Dr. Séverine Boillée PhD
Professor (INSERM Director)
Paris Brain Institute – ICM, Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière
Paris, France

Dr Severine BOILLEE was trained as a cell biologist and physiologist and received her PhD degree in Neurosciences, from the Paris XII University studying interactions between motor neurons and glial cells. She then moved to the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) and joined the group of Pr Don W. Cleveland, as a postdoctoral fellow. During her extensive postdoctoral research, she was implicated in defining the concept that motor neurons in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) do not die alone but their death is strongly influenced by interactions with the surrounding glia and immune cells. Dr. Boillee got hired as an assistant professor at the INSERM where she is now a research director/professor leading the Team “ALS causes and mechanisms of motor neuron degeneration” at the Paris Brain Institute – ICM at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital / Sorbonne University, in Paris. Her current research focuses on the pathological interactions of microglial cells and peripheral macrophages with the affected motor neurons using both in vivo ALS rodent models and cell culture systems. The aim of her research is to dissect the toxic and protective components of these pathological neuro-glia interactions with the goal to define novel molecular pathways that could halt motor neuron degeneration and slow ALS disease progression. Dr. Boillee is a member of the scientific advisory board of the French ALS association (ARSla), of the European ALS association Fondation Thierry Latran, and the Health Sector rare diseases for ALS (FILSLAN). She is also on the editorial board of the journal “Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation”. She received the “NRJ-Fondation de France” prize in 2011 and the “Fabrice Le Mouhoër/Fondation Pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM)” prize in 2022 for her research on ALS.