Personal information
Verified email domains
Biography
I started my scientific career by studying the energetic metabolism of human cancer cells. Then I moved to the molecular virology field, studying the role of glycolipids in HIV-1 fusion. In 2002, I published with my teammate Prof. Nouara Yahi a seminal article in JBC in which we described for the first time the common sphingolipid-binding domain (SBD) that mediates the attachment of viral, bacterial and amyloid proteins to membrane sphingolipids . At this time I decided to move to the neurosciences field, working on the molecular organization of the synapse and on neurodegenerative diseases. Still with Prof. N. Yahi we published a series of articles describing the mechanisms of formation of oligomeric amyloid pores in Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. We elucidated the biological code controling the interaction of amyloid proteins with brain gangliosides and used this information to create a chimeric peptide that has the unique capability to prevent the formation of calcium-permeable amyloid pores in the plasma membrane of brain cells. This chimeric Abeta/alpha-synuclein peptide is currently developed by the AmyPore company as a first-in-class molecule targeting neurotoxic oligomers of Abeta and alpha-synuclein and protecting the cells from the deleterious effects of these oligomers. To date, this chimeric peptide (now called AmyP53 by the AmyPore company) is the only molecule potentially able to treat both Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases.
In 2015, Prof. N. Yahi and I published a textbook entitled "Brain Lipids in Synaptic Function and Neurological Disease. Clues to Innovative Therapeutic Strategies for Brain Disorders". In this textbook we explain how lipids, especially cholesterol and gangliosides, regulate several key functions in the brain and how they control the pathogenesis of major neurological diseases. If you are not aware that "brain is a lipid machine", and/or that "lipids grease the synapse", then this book might be of interest for you.
More recently I used dedicated molecular modeling approaches to study lipid-lipid and lipid-protein interactions in reconsituted biological membrane systems. These methods were successfully used for conformational and ligand-binding studies of a broad range of human, rodent, insect, bacterial and virus proteins in a fully controled membrane environment. My approaches are currently applied to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variants and other viruses. I have written two articles on the intrinsic weakness of AlphaFold, proposing the new concept of epigenetic dimension of protein structure. In 2024, I started to publish my reflections as a biochemistry teacher on the fundamental parameters that control the function of living organisms, today and at the origin of life.
- 237 articles referenced in PubMed
- 13,000 citations
- h-index 66