Epidemiology & Public Health

Biography

Astrid VABRET (52 years old, MD, PhD) is professor of Virology at the Université de Caen BasseNormandie and Head of the Virology Department at the University Hospital of Caen.She is involved in the epidemiological surveillance of respiratory infections and has been the Director of the National Center of Reference for Respiratory paramyxoviridae and measles since 2009. A Vabretis the member the research unit named EA4655, U2RM (Research Unit in Microbe Risk). This research unit includes 3 research teams, which two are dedicated to microbiology and one to virology. This virology team is headed by Astrid Vabret, and the two key words defining the research field are Nidovirales (Coronavirus and Arterivirus) and Paramyxoviridae. This team was named as “comparative respiratory virology” and include both medical and veterinary scientists. Astrid Vabret is the principal investigator of EPICOREM project (founded by National Research Agency ANR 2013). This multidisciplinary project (Ecoepidemiology of Coronaviruses, from wildlife to Humans: emergence threat assessment) encompasses many aspects of coronaviral ecology. Astrid Vabret has authored a number of publications in peer-reviewed journals (136 papers referenced in PubMed). She published the first report of human coronavirus OC43 outbreak in France in 2003, in addition to the first detection of human coronaviruses NL63 and HKU1 in France in 2005 and 2006 respectively. She was involved in the European project EPISARS that responded to the emergence of SARS-CoV in 2004.

Research Interest

Virology