About her postdoctoral project

Lymphocytes CD8+ and CD4+ T cells have a crucial role in resistance to pathogens and can kill malignant cells. Activation of these lymphocyte subsets involves recognition of antigens presented by dendritic cells (DCs), but the frequencies of such antigen-bearing cells early in an infection and of the relevant naive T cells are both low. This suggests that an active mechanism facilitates the necessary cell–cell associations. Within lymphoid organs, chemokines are believed to diffuse locally before being captured on extracellular matrix components present on the surface of architectural stromal cells. As lymphocytes crawl on the same stromal cells, this physical gradient of chemokines is thought to control their migration and direction in vivo by haptotaxis. We propose here to combine in vivo imaging and quantitative in vitro approaches to decipher chemical signals guiding T cells towards and in lymph node.