Joëlle Cosyns

Short overview of my academic career:

• Graduated at VUB in 2022 as a pharmacist (Msc Drug Discovery & Development)
• PhD student at NAVI since November 2022 under the supersvision of Prof. Joeri Aerts (NAVI) & Dr. Thomas Demuyser (AIMS)

Despite the fact that the HIV virus was discovered almost 40 years ago, there is still no protective vaccine. This is in stark contrast to the situation surrounding COVID-19, where several vaccines have been developed in less than a year and provide excellent protection against the virus. This difference is partly due to the fact that HIV is a very variable virus that affects the immune system, which is supposed to protect us. That is why we are also looking at ways to boost the immune system so that the virus can be kept under control and patients are less dependent on anti-viral therapy by using so-called therapeutic vaccination. So far, this has not led to a sustainable improvement of the immune system in HIV patients. One of the reasons could be that until now the interaction between the immune system and the microbiota in the gut, which is a very important factor in both protection against the virus and in the course of the disease, has not been taken into account.

The objective of my PhD research is to investigate to what extent a new mRNA-based vaccine packaged in lipid nanoparticles can induce immunity in the gut and how the composition of the gut microbiota responds to this. To achieve this goal, I will perform a comprehensive analysis of the microbiome and establish an interventional approach to evaluate the role of the microbiome on vaccine efficiency in a preclinical animal model.