Dr. Christian Bréchot will help elevate biomedical and health-related areas of research excellence to the international level

The former head of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris has joined USF Health to help university leaders strengthen biomedical and health-related areas of research excellence – and to elevate interdisciplinary signature programs to the international level.

Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD

Preeminent virologist Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD, joined the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine part time in October as senior associate dean for research in global affairs, associate vice president for international partnerships and innovation, and a professor in the Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine.  Dr. Bréchot is also executive director of the Tampa-based Romark Laboratories Institute for Medical Research. Since 2017, he has served as president of the Global Virus Network, a coalition of the world’s foremost medical virologists.

“Dr. Bréchot has been at the forefront of catalyzing teams of top scientists to work together effectively on global solutions for emerging pathogens, malaria and microbial infections,” said Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “He is the ideal person to work with leadership across USF Health and USF in strategically identifying opportunities to take our infectious diseases, cardiovascular, neuroscience, and maternal-child health translational research to the next level, and to build upon the international networks he helped create at the Pasteur Institute and elsewhere to make that happen.”

Before serving as president of the Pasteur Institute from 2013 to 2017, Dr. Bréchot was vice president of medical and scientific affairs at Institut-Merieux, a company that develops new approaches to fight infectious diseases and cancers.  He also served as the general director of Inserm, the French national agency for biomedical research (analogous to the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.) from 2002 to 2007. As professor of hepatology and cell biology at Necker School of Medicine, Paris Descartes University, he headed the clinical department of liver diseases at Necker-Enfants Maldes Hospital from 1997 to 2001.

Dr. Bréchot has authored more than 400 articles in medical and scientific journals, and in 2005 was ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 4^th most cited author on the topic hepatitis C. He has been recognized as an inventor on 18 patents, and helped to create three biotechnology companies.

With a prestigious career bridging basic science and medicine, Dr. Bréchot has combined research, clinical service and teaching with top administrative posts to enhance scientific understanding and better public health. His scholarly endeavors have included cultivating productive public-private partnerships between academia and industry.

During a recent interview in his office at USF Health, Dr. Bréchot talked about leading the Pasteur Institute, a preeminent global network of 33 institutes in 26 countries; his diverse background; and his new role at USF Health.  The interview has been edited for length.

What has been your area of research focus?

As an MD-PhD, I’ve always been convinced of the need to combine basic research with clinical practice — long before translational medicine became fashionable. My basic science research has combined cell biology and molecular virology, mostly focusing on hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) and how these viruses can induce liver cancer. I’ve also been very involved in developing diagnostic tests of HBV and HCV and evaluating new drugs to treat chronic forms of the infection.  More recently, I’ve worked on the mechanisms of liver regeneration and based on longstanding research activity in my laboratory, we discovered a new molecule (HIP/PAP, or hepatocarcinoma-intestine-pancreas/pancreatic associated protein), now being tested in clinical trials as a drug that may be useful for patients with a severe form of acute and chronic hepatitis. We’re contemplating organizing new phase 2 clinical trials in China, because China has so many people with chronic hepatitis B infection.

What were some major accomplishments at the Pasteur Institute under your leadership?

First, both at Inserm and the Pasteur Institute, I was very much focused on attracting and supporting young investigators. We created programs and special funding mechanisms to really give scientists at the early stages of their careers the means to develop interdisciplinary research and then get a grant. Second, at Pasteur, we reinforced research activities, especially in the fields of bioinformatics and integrative biology. We created a Center for Bioinformatics, Biostatistics and Integrative Biology (an international multidisciplinary center for processing, analyzing and modeling biological data) that included recruiting 40 high-level engineers and opening a new building.  Third, we merged the activities of different departments focused on the microbiota. For instance, we had a program called Brain and Microbes in which scientists working on infectious agents and those working in the neurosciences looked at how the bacteria of the intestine can modulate brain function, including disorders such as anxiety and depression.

