Aleksandra Deczkowska is a principal investigator and the head of the Brain-Immune Communication at Institut Pasteur ‘s Immunology and Neuroscience departments. By integrating tools of single-cell genomics, immunology, and neuroscience, mouse models as well as analysis of human samples, Aleks’s lab aims to identify key mechanisms of physiological body-brain communication via the choroid plexus and the skull marrow niche. Her vision is that in the future, modulation of the immune cells and signals, and the brain borders themselves, may be deployed to cure neurological disease.

Aleksandra’s work uncovered novel immune mechanisms shaping brain development, aging and metabolic disease (Ali-Moussa et al. Biorxiv, 2025; Deczkowska et al., Nat. Med. 2021; Deczkowska et al., Nat. Comms., 2014, Baruch, Deczkowska et al., Science, 2014). She has contributed reviews and opinion articles in leading journals discussing the importance of immune cells and signals in brain maintenance, aging, and neurodegeneration (Nature Neuroscience 2018, Cell 2018; Cell 2020; Nat. Rev.Immunol. 2025). Overall, she authored 30+ peer-reviewed articles cited 10100+ times (H-index=22). She has given invited talks at international meetings in immunology, neuroscience, neuroimmunology, and genomics, and obtained excellence prizes, including the Joël Ménard Prize for research on Alzheimer’s disease in 2023, and an ERC starting grant in 2022. In 2025, she was named a “Highly Cited Researcher” (Clarivate).