World Encephalitis Day Talk

Genetic defects of brain immunity underlying childhood Herpes simples encephalitis

In partnership with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), we are starting off the 2025 Advancing Science Series with Dr. Shen-Ying Zhang, MD, PhD, discussing the genetic defects of brain immunity underlying childhood herpes simplex encephalitis.

Dr. Shen-Ying Zhang is an Associate Professor at the Rockefeller University in USA, and an INSERM senior researcher (DR1) at the Imagine Institute in France. She is a physician scientist by training. After completing her medical study at the Shanghai Fudan University in China, she pursued her interest in the investigations of immunopathogenesis of infectious diseases by joining the Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases as a post- doctoral fellow, where she also obtained her PhD of Immunology and Genetics under the mentorship of Prof Jean-Laurent Casanova at the Paris Descartes University in France. Since 2008, she leads a team working on human genetic and immunological determinants of severe viral diseases, in the two branches of the Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases in USA and in France (https://www.hgid.org). She has made substantial contributions to our understanding of human inborn errors of immunity predisposing to severe viral infections mainly encephalitis caused by HSV-1 and other viruses. She played a major role in the discovery of the various monogenic defects underlying childhood HSV-1 encephalitis, via impairment of known TLR3-IFN-mediated or new previously unknown molecular mechanisms of cell-intrinsic immunity in brain neurons.

Join Talk Here