CV Science

Gilles Laverny PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ROLE OF VITAMIN D SIGNALLING

Course and current status

After completing a Master's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Strasbourg in 2006, I joined Dr. L. Adorini's laboratory at the biotech company Bioxell, S.p.A., in Milan, Italy to characterize the therapeutic effects of vitamin D analogues, and defended my thesis at the University of Kuopio, Finland (December 2009), as part of the European 'Early Stage Researcher Marie Curie' NucSys program. This multidisciplinary consortium of 18 PhD students from 12 European partners aimed to gain a better understanding of nuclear receptor activity, and gave me the opportunity to build up a network of experts.

After a 1^st post-doctoral internship of 18 months at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Strasbourg on the characterization of the effects of carbon nanotubes, I joined Dr. Metzger's laboratory at the IGBMC. These previous activities allowed me to lead pluridisciplinary projects together with chemist and medical doctors aiming at the identification of new drugs. Since I joined the IGBMC, I am developing a pluridisciplinary research to better understand the pathophysiological roles of vitamin D signaling.

Scientific summary

The active form of the hormone vitamin D controls calcium and phosphate levels in the body. In addition, it contributes to the regulation of the inflammation and cell proliferation, conferring a protective, even therapeutic, role in various cancers and autoimmune diseases.

To date, the mechanisms underlying the activities of vitamin D have not been elucidated. This lack of understanding limits its clinical use, since the doses required for the treatment of cancers or autoimmune diseases induce hypercalcemia; resulting in calcification of the kidneys, heart and vessels, leading to dysfunction of these organs.

Our group is interested in understanding how vitamin D controls calcium homeostasis and tumor progression. We focus on rare diseases characterized by impaired vitamin D signaling, and on prostate cancer.

We use patient cells and mouse models recapitulating human pathologies, and leverage single-cell and spatial transcriptomic analyses coupled with functional validations.

We also collaborate with chemists to characterise new vitamin D analogues with potent therapeutic activities for many diseases that are refractory to current treatments.