Congratulations to Aderonke Sofoluwe for her brilliant thesis defence
On December 12th 2019, Aderonke Sofoluwe successfully defended her doctoral thesis entitled “Intercellular communication in the infected cystic fibrosis airway epithelium”.
Aderonke Sofoluwe joined the laboratory of Prof. Marc CHANSON in May 2015, where she investigated the role of connexins and pannexins in the immune response of the infected cystic fibrosis airway epithelium.
In her paper published as first author in Scientific reports, she demonstrated that ATP and pannexin1 channels contribute to the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). A pannexin1 inhibitor was able to decrease this NET formation and may represent a therapeutic avenue. This research was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Brenda KWAK team from the Department of pathology and immunology.
In addition, she investigated the immune response of the cystic fibrosis airway epithelium model infected with Influenza A virus, as well as with Influenza A virus and Staphylococcus aureus together. Transcriptomic data highlighted interesting genes and pathways that contribute to the exacerbated immune response in cystic fibrosis airway epithelium. The manuscript is in preparation and will be published in a peer reviewed journal.
Her research project allowed her to win the second prize for the best oral presentation at the LS2 Swiss Physio Conference 2017 and to obtain travel grants from the Swiss Physio Society and the International Gap Junction Conference in 2017.
Aderonke was also highly involved in the department life as the head of the PHYM PhD-postdoc association since 2016.
Aderonke plans to pursue her scientific career and is looking for a post-doc on any research project linked to cystic fibrosis or membrane channels. We wish her all the best for her bright future.
Posted by: V. Rosset
12 Jan 2020