Developing a new viro-fluidic technology to explore the viral production from infected cells in real-time at the single-cell and single-particle levels – virofluidics

The goal of this interdisciplinary project is to combine virology to the powerful nano/microfluidic strategies (we called "viro-fluidics") to study, for the first time, the viral egress dynamics at the scales of living single-cells and single-viral nanoparticles. Viro-fluidics will be adapted to study retroviruses that reproduce by multiplying within host cells and propagate into the extracellular medium to complete the cycle of infection. The crucial step of the virus egress remains incompletely deciphered because conventional approaches are conducted on cell populations with highly heterogenous virus production kinetics. Key issues will be addressed such as how optimal viral production rates vary with time during infection and could adapt to cells with different lifespans.
More globally, the viro-fluidic tools developed here for the pandemic HIV virus, both for single-cell trapping and for single-nanoparticle detection in flow will be easily adaptable to other pandemic viruses such as Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and Hepatitis E virus which are both global public health threats, as well as for many host-parasite systems. Indeed, the viro-fluidics will allow the study of virus production and spreading in bodily fluids (saliva, blood, ...). In addition, the EV field will also gain from the viro-fluidics with aspects of EVs biogenesis, release pathways and propagation.