MARIA DA GRACA RAPOSO

G. Raposo received her PhD in 1989 at the Univ. Paris VII (Université de Paris) . Her work focused on the intracellular trafficking of neurotransmittor receptors exploiting imaging and in particular she gained expertise in electron microscopy. From 1990 to 1995 she was a post-doc in the Immunology Center, Marseille, where she started studying the trafficking of MHC class II molecules. Because of her expertise in EM she pursued studies in immune cells  in the Dept of Cell Biology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. While in the team of Hans Geuze she showed that B lymphocytes secrete exosomes with antigen presentation capacities leading her to pursue on understanding main cell biological principles of the generation and function of Exosomes and other ExtracellularVesicles .  Since 1995 she is a team leader in the Dept of Cell Biology and Cancer. In the past 8 years she  took in charge the Direction  of the Training unit at Institut Curie. Her current research focus is on the biogenesis and functions of Extracellular Vesicles and lysosome related organelles, with a focus on pigment granules, with implications in disease. Distinctions : CNRS Silver Medal, Descartes Huygens Price, Royal Dutch Academy, ISEV achievement award, Raymond Castaing Prize from the society for Microscopies, the Mrs Urmila Agrawal Award from Indian Institute of Sciences and EMBO member since 2015.