Jean-Paul Coutelier

Major achievements

• Identification of a particular immune pathway in response to viral infections
• Identification of pathogenic mechanisms of viral and parasitic infections
• Coordination of a multidisciplinary project on malaria in Rwanda

Question

Which interactions between infectious agents and the immune system determine the pathological outcomes of infections?

Research focus

The possibility for evoluted organisms to survive infections depends on the ability of their immune system to eliminate the pathogenic agent without induction of immunopathology. Depending on the immune response, infection with Plasmodium parasites may result in asymptomatic carriage, mild or severe malaria. Our main project is to determine in patients from Rwanda some of the causative environmental events that modulate anti-parasite responses and lead to distinct clinical forms of malaria.

Using mouse viruses, we were first to show that viruses triggered a specific type of response, now called Type 1, characterized by increased proportion of IgG2a antibodies that were more efficient to protect mice against a fatal viral polioencephalomyelitis. Moreover, infections may result in a bias in the immune microenvironment of the host, which leads to alterations of concomitant diseases with an immune component. Thus, viral and parasitic infections results in enhanced susceptibility to diseases such as septic shock, through macrophage activation leading to enhanced TNF production. Similarly, autoantibody-mediated thrombocytopenia is aggravated by viral infection because of enhanced phagocytosis of opsonized platelets by activated macrophages. This could explain how Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura develops in children after infection with diverse common viruses. However, modulation of the host immune microenvironment can also protect against immune-mediated diseases such as graft-versus-host response and experimental autoimmune encephalitis. Similarly, mouse NK cell activation and IFN-γ production triggered by infections result in the inhibition of the development of tumors such as plasmacytoma.

Jean-Paul Coutelier obtained his MD from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) in 1981. After one year as pediatric resident, he joined the laboratory of Jacques Van Snick at the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Pathology (ICP, now de Duve Institute) in 1982. He spent two years at the National Institutes of Health (Maryland, USA) in the A.L. Notkins laboratory, then came back to ICP as FNRS research associate to start his own group. In 1993, he obtained his “agrégation de l’enseignement supérieur” degree. In 1998, he became FNRS research director and associate professor at UCLouvain, then professor in 2009. He started programs of university cooperation with ARES in Rwanda in 2009, then in Haïti and Burundi. He was member of the UCLouvain academic council from 1993 to 1998, member of the “Organe de concertation et de négociation” at FNRS from 2016, member of the UCLouvain Council of International Action from 2018, member of the “Pôle de la Politique Scientifique de la Région Wallonne” from 2020, member of the UCLouvain Works Coucil from 2021, representative of UCLouvain in the administrative board of the “Entraide médicale international” ASBL from 2021. He retired in 2022.

Honors

• Prize “Centre d’Etudes Princesse Joséphine-Charlotte", 1993
• Prize De Hovre, 1994

Affiliations

• Honorary FNRS Research Director
• Emeritus UCLouvain Professor
• UCLouvain Collaborator for Cooperation
• Honorary Professor at the University of Rwanda