Sebastian Amigorena_credit Thibaut Voisin-01

Sebastian Amigorena

Institut Curie
France

Sebastian Amigorena obtained his PhD in Paris in 1990. After a 3 years post doc at Yale University, he returned to Paris in 1995 and started an Inserm AVENIR group together with Christian Bonnerot. Today, he is the head of the Immunology Department (INSERM U932, “Cancer Immunity”) at the Curie Institute. Sebastian Amigorena’s main scientific interest overlaps immunology and cell biology. In his graduate and post-doctoral studies, he analyzed the functions of IgG receptors and described the molecular basis of their inhibitory properties. Sebastian Amigorena is today an expert in antigen presentation and cross presentation in dendritic cells. He analyzed dendritic cells’ endocytic and phagocytic pathways and described several unique specializations of both pathways. Sebastian Amigorena and his team also made significant contributions to the analysis of cytotoxic T cells dynamics in vivo, during the initiation of immune responses in lymph nodes and during the invasion and rejection of solid tumors. More recently, he has contributed to understanding the epigenetic programing of T cell memory.