19 Aug 2026
ACTERIA Prizes awarded by EFIS
The Doctoral Thesis prize in Immunology is awarded to Valentina Venzin , PhD, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Meta-Organism laboratory of Prof. Yasmine Belkaid at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.
Valentina pursued her PhD in the Laboratory of Dynamics of Immune Responses, led by Prof. Matteo Iannacone, at IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.
During her doctoral research, she investigated the mechanisms governing hepatic CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cell cooperation during chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) persistence, with the goal of understanding how effective antiviral immunity can be restored within the highly tolerogenic environment of the liver. Her work demonstrated that CD4⁺ T cells can locally rescue dysfunctional HBV-specific CD8⁺ T cells directly within the liver, independently of secondary lymphoid organs, redefining the liver as an active site of adaptive immune instruction. Mechanistically, she discovered that CD4⁺ T cells can license liver-resident macrophages, inducing the production of IL-27, a cytokine that is both necessary and sufficient to restore the effector function of dysfunctional CD8⁺ T cells in mouse models and in T cells from patients with chronic HBV infection. These findings uncovered a previously unrecognized tissue-specific immune circuit and identified IL-27 as a promising therapeutic target for restoring antiviral immunity in chronic infections.
Nominated by the Italian Society for Immunology, Clinical Immunology and Allergology, Valentina currently investigates the developmental origins of immune sexual dimorphism and how sex hormones shape immune identity and tissue-specific immunity.
The Doctoral Thesis prize in Allergology is awarded to Mariem Radhouani, PhD, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratories of Prof. Bart Lambrecht and Prof. Hamida Hammad at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research (Belgium).
During her PhD, Mariem investigated how bacterial skin infections shape long-term susceptibility to allergic diseases. She demonstrated that a localized Staphylococcus aureus skin infection induces persistent reprogramming of bone marrow eosinophil progenitors, leading to innate immune memory in eosinophils. This long-term adaptation enhanced eosinophil inflammatory responses and promoted allergic airway inflammation after the infection had resolved, revealing a previously unrecognized mechanism linking bacterial infections to allergy. She further identified IL-33 and complement component C5a as key regulators of eosinophil expansion and recruitment, while trained eosinophils exhibited distinct chromatin accessibility, metabolic and transcriptional profiles, providing molecular evidence of stable functional reprogramming.
Her work provided the first demonstration that eosinophils can develop innate immune memory, expanding the concept of trained immunity. These findings were published in Science Immunology, alongside additional publications in leading immunology and allergy journals. In recognition of her doctoral research, she received the 2025 Clemens von Pirquet Prize from the Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology (ÖGAI).
Nominated by the Belgium Society of Immunology, Mariem is currently investigating how maternal immunity shapes organ development and susceptibility to allergic disease in offspring at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research. She was recently awarded the prestigious EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue this research.
The 2026 ACTERIA Doctorol Thesis Prizes awarded by EFIS will be formally presented at a special awards ceremony during the 8th European Congress of Immunology - ECI 2027 in Florence, Italy.
The ACTERIA Selection Jury expresses its appreciation of the quality of applications received and the track records and project proposals of all candidates, and wishes the best of luck to all applicants in their future endeavours.
More information on the ACTERIA Prizes is available here.
