Christophe LEFEBVRE
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Professor
Pr. C. Lefebvre is studying the cell-to-cell communication under the influence of EVs. After a PhD about the neuroimmunology of the leech Theromyzon tessulatum in Lille (1999-2002) and a postdoc about the immunology of the mosquito Aedes egyptii in Canada (Vancouver, SFU C. Lowenberger), he was recruited as assistant professor in 2004. He supported a translational vision in neuroimmunology by comparing microglial responses in different organisms (medicinal leech, mouse, rat and human) whose work examined their dialogue with their cell environment. Since 2014, as full professor, he has been particularly interested in analyzing the communication between microglia and neurons through the production of extracellular vesicles (exosomes and microvesicles). Author of 34 publications, 3 book chapters and 52 conferences, he has obtained 2 Hauts-de-France co-funding (2016 and 2020) and was the PI of an ANR Jeune Chercheur (MIMIC, AAP JCJC 2011) on microglial activation. He also exerts his management activity through the European Graduate School of Neuroscience EURON (ULille coordinator, https://www.euronschool.eu) by organizing Annual PhD Days and the different events of the consortium through the board. He has been expert for national/international calls (ANR PRCI 2021, FWO 2023, ISAO/LECMA 2016…) and evaluation committee (HCERES 2022). He currently coordinates the Erasmus+ agreements for Biology (ULille) since 2019 and also coordinates the first year of the Master Bioinformatics, specialization Omics and Systems Biology since 2023. He participated to 11 PhD thesis committees (2 as president) and 5 selection committees for Assistant or Full professor positions. He directed 13 M2 students and 7 PhD students including 2 under progress about the characterization of EV surfaceomes from human breast cancer cells for (1) their role in the brain metastatic tropism of TNBC (Sarah Mehenni, Région/CHU grant) and (2) their role in chemoresistance propagation in luminal subtypes (Devika Shetty, MSCA DN grant). This current work is developed through strong collaborations with IEMN institute (P. Pernod’s team, Centrale Lille) and Centre Oscar Lambret (Dr. N. Hajjaji).