Francesca Di Nunzio, Ph.D., has been a group leader at the Pasteur Institute since 2018 in the Virology department. During the past few years, she focused on the mechanisms regulating HIV-1 nuclear import and integration into the host chromosomal DNA. She is particularly interested by cutting-edge imaging technology to answer to unsolved biological questions. Recently, Di Nunzio’s group showed that multiple CA proteins lead the viral genome into the host nucleus, and after 50 years from the discovery of the reverse transcriptase, demonstrated that this key viral process does not occur exclusively in the host cytoplasm, as commonly believed. Previously, she worked for 8 years in the Dr. Pierre Charneau Unit, elucidating host-viral interplays for HIV nuclear entry. Francesca performed a first post-doctorate for 3 years at the Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Professor Alan Engelman studying HIV-1 integration step. Francesca obtained a PhD under the supervision of Professor Fulvio Mavilio at the San Raffaele Institute in Milan & the University of Verona, Italy. During the PhD, she has been part of the team that succeeded in the first clinical trial to treat a patient affected by Epidermolysis Bullosa by gene therapy. She graduated in Biotechnology at the University of Naples in Italy.