Three new arrivals to strengthen IPBS scientific excellence
IPBS is pleased to welcome three new research scientists and faculty members who will strengthen its teams and contribute to the institute’s scientific excellence. These recruitments reflect IPBS’s attractiveness and dynamism in strategic areas of research.
We extend our warmest congratulations to Caio Bomfim, recruited as a CNRS research scientist in Étienne Meunier’s team; to Virginie Stévenin, recruited as a CNRS research scientist to establish her own team; and to Pauline Schmitt, who joins Jean-Philippe Girard’s team as an Associate Professor in immunology.
We warmly welcome them and wish them every success in this new stage of their scientific careers.
Caio Bomfim holds a PhD in immunology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He has built an outstanding international career path spanning Brazil, the United States, including a research stay at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and France, where he completed a first postdoctoral position at the Cochin Institute before joining IPBS in 2023.
At IPBS, he develops new therapeutic strategies against infectious diseases by combining immunology, next-generation human lung models, and pharmacology. His research focuses in particular on pulmonary infections, especially tuberculosis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections, as well as HIV, with the aim of better understanding host-pathogen interactions and developing innovative treatments for patients.
His work relies on innovative human lung organoid models to evaluate new immunotherapies and host-directed therapy approaches, which target the host’s defense mechanisms rather than the pathogen itself. Author of numerous publications in leading international journals such as Nature Microbiology, Mucosal Immunology, Journal of Virology, Cell Reports, and Journal of Experimental Medicine, he contributes to advancing our understanding of immune responses to emerging and chronic infectious diseases.
Deeply committed to research-based training, he supervises students at different levels at IPBS and actively participates in international collaborations. His career reflects a sustained commitment to translational research combining innovation, scientific excellence, and the development of new therapeutic approaches against infectious diseases.
Pauline Schmitt holds a PhD in immunology and is a specialist in respiratory mucosal immunity. She joins IPBS to pursue both her research activities and her commitment to teaching. Her career has focused on the immune mechanisms underlying allergic inflammation, in particular the roles of the alarmins IL-33 and TL1A, and is grounded in strong experience in both fundamental and applied research acquired in renowned laboratories, including IPBS/CNRS Toulouse and TBSI/Trinity College Dublin.
Passionate about knowledge transmission, she taught immunology and cell biology at the University of Toulouse for several years, developing innovative teaching methods and co-supervising several undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. Her approach combines scientific rigor with active learning, with particular attention to adapting content for diverse audiences.
Committed to science outreach and to the environmental transition of research, as a member of the TERRE committee at IPBS and former chair of the Green Labs committee in Dublin, she brings an interdisciplinary and responsible perspective to her projects. Her work, published in international journals including Nature Immunology, Journal of Experimental Medicine, and European Journal of Immunology, further strengthens IPBS’s excellence in immunology.
Her arrival recognizes her commitment to advancing knowledge in immunology and to training new generations of students and researchers.
Virginie Stévenin has been recruited as a CNRS research scientist to establish her own team. She has received “Amorçage de Jeunes Équipes” funding from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale and ATIP-Avenir funding from CNRS to study how intracellular bacteria obtain nutrients inside human cells. A previous article was dedicated to her research.