CV Science

Jaap Neels Ph.D. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Course and current status

2000-2004       Post-doc           Division of Vascular Biology, Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA, Prof. Dr. David J. Loskutoff.

2004-2006       Post-doc           Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, USA, Prof. Dr. Jerrold M. Olefsky.

2006-2007       Assistant Research Scientist          Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, USA, Prof. Dr. Jerrold M. Olefsky.

2007-2008       Junior Researcher             Inserm U907, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, in the team of Prof. Emmanuel Van Obberghen, directed by Dr. Paul Grimaldi.  

2009-2011   Senior Research Associate             Inserm U907, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, in the team of Prof. Emmanuel Van Obberghen, directed by Dr. Paul Grimaldi.

2012-Present      Team Leader          Inserm U1065, C3M, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis Team 9: Metabolic challenges of immune cells in obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease

Scientific summary

Although inflammation is a vital response to infection and tissue injury, non-resolved chronic inflammation is associated with many pathological processes. Several of these pathologies, in which inflammation is a common denominator, are grouped under the term of "metabolic syndrome", including obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular disease. Over the past two decades, a clear link has been established between obesity-associated inflammation and the development of insulin resistance (IR), which eventually leads to T2D. Obesity-induced adipose tissue (AT) inflammation is largely the result of a shift in the balance of anti-inflammatory towards pro-inflammatory immune cells. Likewise, atherosclerosis is also associated with a chronic and non-resolving immune response. It was shown over the years that immune cells can adapt their metabolism to support the bioenergetically demanding processes of growth and effector function during an immune response. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that by directly manipulating cell metabolism one can regulate immune cell fate. My research objectives are to characterize the metabolic needs of immune cells (i.e.monocytes/macrophages and T cells) in obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease with the long-term goal to develop strategies to manipulate immune cell metabolism as a novel therapeutic approach to prevent/treat these pathologies.