Our guest for the CRCHUM's interaxes conference on Friday, December 16, 2022, "SARS-CoV-2 immunity in a cohort of patients with head and neck carcinoma", is Petronela Ancuta, a researcher in the Immunopathology axis at the CRCHUM and a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Montreal.

Petronela Ancuta obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Paris-Sud, her group works on themes such as the interaction between myeloid cells and T cells in the context of intestinal dysbiosis. She is also participating in a study of premature aging associated with HIV to assess the role of the intestine-heart axis in the pathology of cardiovascular diseases in PLHIV.

About the conference

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection prompted unprecedented efforts to rapidly implementing preventive vaccines and antiviral treatments. Numerous studies have investigated the duration of natural and vaccine-induced immunity in the general population.

However, studies in cancer patients remain scarce. Thus, we aimed to monitor humoral/cellular immunity induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or vaccination in a group of patients with head and neck carcinoma (HNC) recruited at Colțea Hospital, Bucharest, Romania. We used state-of-the-art techniques to identify, quantify, and characterize SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in plasma, as well as SARS-CoV-2-specific B and T cells in the blood.

Our results demonstrate that vaccinated and convalescent HNC patients mount efficient humoral/cellular immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies of an IgA isotype, known to act at mucosal barrier level, are preferentially generated upon natural infection.

About Petronela Ancuta

She obtained her PhD in Immunology from the Université de Paris-Sud XI, Orsay, France (2000), with pioneering work on HIV immune restoration during antiretroviral therapy (ART). During her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School (2001-2006), she acquired new expertise in molecular mechanisms of cell trafficking and HIV neuropathogenesis.

In 2006, she was appointed Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal and set up her independent research group at the CHUM Research Centre. During her training and career, she received salary awards/support from ANRS and INSERM (France), NIH (USA), and FRQ-S (QC, Canada). Her Research Program is/was funded by the ANRS, INSERM, CIHR and the NIH, and most recently by GSK/NeoMed.

Petronela Ancuta is Full Professor at the Université de Montréal since 2017. Most recently, during a sabbatical year at the University of Bucharest, Pr. Ancuta studied SARS-CoV-2 immunity in a cohort of cancer patients.