Dr. Bénédicte Machiels earned her degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Liège (Belgium), where she also completed a PhD in Immunology as an F.R.S.–FNRS research fellow in Prof. Laurent Gillet’s laboratory at the FARAH Research Center. Her doctoral work focused on host–pathogen interactions, elucidating the mechanisms of gammaherpesvirus (γHV) entry into host cells and the role of virion glycans in viral immune evasion. Following her PhD, she joined the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in Dr. Toby Lawrence’s group, where she investigated how IKKα signaling regulates monocyte trafficking and activation during inflammation. Upon returning to Liège, she established a new research line exploring the impact of viral infections on myeloid cell phenotype and function. Together with Prof. Gillet, she revealed how γHV infection shapes lung immunity protecting from the development of Type 2 immunopathologies (published in Nature Immunology and Mucosal Immunology).

These achievements earned her several competitive grants, including an ERC Starting Grant (2019) and a WELBIO Starting Grant (2023). Dr. Machiels now leads an independent research group as an Associate Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the FARAH Research Center (ULiège).

Building on her expertise in virology and myeloid cell biology, her laboratory investigates how viruses “educate” bone marrow–derived monocytes that later differentiate into tissue-resident macrophages. Her work addresses a fundamental question in immunology: how central (bone marrow) versus peripheral (tissue-derived) imprinting induced by viruses shapes macrophage identity and modulates the development of immunopathologies. This research has been published in leading journals including Science Immunology (2×), Frontiers in Immunology, and PNAS.