Dr. Mathilde Bellon, an MD-PhD student, completed her medical studies at the University of Geneva, where she obtained her Federal Diploma in Human Medicine in 2020. Since March 2020, she has been actively involved in various clinical research projects at the Center for Emerging Viral Diseases. In December 2020, she embarked on an MD-PhD program under the guidance of Professor Isabella Eckerle, focusing on SARS-CoV-2 infections in children. During her MD-PhD, she is investigating the transmission of this virus within schools and childcare facilities as part of the SEROCoV-Schools study in collaboration with the Population Epidemiology Unit at HUG.

Mathilde has also developed an in vitro model using polarized primary human epithelial cells derived from nasal samples collected from children and adults. With this model, she is studying differences in the immune response at the nasal epithelium level between children and adults following infection with SARS-CoV-2 or other respiratory viruses (influenza, rhinovirus, and RSV).

ORCID: 0000-0001-5308-6053