After a Master 2 in Basic Virology at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France), Raph joined in 2009 the lab of Dr. Benaroch at Institut Curie (Paris, France) as a PhD student. He worked on the dynamics of HIV-1 assembly in primary macrophages and became an “aficionado” of imaging approaches to study viral infections. He defended in 2012 and moved as a post-doc to the lab of Dr. Kirchhausen (Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, Boston MA, USA) to further gain experience in advanced microscopy techniques applied to basic cell biology and viral infection studies. Raph developed CRISPR/Cas9 techniques to study clathrin-mediated endocytosis and Junin virus entry. During his investigations, a promising novel broad-spectrum antiviral molecule was discovered. After 4 years in the US, Raph obtained funding from the Atip-Avenir program and moved back to France in 2016 to establish his independent team in Strasbourg (INSERM). In Oct 2018, Raph moved to the Institut de Recherche en Infectiologie de Montpellier (IRIM), a stimulating environment with exciting science at every corner, and he was promoted Research Director in 2022. Raph currently leads the team “Membrane Dynamics & Viruses”, which is developing original research lines in cell biology and virology, with a particular interest for neurotropic infections. The team uses human cerebral organoids and organotypic culture of brain explants to study how the exposure of the human brain to viruses perturbs its functions.
Raph has been elected as a member of the counsel of the “Societé de Biologie Cellulaire de France” (SBCF) since 2016 and serves as an editor of the internationally peer-reviewed journal “Biology of the Cell” since 2019, and editor-in-chief of Cell Biochemistry & Function” (Wiley) since 2023. Raph has been nominated as “full member” of the World Society for Virology (WSV) in 2019. He initiated fruitful collaborations with national, European and international teams, and thrives to reinforce interdisciplinarity in virology, bridging gaps with neurosciences, chemistry, biophysics, and computational sciences.
Agenda for the selected position:
I have been nominated as full member of the World Society for Virology (WSV) since 2019 and I am willing to serve my field further through active participation in the dynamics of virology worldwide. To this end, being elected as Vice President Europe at WSV represent an extraordinary opportunity to do so. My goal is to foster international collaborations at the crossroad between disciplines, as it represents an essential pillar of innovation. My lab works on various virus families, using original cellular systems, and we thrive to advance the field through interdisciplinary collaborations worldwide. I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute to WSV, as it represents an ideal opportunity to develop international interactions through international congresses, reinforcing the excellent network of scientists associated to WSV, and imagine novel initiatives for the future of virology. I would be honoured to contribute to this dynamic society to the best of my ability, trying to offer an additional bridge between scientists from all over the world.