Phone: +30-210-6478866
Fax: +30-210-6456547
mail: lesley@pasteur.gr

Studied Biology and received her PhD in Medicine from the University of London, UK.

She trained as post-doc at the Universities of London (Imperial College) and Cambridge (Laboratory of Molecular Biology), UK and in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Athens, Greece. Since 2000 she has been head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the HPI.

Her main research interest is the interactions between cells of the immune system and the CNS during the development of inflammatory neurodegenerative pathologies in experimental models for multiple sclerosis and stroke. The recent work of her lab has focused on identifying molecules, mechanisms and cells involved in mediating neuroprotection against immune-mediated and ischemic injuries with the aim of finding novel therapeutic targets and neuroprotective strategies for multiple sclerosis.

It also investigates how neuronal cells of the CNS signal “inside-out” to the immune system to regulate glial reactivity and incoming adaptive immune responses and whether neuroprotective strategies can enhance the immunomodulatory effects of neurons. The main experimental approach of the lab is to use conditional gene targeting systems to functionally evaluate genes of interest using in vitro and in vivo models of inflammatory neurodegeneration.

Lesley has 72 original research publications and reviews in international journals and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous international journals and funding bodies. She has been a member of the scientific and organizational committees of the European School of Neuroimmunology since 2002 and a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Society of Neuroimmunology (ISNI) since 2008.