What is the microbiome, and why is it such a hot area of research interest?

The microbiota is made up of populations of bacteria, fungi, certain viruses and other microorganisms present throughout the body.  It’s actually a very old topic:  The first microbiota intervention (to treat diarrhea) was done by a Chinese doctor 3,000 years before Christ (the ancient equivalent of a fecal microbiota transplant). What’s new is our technological progress – with the capacity for genome sequencing and advances in bioinformatics, we now have the possibility to investigate the human microbiota like never before… As a result, we’ve discovered very significant connections between dysbiosis — modifications of how microbe populations are distributed in the gut, the lungs, the skin — and metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases like Parkinson’s and perhaps also Alzheimer’s, and some infectious diseases where disease severity correlates with what happens to intestinal bacteria. It’s a fascinating, challenging field with applications for cross-disciplinary research and translational medicine, and where international cooperation can be extremely interesting because the link between, say for example, the microbiota and diabetes may be very different in the U.S. and Africa due to the strong influence of environmental factors such as nutrition, as well as genetic variations… So, the science of microbiota as it affects certain diseases is a very good example of a collaboration which, if organized with centers in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, could create a unique USF program very competitive with other universities.

What attracted you to the University of South Florida?

USF already has a lot of excellent ongoing research activities and in my discussions with senior leadership I found there’s real international ambition here, a desire and commitment to go further. I liked that.

What is your vision for helping advance research at USF Health?

I’m still in the stage where I need to listen and learn more about the research activities to see how I can best contribute. But, initially I want to work with Drs. Lockwood, (Paul) Sanberg, (Stephen) Liggett, (John) Sinnott and other leaders to delineate which strategic research areas need to be reinforced and then contribute to the high-level recruitment of scientists. Second, we’ll increase coordination among different departments working in research areas such as the intestinal microbiota and its impact on cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases. Third, I hope to contribute to the international expansion of USF, building upon the networks from my previous activities including work with industry partners.

I absolutely appreciate that I will only be efficient in helping to advance research activities at USF if I integrate into the team. It’s not always easy, but it works.

Dr. Bréchot will build on global networks from his previous activities, including work with industry partners.

You have said talent is key to research excellence. Is there one predominant quality you seek in selecting top talent?

You start by looking for bright minds. But, when you must choose among five scientists all with very bright minds, enthusiasm and the capacity to integrate are critically important. I’m a fan of soccer where you need to have very talented players, but you also very much need players with team spirit. Modern science needs researchers with an interdisciplinary mode of thinking who interact well with those from other disciplines.

Some things you may not know about Dr. Bréchot:

-Each generation of Dr. Bréchot’s family, dating back to King Louis XIV of France, had at least one medical doctor.

– As a student at Pasteur Institute, he helped set up the first diagnostic test to detect hepatitis B virus in blood; he also taught the first course in molecular biology in China in 1981.

-He met his wife Patrizia Paterlini Bréchot, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine at Necker School of Medicine and founder of a biotech company, when she came from Italy for a postdoctoral fellowship at Necker and Pasteur Institute in Paris. His five grown children include two MD-PhDs: a daughter who is a cancer immunologist at Pennsylvania State University, and a son who directs an intensive care unit at Pitié–Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, one of Europe’s largest teaching hospitals. There are also six grandchildren, ranging from ages 1 to 11.

-Dr. Bréchot enjoys jogging, playing tennis and snow skiing. Currently, he’s reading about U.S. history, including biographies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

-Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications and Marketing

Two new Research Day awards focus on scholarly work promoting research and practice across the health colleges

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFhhbDK0mr0

This year’s USF Health Research Day hit another record number of poster presentations, and the successful event’s aim to encourage interdisciplinary and interprofessional research among students was at the forefront.

For Research Day 2018, held Feb. 23, the university’s Marshall Center Ballroom filled early more than 370 poster presentations. The event showcases the best scientific work of students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral students across USF Health as well as health-related collaborations with other USF colleges.

