Prof. Autran, MD, PhD, trained as an Infectious Disease specialist, was chairing the Immunology Department at Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital, Paris and is now Emeritus Professor in Immunology at Faculty of Medicine Sorbonne-Université, Paris. She developed key researches on the immunology of HIV, viruses and vaccines and other immune-based interventions. Her major contributions were the first demonstrations of cell-mediated immune defenses against HIV and of the immune reconstitution provided by anti-retroviral therapies, with a recent focus on the immune control of the HIV reservoirs, as well as the evaluation of therapeutic vaccines and immune-based interventions against HIV. Pr Autran also developed researches on the immunology of vaccines against various viruses, particularly in immune-suppressed individuals.
She has been acting as an expert for Vaccines at the French Ministry of Health (Comité Technique des vaccinations) and at the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) for 15 and 6 years respectively. She founded and coordinated the AVIESAN/I3M french consortium on vaccine researches (CoReVac) and is currently coordinating the expert group on anti-viral monoclonal antibodies at the french agency of researches against HIV, hepatitis and emerging diseases (ANRS-MIE).
