NARILIS PhD student Bastien Tirtiaux wins Best Oral Presentation Award at the E2BRN 2024 conference !

Bastien Tirtiaux is working at the Cell and Tissue Laboratory led by Prof. Yves Poumay and Dr. Catherine Lambert de Rouvroit (UNamur, URPhyM, Labceti), since 2019 as a master’s student and since 2022 as a PhD candidate. His research focuses on Malassezia, commensal yeasts that colonize sebum-rich areas of the human skin.  While usually harmless, these yeasts are involved in various skin disorders, such as atopic dermatitis, seborrheic dermatitis, dandruff, Malassezia folliculitis and pityriasis versicolor. In such pathogenic cases, Malassezia switch from their commensal round or oval shape to filamentous structures, named hyphae, which invade the cornified layer of the epidermis, leading to barrier disruption and keratinocyte inflammatory responses.

Bastien developed a Malassezia infection model on reconstructed human epidermis to further explore the mechanisms driving the commensal-to-pathogen shift. Using this in vitro model, he demonstrated that several Malassezia furfur strains can produce hyphae and invade the cornified layer, while other strains do not exhibit hyphal growth and remains on the epidermal surface, highlighting the role of hyphae as an important virulence factor. Interestingly, he observed variations in epidermal invasiveness among hyphae-producing strains, suggesting that additional fungal factors may be required. These findings are in press in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology (Bastien et al., 2024).

On September 4, 2024, Bastien presented his research at the European Epidermal Barrier Research Network (E²BRN) meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. His talk, entitled “Invasion of Human Epidermis by Malassezia furfur is Strain Dependent”, earned him the Best Oral Presentation Award! Congratulations Bastien!