MAUD BONGAERTS

Maud Bongaerts is a biologist engineer with skills in cell biology, molecular biology and biochemistry. In 2018, she joined the LOCCO team at Curie Institute to work on an European Horizon H2020 Project (http://magneuron.eu/) that proposed an innovative approach, combining  nanotechnology and cell replacement therapy, to treat Parkinson disease. Her work was principally to remote-control cell migration and axonal growth through magnetic forces. Now, she is currently working on different projects aiming to decipher how small RhoGTPases proteins, orchestrate cell migration by using fluorescence microscopy and optogenetics tools. She is mainly performing fluorescent imaging on synthetic bilayer that mimics plasma membrane and on living cell to measure kinetic of activation of Rac-1 Rho-GTpase. She was first graduated in E.N.C.P.B. school (Paris), as a technician in Biotechnology and has then validated a Master 2 degree entitled “Experimental therapy and application in human diseases” in Paris 13 university.  She started her career in a CNRS laboratory on a project in collaboration with an american company specializing in the development of innovative treatments for skin conditions, where she was in charge to produce and study an enzyme responsible to the formation of skin cornified layer. In 2003, her attraction to applied research led her to join the french start-up Gene Signal, based in Genopole (Evry) developing therapeutic molecules for the treatment of orphan angiogenesis associated diseases (ophtalmology, dermatology, oncology). Her main tasks were to produce and purify recombinant molecules based on a patent genes portfolio (protein and antibody), to validate biologic activity in vitro and in vivo and to study their mechanism of action.