The doctoral researcher will work in the “Membrane Domains and Viral Assembly (MDVA)” at IRIM (Infectiology Research Institute of Montpellier), a CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) unit located in Montpellier, France.
The MDVA is an international and interdisciplinary team, currently composed of 3
researchers (in virology & cell biology, biophysics and molecular biology), 2 engineers (in cell biology), 2 Post-Doctoral fellows, 3 PhD and Master students.
The PhD student will have acess to different plateform on site, especially CEMIPAI for infectivity and super-resolution microscopy on viruses.
The PhD student will be registered at CBS2 doctoral school at University of Montpellier.
The PhD student will also interact with other PhD students of the ANR consortium located in Paris and Grenoble.
The PhD student can easily interact with other PhD students of the Biology Institutes on campus thanks to the Beer Hour Friday evenings and the CIIGALES association for student events.

Our team is interested in the replication of chronical or emerging viruses representing a threat for human health, and in particular in deciphering the assembly mechanisms of enveloped RNA viruses. We aim at disentangling the roles of viral structural proteins and host cell lipids in these assembly processes by mean of molecular and cellular virology, biochemistry (on biomimetic membranes) and super resolution microscopy techniques. In this thesis project , we will decipher the interplay between the viral protein M of RSV and host Lipids, as well as with othe viral structural proteins, and its regulation in RSV assembly in vitro on model membranes with recombinant M proteins, and mutants, and in transfected or infected cells by mean of STED confocal super resolution microscopy. We aim at better understand RSV assembly mechanisms.