Dr. Nina Le Bert earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), with studies abroad at the University of Swansea (UK) and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France). She was awarded a prestigious Marie Curie Early-Stage Research Fellowship, which facilitated her pursuit of a Ph.D. from the Division of Infection & Immunity at University College London (UK) from 2006 to 2011.
In 2012, Dr. Le Bert relocated to Singapore, where she joined A/Prof Stephan Gasser’s lab at the National University of Singapore as a Research Fellow. In 2014, she transitioned into Prof Antonio Bertoletti’s lab, initially as a Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR, and later as a Senior Research Fellow at Duke-NUS Medical School from 2017 onward.
Since 2023, Dr. Le Bert is an Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School within the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program.
Dr Nina Le Bert is a human immunologist who is particularly interested in the role of antigen-specific T and B cells in the control and pathogenesis of viral infections.
HBV Infection:
Her primary research interest is focused on antigen-specific T and B cells in the context of chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Her research demonstrated for the first time that HBsAg-specific B cells are present but dysfunctional in chronic HBV infection (Salimzadeh, Le Bert et al. JCI 2018; Le Bert et al. J Hepatol 2020). Moreover, she established that HBV-specific T cells were associated with viral control upon therapy discontinuation in chronic HBV patients (Rivino, Le Bert et al. JCI 2018). In addition, she showed that the duration rather than the quantity of HBsAg is associated with the deletion and exhaustion of HBsAg-specific T cells in chronic HBV patients (Le Bert et al. Gastroenterology 2020).
Her current research aims to integrate HBV-specific T-cell immune profiles (secretomes) with the classical virological and biochemical characterization of patients with chronic HBV infection. An AI-guided classification of patients within similar clinical disease phases based on their antiviral T-cell function will provide a novel way for interpreting host-viral interactions and signpost the selection of novel immunotherapies.
SARS-CoV-2 Infection:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, her research contributed significantly to the understanding of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection with notable publications in high-impact journals. Her research highlighted the role of T cells in the early acute and convalescent phases as well as post-vaccination. In particular, she was the first author on one of the first papers identifying a T cell response to SARS-CoV-2 as well as highlighting cross-reactive and durable memory responses to SARS-CoV-1, work that has already been cited more than 2000 times (Le Bert et al. Nature 2020). Her studies also showed that SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells are highly efficient, particularly in asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection (Le Bert et al. J Exp Med 2021; Samandari et al. JCI 2023), data that support the importance of T cells in protection from severe COVID-19.
She received funding from CEPI to improve our lab’s ability to study SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in the upper airways, the initial site of infection (Lim et al. J Exp Med 2022).