ROGIER Beatrice NAL
About
Research
Béatrice Nal completed her doctoral thesis at the Marseille-Luminy Immunology Center (CIML) in Pierre Ferrier's team on the identification of new genes involved in T cell differentiation and identified the function of Coronin1A in the production of mature ab T cells in mice. During her postdoc at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, she described the recruitment of Coronin1A to the immunological synapse and its role in T cell activation. In 2003, she joined the HKU-Pasteur Center in Hong Kong for a second postdoc and actively participated in the development of a new laboratory aimed at combating the emerging SARS-CoV coronavirus. Béatrice Nal then characterized the viral structural proteins of SARS-CoV and developed a vaccine candidate based on the Spike protein. In 2006, she obtained the position of Research Assistant Professor and led a team of 14 people until 2010. Her work made it possible to identify new virus-host interactions and to define previously unexplored pathogenicity mechanisms for 3 important viruses: SARS-CoV, dengue virus and influenza A virus. In 2011, Béatrice Nal joined the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Disease Mechanisms (CIIM) at Brunel University London and held a Lecturer position. She led work on influenza A virus-host interactions and participated in work studying the role of pulmonary surfactant and complement proteins in the regulation of influenza A virus infection. Since 2020 Béatrice Nal has been conducting her research at CIML in Philippe Pierre's team on the stress response and activation of human dendritic cells. She is currently co-PI on the AIR-MT (Inserm Impact Santé, coordinated by Bruno Canard) projects aimed at developing new innovative mRNA vaccines and UNFIRE (ANRS PEPR MIE, coordinated by Marc Dalod) studying the role of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in infections by influenza A and SARS-CoV-2 viruses.
Education
In Hong Kong, Béatrice Nal co-organizes the HKU-Pasteur Cell Biology courses, which are open internationally and attract students from Southeast Asia. At Brunel University London, she obtained the qualification of Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is notably in charge of teaching medical microbiology and professional development. Today, Béatrice Nal is a Senior Lecturer at Aix-Marseille University, teaches immunology at the Faculty of Sciences of Luminy, and is responsible for several teaching units of the Master's degree in Immunology. In 2024, she developed the transformation of the second year of the Master's degree in Immunology into English and its international opening. Since 2025, she has been co-responsible for the selective Cursus Master Ingénieurie (CMI) in Immunology.
