CV Science

Andrés Pizzorno PhD in Microbiology - Immunology, HDR

Course and current status

10/2023 - Present: INSERM CRCN Researcher at Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie CIRI (INSERM U1111, CNRS UMR5308, ENS Lyon, UCBL1) - Team VirPath in Lyon (France), emerging group leader on the cellular and molecular aspects of virus-host interactions and the local innate immune response to respiratory infections.

07/2022 - Present: Adjunct Investigator at the A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs (ID Labs), Singapore. 

12/2021 - 09/2023: Staff Scientist at Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie CIRI (INSERM U1111, CNRS UMR5308, ENS Lyon, UCBL1) - Team VirPath in Lyon (France), emerging group leader on the cellular and molecular aspects of virus-host interactions and the local innate immune response to respiratory infections. 

09/2018 - 10/2021: R&D Manager at Signia Therapeutics SAS in Lyon (France), on the technology transfer and expansion of the joint project with the VirPath Team “SIGNATURA: development and optimization of an innovative antiviral drug discovery and repurposing platform”.  

05/2015 - 09/2018: Postdoctoral Fellow at Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie CIRI (INSERM U1111, CNRS UMR5308, ENS Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1) - Team VirPath in Lyon (France), on the study of molecular and cellular signatures of respiratory infections for the characterization of new host-targeted broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapies. 

09/2009 - 03/2015: M.Sc. and Ph.D. Research Projects at Centre de Recherche en Infectiologie du CHU de Québec (Canada) on the mechanisms of influenza antiviral resistance and evaluation of new combined therapies. 

Scientific summary

Andrés Pizzorno graduated with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Universidad de la República (Uruguay) in 2008 and obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Microbiology-Immunology (2011 and 2015) from Laval University (Canada). Former fellow of the Knowledge Translation and Pandemic Preparedness Program of the PHAC-CIHR Influenza Research Network (Canada) during the 2009-11 influenza pandemic, his doctoral work at Dr. Guy Boivin’s research team focused on the mechanisms of antiviral resistance in influenza viruses and the evaluation of new combined therapies. In 2015 he moved to Lyon (France) to start his postdoctoral training at the VirPath Team of the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie (CIRI), where, after a 3-year detachment as R&D manager for Signia Therapeutics, he became Staff Scientist and emerging group leader in 2021 and tenured INSERM CRCN Researcher in 2023.  

Building on 15 years of research experience in the field of respiratory viruses, antiviral resistance and therapeutics, his research focuses on the study of fundamental virus-host interactions at the transcriptomic, molecular and cellular level as the starting point for the development of innovative host-directed preventive and therapeutic approaches, with particular attention to the interplay between the virus and the early innate immune responses in the respiratory mucosa. The scientific expertise of Dr. Pizzorno is mainly centered on the fields of virology, immunology, respiratory physiology, transcriptomics, innovative pre-clinical models, and virus/host-directed antiviral approaches. He is author of 50 scientific publications (including Nature, Cell, Sci Trans Med, J Exp Med, Cell Rep Med, etc) and co-inventor of several patents. More recently, Dr. Pizzorno has been one of the leaders of the VirPath Team’s research activities in the context of the French REACTing network for the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with important contributions to the field, including: i) being one of the very first teams worldwide to isolate the novel virus from clinical samples, ii) the characterization of the virus biology and its interactions with the host response, iii) the exploitation of the IFN response as a potential prognosis biomarker and the demonstration of functional role of anti-IFN autoantibodies, iv) the analysis of the effect of different spatial conformations of the Spike protein on its capacity to form syncytia in the respiratory tissue and, v) the pre-clinical and clinical evaluation of therapeutic candidates.

Dr. Pizzorno leads and participates in different collaborative research projects at the national and international level and has recently been appointed Scientific Director of the International Associated Lab (LIA-RespiVir) between Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Université Laval as well as Adjunct Investigator of the A*STAR ID Labs in Singapore (https://www.a-star.edu.sg/idlabs/about-us/people/our-investigators). Dr. Pizzorno is also co-chair of the Executive Committee of the Antiviral Group of the International Society for Influenza and Other Respiratory Virus Diseases (isirv-AVG, https://isirv.org), Section Editor (Respiratory Viruses) for Antiviral Therapy (SAGE Journals), and co-founder of Signia Therapeutics SAS, a French-based biotech developing a breakthrough proprietary drug-discovery strategy to accelerate the identification, validation and low-cost development of drugs for new antimicrobial indications against respiratory human pathogens.