Jean-Laurent Casanova

Jean-Laurent Casanova MD, PhD was trained as a paediatrician and immunologist and has in practice become a human geneticist studying the pathogenesis of infectious diseases.  

Casanova investigates the human genetic and immunological basis of life-threatening infectious diseases. His work seeks to explain why some otherwise healthy individuals develop severe illness during common infections, while most people remain unharmed. 

Based at the Imagine Institute and Rockefeller University, Casanova has shown that rare and common single-gene inborn errors of immunity can confer selective vulnerability to specific pathogens, including mycobacteria, influenza viruses, and SARS-CoV-2. He leads the COVID Human Genetic Effort, which demonstrated that impaired type I interferon immunity underlies critical COVID-19 pneumonia. His discoveries redefine host defense as a set of precise, gene-specific mechanisms and enable molecular diagnosis and targeted treatment for affected patients. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.