During my PhD in Juelich Research Center and my postdoc at the Institute for Molecular Physiology in HHU, I have acquired a strong expertise in molecular biophysics and the engineering of genetically encoded fluorophore-based biosensors which, once expressed in a specific organism, allow to measure steady-state levels of an analyte of interest in vivo. In many ways, biosensors are extraordinary tools which can be applied for addressing numerous biological questions such as how a cell feeds and responds to environmental changes.

I am getting a closer look at bacterial plant-pathogens. I am particularly interested in understanding how it is interacting with the host. In my research, we based our hypotheses on the postulate that pathogens infect hosts to multiply. In the case of a bacterial pathogen, multiplication means in fine nutrition. Thus, I am interested in how those unicellular organisms get nutrients for reproduction and take advantages of a very particular environment i.e., the host. In many cases, survival of the pathogen and its multiplication rely on smart and fine-tuned manipulations of the molecular machineries of the host and strategies of the infectious agent to take the lead of a race in which it needs to stay ahead of the host defense.

The necessity to understand host-pathogen interactions required to be able to enter into the system as an observer. This is as fascinating as challenging. In that purpose, I am expressing in the pathogen cytosol biosensors which respond to changes in steady-state levels of molecules related to nutrient transport and metabolism. The goal is to get new clues about how pathogens feed in planta and which molecular mechanisms and strategies are making them successful and virulent.

Investigate how a pathogen interacts with the host and its findings are actually relevant for any pathogen. E.g., numerous evolutionary mechanisms associated to virulence are similar to a broad range of infectious agents since driven by their particular life style which involved specific pressures of selection related to a necessity to co-evolve with the host while staying always one run ahead of its defense system and thus hidden to it. It is in a way very analogue to how a thief would need to act to be successful in robing valuable items from housing while not being detected by the alarm system.

Those last years, I have been working on projects related to sadly well-known  pathogens which might be responsible of epidemiological situations in crops in countries which eventually rely on those crops for feeding and economy. Consequent lost in crop yield are very damaging to the local population and in extreme circumstances can lead to severe public health related issues such as hunger situations. The research in the field is therefore shaped by a strong necessity to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease with the need to keep a science at two speeds; one for providing short-term solutions to crisis period (e.g., providing new tools to farmers) and one for bringing long-term sustainability in resistant crops with bringing new knowledge in what make a pathogen more or less virulent which is the only way for us to be able to anticipate the emergence of new strains in taking lessons from past epidemiological situations.