2/2007-7/2007: Single molecule tracking in the cell.*