Among the 97 judges who volunteered to evaluate student presentations was Charles J. Lockwood, MD, who has seen Research Day grow in both the numbers of participants and the caliber of research in his more than three years as senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

This year’s USF Health Research Day hit another record number of poster presentations.

“The quality of the presentations is exceptional, and the passion and energy of our students is infectious,” Dr. Lockwood said.  “This passion for excellence in research is a sign of our maturity as an academic organization.  It’s what a great health sciences center ought to do.”

Now in its 28^th year, Research Day initiated three new awards this year — two focused specifically on scholarly work promoting interdisciplinary research and practice.

A Research Day participant prepares her poster for presentation.

The $1,000 USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award, sponsored by the deans from medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy and coordinated through the WELL, was created to reward students from two or three different USF Health colleges who collaborate on a research project. The $500 Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications recognizes a team of interdisciplinary USF Health students conducting patient-centered care that promotes empathy and compassion for patients and their families. The third new award, the USF Federal Credit Union Cancer Biology Poster Award, honors a Morsani College of Medicine doctoral student conducting outstanding research in cancer biology. (A list of USF Health Research Day 2018 top award and certificate winners appears at the end of this story.)

Research Day kicked off with the Annual Roy H. Behnke, MD, Distinguished Lectureship presented by Francis McCormack, MD, director of pulmonary, critical care medicine and sleep medicine at the University of Cincinnati.  Dr. McCormack conducts National Institutes of Health-funded research on lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and other rare lung diseases with the aim of applying that knowledge toward discovering new biomarkers and treatments.  His presentation was titled “Silencing LAM: Science, Synergy and Serendipity.”

Stephen B. Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health and vice dean for research at Morsani College of Medicine, welcomes attendees to USF Health Research Day 2018.

Dr. McCormack has worked with USF Health’s Jeffrey Krischer, PhD, one of the world’s top NIH-funded principal investigators who oversees a major data coordinating center for the NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, encompassing some 250 medical centers worldwide.  The network’s Rare Lung Diseases Consortium includes the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Dr. McCormack leads LAM studies bridging both basic and clinical research.

Following his presentation, Dr. McCormack said he was “very impressed” by the level engagement and enthusiasm at USF Health Research Day.

Other academic Research Days he has attended “don’t get turnouts like this,” he said. “I think young people become interested in (advancing) research when other students and faculty take an interest in their research, and this kind of event is the forum where that interaction can happen.”

Featured Research Day speaker Francis McCormack, MD, of the University of Cincinnati, spoke about his laboratory and clinical research seeking new biomarkers and treatments for rare lung diseases, particularly lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM. 

Dr. McCormack, who encourages emerging health scientists to focus their energies on answering “big questions” that could ultimately benefit patients or public health, said “collaboration is the key to success.”

Public and private agencies increasingly require that collaborative edge in the projects they fund.

Both Dr. McCormack and Stephen Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health and vice dean for research at the Morsani College of Medicine, agreed that team science that stretches the abilities of researchers to tackle the big questions of science by working across disciplines and professions is the wave of the future.  Within a structured format, projects that bring a broader range of expertise and perspectives to discovery in the laboratory, clinic or community settings have the potential to improve experimental design and the relevance of findings.

“Interdisciplinary research builds a process whereby we can get things done in a quicker, and often better, fashion than if you try to do everything yourself,” Dr. Liggett said.

Nicole Le, far right, of the Morsani College of Medicine Department of Plastic Surgery, explains her team’s research poster results to judges, including Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of MCOM.

USF Health students were quick to cite the advantages of working across disciplines and colleges to help solve problems.

Second-year medical student Attiya Harit, winner of the USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award, led a team creating a health care needs assessment for Tampa Bay Street Medicine (TBSM), a medical student-run organization providing basic medical care to homeless in the Tampa Bay area through street runs and outreach clinics.

