Arrival of a new senior scientist at the PHE3ID team.

Since a couple of weeks, Marta Nunes joined the PHE3ID team. That arrival will consolidate the collaborations with Lyon University hospitals. That is an excellent news and Marta will help to boost and to start research projects on the epidemiology of viral pulmonary infections and vaccine. Supervision of MSc and PhD student will be also reinforced.

Marta Nunes is the director of the Center of Excellence in Respiratory Pathogens in Lyon, France, since September 2022, and a visiting professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She did her PhD thesis work at the Department of Neurology and Neurosciences at the Weill Medical College of the Cornell University in New York, USA. Her post-doctoral training was at the Parasitology Department of the Institut Pasteur in Paris. During this time, she developed different projects aimed at understanding the cell biology of Plasmodium falciparum and to identify molecular candidates for malaria vaccines for pregnant women. In 2009 she moved to South Africa where the focus of her research was on reducing under-5 childhood morbidity and mortality from leading causes of death, including the evaluation of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in settings with high HIV burden, and describing the clinical and molecular epidemiology of respiratory viral associated pneumonias. To approach the problem of infant morbidity and mortality related to infections she also explored the potential of vaccination during pregnancy to protect the women and their babies against infections; and conducted influenza vaccine randomized control trials and effectiveness studies. Moreover, Marta led large hospital-based surveillance projects on Covid-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and pertussis; and Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness studies.