Team 5 PARCC.

Taleb Team.

Our Team

Soraya Taleb
Research Professor DR Inserm

During my PhD, I have studied the obesity and its complications under the supervision of Prof Karine Clément and then joined Ziad Mallat’s team in 2006 to study the immune-inflammatory response (including STAT3 and IL-17 pathway) in cardiovascular diseases such as aneurysm and atherosclerosis. In 2010, I was recruited at Inserm as Senior Research Associate (Inserm CR) and in october 2021, I have been appointed as Research Professor (Inserm DR). Since these 5 last years, I have established my own team working on a new and independent research area aiming to study the impact of the metabolism and MetS on atherosclerosis development. Particularly, I focused on tryptophan metabolism, inflammation, and microbiota in obesity (Nat Med 2018, a work conducted by my former PhD student, Ludivine Laurans) and atherosclerosis. I already supervised 3 other PhD students (Yacine Haddad, Sarvenaz Metghalchi and Nadajoe Melhem) who published as first authors in high impact journals such as Cell Metabolism 2015, Circulation Research 2017 and Circulation 2021.  My Host institution, the Paris Cardiovascular Research Center (PARCC), is built upon the substantial strengths and excellence in basic, translational and clinical cardiovascular research of 14 teams. Today the research of my team is funded by French national start-up award (ANR) and grants of French Foundation (Fondation de France, Société Française de Cardiologie, Fondation Froncophone pour la Recherche sur le Diabète). I also hold a habilitation degree (HDR) from University Paris Descartes (2016) and currently I am involved in scientific mentoring programs at PARCC and different French universities.

Ludivine Laurans
Lab Manager (PhD)

I have been an Inserm engineering assistant since 2009. I started a thesis in Soraya Taleb's team in September 2017. During the first year of my thesis I worked on the involvement of the enzyme Ido (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) on the development of the metabolic syndrome via the gut microbiota. This work was published in the journal Nature Medicine in August 2018 (DOI:10.1038/s41591-018-0060-4) and as a news in the journal Médecine/Sciences (DOI:10.1051/medsci/20183408010).
I am now studying the crosstalks between metabolic syndrome/atherosclerosis and gut microbiota as a lab manager with Dr. Soraya Taleb. In particular, I am interested in the identification and the study of metabolites jointly involved in the development of  metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis.

Emilie Bacquer
Senior Laboratory Technician

After obtaining my bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology, I joined Dr. Soraya TALEB’s team as an assistant engineer in 2021. My work is a mix of versatile tasks and techniques such as handling the team’s mice strains hence genotyping ; qPCR and histology. I am currently working on several projects that consist of understanding the development of atherosclerosis through key elements such as intestinal transporter GLUT2 and phenylalanine metabolism.

Tobias Radecke
Post Doc

I studied medicine from 2008 to 2014 at the University of Marburg and Rostock. In 2016 I obtained my doctorate where I investigated the role of inflammation and diabetes in pancreatic cancer. I started my residency in cardiology at the University Hospital of Bonn in 2015. During this time, I joined the group of Dr. Martin Steinmetz where we investigated the immune-modulatory role of Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) on atherogenesis. We continued this work at the University Hospital of Essen. In 2021 I joined the group of Dr. Soraya Taleb as a Post-Doc which was funded by the German Research Foundation. Here, I’m investigating the role of Mucosal-Associated Invariant T cells (MAIT cells) on atherosclerosis development.

Mariane Sarkis 
​​Master 2 Student

​After graduating in health biology, I joined the master research in biomedicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Strasbourg.
I had the great opportunity to join Dr Taleb's team for my master 2 internship in clinical research   2022.
During this internship, I was supervised by Tobias Radecke (Post Doc). The topic of my master 2 internship is the role of MAIT cells in the development of atherosclerosis.

Mouna Chajadine
PhD Student

I have joined Soraya Taleb's team during my final internship for my Master 2 in 2017, I worked on the role of the Indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO) on metabolic diseases. After my internship, I continued working under the direction of Dr. TALEB Soraya as an engineer on the relationships between obesity and  atherosclerosis. Then I started my PhD under the supervision of Dr Soraya Taleb on the role of intestinal tryptophan on atherosclerosis development. My thesis was funded by the Fondation de France and NSFA (Nouvelle Société Française d’Atherosclerose) for my 4th year.

Nirmala Mouttoulingam
​​PhD Student

While doing my Master’s in Integrative Biology and Physiology at Sorbonne University, I joined Dr. Soraya TALEB’s team in Paris Cardiovascular Research Center, for an internship in 2021. During my MSc internships, along with Dr. Ludivine LAURANS, my work consisted on unraveling the role of the gut microbiota impacted by diet on the development of atherosclerosis. I am currently in my first year of PhD under the direction of Dr. Soraya TALEB. Funded by the Fondation de France, my thesis project focuses on understanding the role of an intestinal glucose transporter GLUT2 in atherosclerosis.

Former PhD Students

Nada Joe Melhem
Sarvenaz Metghalchi
Yacine Haddad