Biosketch

Emmanuelle Bille is leader of the thematic Filamentous Phage in the Neisseria team.
She is a pharmacist and microbiologist (PhD, PD). She is an associate professor (MCU-PH) in the Unit of « Pathogenesis of Systemic Infections » (U1151-E7, INEM, Paris) and an academic practitioner in the Microbiology Laboratory of the Necker Children’s Hospital.
In addition to her hospital activities at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital, she has pursued fundamental research activities on Neisseria meningitidis virulence since 2003. Emmanuelle Bille highlighted a filamentous bacteriophage, designated MDAΦ for Meningococcal Disease Associated, associated with invasive diseases caused by N. meningitidis. The presence of the prophage MDA in the genome of a strain, via the production of viruses, increases colonization of meningococci onto monolayers of epithelial cells. So, MDAΦ seems increase bacterial colonization in the mucosa at the site-of-entry, and increase the occurrence of diseases.