The 2021 Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers was awarded to Pierre Bost, post-doctoral fellow in computational immunology, for his work on the progression of viruses in the lungs.

Tracking the spread of a viral infection

Viruses are infectious agents that need host cells, human ones for some of them, to multiply. While most viruses cause mild illness, some are highly pathogenic and responsible for deadly pandemics. For effective treatments, it is necessary to know how they work and the responses they cause in the infected organism.

To do that, Dr. Bost will use a new technology called Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC) during his post-doctoral fellowship in Bernd Bodenmiller’s laboratory at the University of Zurich.

Using Imaging Mass Cytometry to study lung tissue

This very powerful technology makes it possible to view many more targets (RNA, proteins) than other imaging methods while recording data on the spatial distribution of cells in the tissue. IMC is currently used to study the immune response in cancer, but Dr. Bost wants to adapt it to the study of human lung tissue infected with viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), influenza A (the flu) and respiratory syncytial virus (bronchiolitis in infants).

After making some adjustments to IMC and the development analysis tools, Dr. Bost will simultaneously analyze the spatial distribution of virus-infected cells, their characteristics and those of the cells around them. This will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that promote viral infection in the human lung.

Pierre Bost in a few words

Dr. Bost graduated from the ENS Paris, which he entered through the ENS competitive examination as an Ecole Normale Supérieure student, with a master's degree in immunology and immunopathology. He then completed three research internships on very different topics, including one at Columbia University in New York.

During his PhD work under the supervision of Benno Schwikowski at the Pasteur Institute and Ido Amit at the Weizmann Institute, Dr. Bosc developed several computational tools to analyze single-cell gene expression data. He uses them to study cell-to-cell communication in different inflammation or infection contexts, including SARS-CoV-2, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. In Zurich, where he will do his post-doctoral training, Dr. Bost will pursue his interest in determining each cell’s identity and contribution to infection and in developing computational analysis tools.

Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers

Created in 1990, the Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers is one of the first initiatives of the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. Until 2021, this prize was awarded each year to 14 young doctors of science or doctors of medicine, to enable them to carry out their post-doctoral stay in the best foreign laboratories. 349 young researchers were distinguished. The prize endowment was €25,000.

All the award-winners