Yasmine Belkaid

NIH/NIAID, USA

Title: Role of commensals in the control of peripheral tolerance

Abstract:

Each microenvironment is controlled by a specific set of regulatory elements that have to be finely and constantly tuned to maintain local homeostasis. These environments could be site specific such as the gut environment or induced by chronic exposure to microbes. Various populations of dendritic cells are central to the orchestration of this control. We will discuss some new findings associating dendritic cells from defined compartments with the induction and control of regulatory T cells in the context of exposure to both commensalistic and pathogenic microbes.

Biography:

Yasmine Belkaid obtained her Master in Biochemistry at the university of Algiers (Algeria). In 1992 for her graduate work she joined the laboratory of Genevieve Milon at the Pasteur Institute (Paris). In 1996 she joined the laboratory of David Sacks at the National Institute of Health. In 2002, she became Assistant Professor at the Children Research Foundation of Cincinnati. In 2005 she came back to the NIH as the head of the Mucosal Immunology Unit of the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases (NIAID).