CV Science

jean-philippe hugnot PhD, HDR

Course and current status

Cellular Neurobiologist, 49 year old

Associated Professor in Neuroscience and Cellular Biology at the University of Montpellier 2 

Head of Neural stem cell group in the “cerebral plasticity, stem cells and glioma” team (Pr H Duffau)

Education 

1988:               Magister of Biology, University Paris 7, ENS.

1989 :              Master of Virology, Pasteur Institute, Paris

1993 :             PhD, Cochin Hospital (Dr A Kahn), Paris

2007 :             HDR (habilitation for conducting research), 

Professional Experience

1993-97:          Post doc at the IPMC, CNRS, Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France (Pr M Lazdunski)

1998-00:          Post doc at Institute of Psychiatry, London, (Pr J Price)

2000-2013      Independent principal investigator and leader of the “Neural stem Group” (5-7 people)

Honors and Awards 

International Fellowships : EMBO fellowship, 2 years

Team Awards and main Grants : FRM young researcher (2000); ARC (2001, 2010), AFM (2003, 2010, 2013), European Strep (2007) GEFLUC (2010) ANOCEF (2010) IEF Marie Curie (2012), IRP (2012)

Contrat d’interface INSERM obtenu en 2009

Prime d’excellence scientifique PES (2010-14)

Research Interests 

Neural stem cells, cancer stem cells, gliomas, stem cell niches, cellular differentiation, cell cycle, brain plasticity, neurobiology, behavior

Bibliometry

44 publications among which 11 as 1^st author (EMBO, PNAS, Genomics), 10 as last author (Stem Cells, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Molecular Cell Neurosciences, BMC Neurosciences, Glia).

Facteur H: 20; Citations 1496, Average Citations per Item 35, Most cited article (last author) 244

Patents

1-Procédé de production de neurones à partir de cellules d’une lignée cellulaire humaine (Inventeurs: S Marchal, JP Hugnot, A Privat).

Délivrance n° 05/41 du 14-10-2005 INPI brevet d’invention no 03 10382

2-NKX2.2 inhibitors as drugs for glioma (July 2010; European Patent 10305805.3, Hugnot JP, main inventor), PCT extension pending

3-Ngn2 proteins and their use as drugs for glioma (July 2010; European Patent 10305804.6, Hugnot JP main inventor), PCT extension pending

4-procédés d’établissement et d’utilisation d’une classification moléculaire des gliomes de grade intermédiaire validée par la survie (European patent,  Hugnot, co- inventor)

Book chapters

1-JP Hugnot, the spinal cord stem cell niche, in “Neural stem cells and therapy”, edited by Tao Sun, Intech 71-92, 2010

 2_Z Hassani, JP Hugnot: "Deciphering the Molecular and Cellular Basis for Dissemination of Diffuse Low-Grade Gliomas" in Diffuse Low-Grade Gliomas in Adults, edited by H Duffau, Springer, 2013

 3-PO Guichet, JP Hugnot, "Cellular Origin of Grade II Gliomas" in Diffuse Low-Grade Gliomas in Adults, edited by H Duffau, Springer, 2013

 4-JP Hugnot; Isolation and culture of spinal cord stem cells, in “Neural stem culture” edited by Reynolds and Deleyrolle, Springer 2013, in press

5- L Bauchet, JP Hugnot, culture of human spinal cord stem cells in “Neural stem culture” edited by Reynolds and Deleyrolle, Springer 2013 in press

Scientific summary

After completing my PhD on the Duchenne dystrophy gene (DMD) in Dr A Kahn's lab at the Cochin Hospital in Paris, I joined Michel Lazdunski's lab in Sophia Antipolis as a post-doc to work on K+ channels. In this lab, I cloned a new family of voltage-gated K+ channels which need to associate with other subunits to generate fully functional channels (Hugnot, EMBO, 1996). I also contributed to the cloning of several members of inward-rectifier K+ channels (Lesage, FEBS Letter, 1994). 

I then redirected my research topic to the neural stem cell field by joining Dr J Sinden and Dr J Price’s lab at the institute of psychiatry (IoP) in London and then Dr A Privat’s lab in Montpellier.  In these labs, I focused on the control of self-renewal and differentiation of neural stem cells especially in the adult spinal cord. My main interest was the role of extracellular signals (cytokines) and transcription factors in the control of the differentiation process (Deleyrolle L, Stem cells, 2006, Dromard, Stem Cells, 2007).  I provided an in depth description of the neural stem cell niche located around the central canal of the spinal cord (Sabourin, Stem Cells, 2009) and in collaboration with the Montpellier Hospital (Dr L Bauchet), we showed for the first time the presence of neural stem cells in the adult human spinal cord (Dromard, JNR, 2008). In the spinal cord, the niche is in a dormant state but can be reactivated by lesions. One current project aims at deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying the balance between dormancy and activation of the niche.

More recently, I teamed up with Pr H Duffau, neurosurgeon, and Pr N Bakalara, biochemist, to create a new team dedicated to gliomas, the most frequent type of brain tumors. High grade gliomas contain a subpopulation of cancer stem cells which are thought to be responsible for tumor recurrence after treatment. We showed that these cells lose their tumorigenic potential and can be differentiated in electrophysiologically-active neurons by the expression of a single neurogenic gene (Ngn2) (Guichet, Glia, 2013 + patent). More recently, we found that activation of the Notch pathway in these cells dramatically stimulated the angiogenic tumoral process (Guichet, Stem Cells, 2013, in revision). A large part of my project is now dedicated to low grade gliomas (grade II WHO). We have identified a 22 gene signature which allows a better prediction of patient survival compared to the WHO grade II/III glioma classification (Reme, Plos One, 2013). We are currently developing in vitro models for low grade gliomas using patient’s resection so as to set up innovative therapeutic strategies.