Last summer, TBSM partnered with the USF College of Public Health to create an interdisciplinary service learning opportunity. Undergraduate public health students taking a health education course with COPH Assistant Professor Anna Torrens Armstrong, PhD, drafted a structured questionnaire to help TBSM identify the strengths of services they offer as well as pinpoint any gaps or barriers to care that might be addressed.  To get to know the people TBSM serves and their daily challenges, some of the public health students accompanied medical students on outreach runs to distribute hygiene supplies. The preliminary assessment tool will be further refined and implemented by a class of COPH graduate students this summer before being used by TBSM to evaluate services.

Second-year medical student Attiya Harit speaks with Victoria Rich, PhD (right), dean of the USF College of Nursing.

“Creating the health needs assessment really would not have been possible without the expertise of the College of Public Health,” Harit said. “Public health as a discipline has a strong background in doing needs assessments and looking at things from a preventive aspect, and we in medicine can take the needs they’ve identified and act on them.”

Abena Annor, a first-year medical student; Samia Vo Dutra, a PhD nursing student;  Marlene J. Bewa, a public health graduate student; and Danielle Gorman, a first-year physical therapy student, are members of a research team working to develop a user-friendly mobile app to improve patient-centered communication.  Annor, lead author on their poster, received the Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications.

Theresa Nguyen (left), a College of Public Health graduate student specializing in global communicable diseases, explains the research she conducted with colleagues in mental health and civil engineering. The study combined  GIS, mapping technologies and sociodemographic information to help define populations vulnerable to the opioid epidemic in Florida counties. COPH Professor Ellen Daley, PhD, was among the Research Day judges. 

Each student contributed different perspectives in designing survey questions that the app will use to assess patient and provider feedback about patient encounters.  Their goal is to help improve provider communication skills to increase patient satisfaction with care and adherence to medical recommendations. The students plan to test the app this summer with a pilot study involving USF faculty physicians and 15 eligible cancer patients.

USF Health provides an environment that gives students from different colleges the opportunities to interact – which helps create the context for interprofessional research and practice, Dutra said.  “If we weren’t able to reach out to students and faculty in other colleges to brainstorm, team projects like this would not happen.”

College of Pharmacy Associate Professor Srinivas Tipparaju, PhD, (left) one of the judges for the Research Day oral presentations, listens intently to a student speaker. 

Following the 9^th Annual Joseph Krzanowski Invited Oral Presentations by 12 select students representing medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy, Research Day concluded with a ceremony announcing top award and certificate winners:

Jeremy Baker, a doctoral student in the Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Medicine, took the top prize in the oral presentations for his research on a naturally-occurring human enzyme  that can unravel protein aggregates contributing to both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease

Top Award Winners

The 9th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD Invited Oral Presenters
Evan Hegarty, master’s student, College of Public Health
Elliot Pressman, Med II student, Morsani College of Medicine
John Canfield, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Krys Johnson, MPH, doctoral student, College of Public Health
Jeremy Baker, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Caitlin Wolfe, MPH, doctoral student, College of Public Health
Ashley Marie Perry, Med II student, Morsani College of Medicine
Chao Ma, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Kimberly Sand, DNP, postdoctoral student, College of Nursing
Arunava Roy, PhD, postdoctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Jared Tur, PhD, postdoctoral student, College of Pharmacy
Danielle Henry, MD, fellow, Moffitt Cancer Center

Kimberly Sand, DNP, a postdoc in the USF College of Nursing, presented results of her quality improvement project evaluating the impact of an adult cardiovascular disease risk assessment on patients’ perception of risk and their intent to change risk.

USF Health Vice President’s Award for Outstanding Invited Oral Presentation
Jeremy Baker

Outstanding Innovations in Medicine Poster Presentation Award
Elliot George Neal

Outstanding Med IV Student Presenter Watson Clinic Award
Leah Clark

Dr. Christopher P. Phelps Memorial Fund Annual Morsani College of Medicine Graduate Student Travel Award
Chao Ma

Attiya Harit was among the top award winners, receiving the first-ever USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award for a research/service-learning project teaming medical students from Tampa Bay Street Medicine with College of Public Health students.

USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award
Attiya Harit

USF Federal Credit UnionCancer Biology Poster Award
Mark Howell

The Morsani College of Medicine Outstanding Poster Awards

Postdoctoral Scholar Poster
Lei Wang

Resident Trainee Poster
Kelsey Ryan

Clinical Fellow Poster
Matthew Perez

Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient Centered Health Care and Communications
Abena Annor

From left, Abena Annor, a first-year medical student received the inaugural Lisa DeSafey Jaap Memorial Poster Award for Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications.  She’s pictured here with her student teammates:  Marlene J. Bewa of the College of Public Health, Samia Vo Dutra of the College of Nursing, and Danielle Gorman of the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. 

Certificate Winners

Morsani College of Medicine Masters & Doctoral level Graduate Student Categories

Overall Masters-Level Student Research
Shan He

(Masters-level) Molecular Biology and Neurology
Jacob Wilson

(Doctoral-level) Allergy, Immunology & Infectious Disease Research
Udoka Okaro

(Doctoral-level) Cardiovascular Research
Natascha Alves

(Doctoral-level) Clinical and Education Research
Rohini Nimbalkar

(Doctoral-level) Molecular and Cellular Biology
Thomas Parks

Morsani College of Medicine Medical I- III Student Categories

Med I Student Research
Karisa Serraneau

Med II Clinical Science Research
Ashley Perry
Lawrence Guan

Med II Student Case Studies
Jose Jesurajan

Med II Chart Reviews
Kyle Sheets
Matthew Gliksman

Med II Education Research
Sabrina Khalil

Med II Evidence-based Research
Chelsea Schmitt

Med II Neuroscience Research
Suraj Nagaraj

Med II Public Health Research
Anna Radisic

Med III Case Studies
Danny Nguyen

Med III Chart Reviews
Roger Gerard

Med III Clinical Science
Joseph Luke O’Neill, II

Research presented ranged from basic and translational science to clinical studies.

Morsani College of Medicine Medical IV Student, Medical Resident/Clinical Fellow, Postdoctoral Scholar Categories

Med IV Case Studies and Chart Reviews
Min Kong
Bryce Montane

Resident Case Studies, Chart Reviews
Stefanie Grewe

Clinical Fellows Case Studies, Allergy, Immunology & Infectious Disease
Sonia Joychan

Clinical Fellows Chart Reviews
Lynh Nguyen

College of Public Health Graduate Student Categories
Marlene Bewa
Linda Bomboka
Kenneth Taylor
Yingwei Yang
Nisha Vijayakumar
Alexis Barr
Mosadoluwa Afoiabi
Evan Hegarty
Virginia Liddell
Jessica Berumen
Rumour Piepenbrink

College of Nursing & College of Pharmacy Student Awards

College of Nursing Research
Samia Vo Dutra

College of Pharmacy Graduate Student Research
Donna Mae Marg Pate

College of Pharmacy Postdoctoral Scholar Research
Vetriselvan Manavalan

Emerging young scientists included undergraduate award winners, some of whom are pictured here.

USF Health Undergraduate Student Poster Awards

Undergraduate Research: Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases
Bence Zakota

Undergraduate Research: Case Studies and Chart Reviews
Meghana Reddy

Undergraduate Research: Clinical Science
Hayley Rein
Radhe Mehta
Pamela Bulu

Undergraduate Neuroscience Research
Mohammed Khatib

Undergraduate Research
Grant Morrison

A group of award winners shows their USF Bulls pride.

-Video by Sandra C. Roa and Torie Doll, and photos by Eric Younghans and Freddie Coleman, USF Health Communications and Marketing