[LUM#9] The immunology virus

[LUM Magazine] - Published on July 23, 2019 in Science-Society

Nadège Nziza is completing her PhD in biology at the Stem Cells, Cellular Plasticity, Regenerative Medicine, and Immunotherapy Laboratory (IRMB). Her work aims to improve diagnosis and understanding ofthe different forms of juvenile arthritis. Last June, she was a finalist in the prestigious My Thesis in 180 Seconds competition.

"Cluedo 2.0 is the title I would give to my thesis. We forget about Colonel Mustard and focus on a child's joint that is swollen due to inflammation." It was with this investigative scenario that Nadège Nziza, a doctoral student in cellular biology, captivated the audience and jury of the national competition My Thesis in 180 Seconds.

Juvenile arthritis

The inflammation she refers to has a name: juvenile arthritis. "It'san autoimmune disease that affects one in every 3,000 children in France and can lead to joint destruction," she explains. "It's a disease in which the immune system, which is supposed to protect us, malfunctions and turns against us." Immunology. A virus caught by the young researcher "as a child" prompted her to leave Rwanda at the age of 17 to study in Belgium before pursuing her doctorate in France "in order to meet specialists in the field."

For the past three years at Inserm, under the supervision of Florence Apparailly and with funding from the Arthritis Foundation, Nadège has been collecting blood and synovial fluid samples from the joints of young patients at Montpellier University Hospital to learn more about this disease. Although effective treatments exist, diagnosis remains slow and complex. "Juvenile idiopathic arthritis, the autoimmune form of arthritis in children, comes in seven subtypes that respond to different treatments. There is also septic arthritis, which is infectious and can be treated with antibiotics." The only solution today is to test the different treatments one after the other until a result is obtained.

The guilty ones

In her thesis, the student therefore aims to identify the right culprits more quickly: "I am analyzing several types of white blood cells and microRNAs, small fragments derived from DNA, and looking for differences between forms of arthritis. My goal is to find different signatures that would enable a direct diagnosis and thus facilitate the choice of treatment." Research has already led to the filing of a patent "with a list of microRNAs that are expressed differently between septic arthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis," explains Nadège Nziza.

In a few months, the young researcher hopes to fly"to the United States, Canada, or Australia"for a postdoctoral fellowship. "Still in immunology, but focusing on infectious diseases, particularly malaria, because I would like to return to Rwanda, and that is what affects people in my country the most."

Keywords: LUM#9, LUM Magazine, Research, Health, Science