Drosophila research experts - Immunity
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Fly is the first international peer-reviewed journal to focus on Drosophila research. Having expanded the editorial board to include even more experts in the field of Drosophila from all over the world, Fly is quickly becoming the 'go to' journal for Drosophila research.
To meet more experts joining us on our journey click here.
Neal Silverman
Neal Silverman leads a research group at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he also serves as divisional Research Director.
His research covers four topics related to innate immunity and host-pathogen interactions
- Molecular, cellular and system-wide mechanisms that regulate Drosophila immunity, focusing on the Imd pathway.
- The role of SLC transporters in delivering bacterial cell wall fragments to cytosolic immune receptors (also in mammals).
- Drosophila host responses to DNA virus infection.
- Biogenesis of the intracellular replicative niche of the parasite Leishmania.
Originally from California, Dr. Silverman has lived in New England for 30+ years, yet still berates the long, dark, bitter cold winters. In the 1970s, he spent 2 years in the even darker and damper UK, where he adopted the local custom of constantly complaining about the weather.
Having published research in a variety of journals, Dr. Silverman is a welcome addition to the Fly Editorial Board. If you're not already familiar with his work, seek out the examples below:
- Immune pathways in Development: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124718316802?via%3Dihub
- Virus work: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1007020
- Amyloid fibrils in Imd signaling: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1074761317304223?via%3Dihub
Dominique Ferrandon
Dominique was introduced to Drosophila in Strasbourg when starting his PhD, which was interrupted by obligatory military service. Luckily, he was accepted in the “cooperation” programme, working for six years in Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard's lab to complete his PhD plus a postdoc year. He then joined the CNRS unit founded by Jules Hoffmann to implement genetic analysis of the Drosophila systemic immune response through large-scale screens and by developing infection models.
He now leads a research group in Strasbourg, plus a team at the Sino-French Hoffmann Institute in Guangzhou, China, studying host resilience to intestinal infections and host-pathogen interactions in Pseudomonas and fungal infection models.
Little did he know, when he switched from investigating how the antero-posterior axis is established in early development to the study of Drosophila host defense, that he would end up studying the Toll pathway, which had earlier been shown to play the key role in forming the dorso-ventral axis, the second major axis of positional information in the embryo.
Having published research in a variety of journals, Dominique is a welcome addition to the Fly Editorial Board. If you're not already familiar with his work, seek out the examples below:
- Lee, K. Z. et al. Enterocyte Purge and Rapid Recovery Is a Resilience Reaction of the Gut Epithelium to Pore-Forming Toxin Attack. Cell Host Microbe 20, 716-730, doi:10.1016/j.chom.2016.10.010 (2016).
- Franchet, A., Niehus, S., Caravello, G. & Ferrandon, D. Phosphatidic acid as a limiting host metabolite for the proliferation of the microsporidium Tubulinosema ratisbonensis in Drosophila flies. Nat Microbiol 4, 645-655, doi:10.1038/s41564-018-0344-y (2019).
- Gottar, M. et al. Dual Detection of Fungal Infections in Drosophila via Recognition of Glucans and Sensing of Virulence Factors. Cell 127, 1425-1437 (2006).
