Valentina Venzin

Doctoral Prize in Immunology: Valentina VENZIN, SIICA, for her PhD thesis on Th1-like HBV-specific CD4+T cell abilty to revert the CD8+T cell dysfunction induced by hepatocellular priming

Valentina Venzin, 31, graduated with highest honors in Medical, Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology from Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan (Italy). She subsequently 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.

In 2025, she joined the Meta-Organism laboratory of Prof. Yasmine Belkaid at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where she is supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Branco Weiss Fellowship to investigate the developmental origins of immune sexual dimorphism and how sex hormones shape immune identity and tissue-specific immunity.