CV Science

Nathalie Heuzé-Vourc'h PhD in Biomedical Sciences

Course and current status

2019 to now Deputy director Inserm U1100, Research Centre for Respiratory Diseases (CEPR), Tours, France 

2019 to now Scientific Committee of ITMO Technologies pour la Santé (Aviesan)

Since 2018            Scientific expert for the European Commission

Since 2017           Co-founder and Scientific expert for Cynbiose Respiratory, Tours, France

2015 to now   Team Leader « Aérosolthérapie et biomédicaments à visée respiratoires » , CEPR-INSerm U1100, Tours, France.  

 Scientific topic: respiratory diseases - biotherapeutics, immuntherapy & aerosoltherapy

2012 to 2015   Deputy director in EA6305 « Aérosolthérapie et biomédicaments à visée respiratoires » , Tours, France.  

 Scientific topic: respiratory diseases - biotherapeutics, immuntherapy & aerosoltherapy

2005 to 2011    Associate Research Professor in INSERM U618 « Protéases et vectorisation pulmonaires » , Tours, France.  

 Scientific topic: lung cancer, respiratory diseases - pathogenesis, immuntherapy & aerosoltherapy

2004-2005       Post-graduate Researcher in IFR135 « Imagerie fonctionnelle », Tours, France. (Pr Patrice Diot)

Scientific topic: lung cancer - pathogenesis and proteolysis

 ARC (Association pour la Recherche contre le Cancer) fellowship

2003-2004       Post-graduate Researche  in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, UCLA, CA. (Dr Steven M. Dubinett)

Scientific topic : immunobiology of lung cancer

Career Development Grant de UCLA SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence) in Lung Cancer

2002-2003         Junior Scientist Agensys Inc., Santa Monica, CA. (Dr Art Raitano) Scientific topic: immunotherapy in cancer. Monoclonal antibody

2001-2002       Post-graduate Researcher in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, UCLA, CA. (Dr Steven M. Dubinett)

Scientific topic: immunobiology of lung cancer. COX-2 pathway

Career Development Grant de UCLA SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence) in Lung Cancer

1997-2001      PhD student in INSERM EMI-U 0010, Tours, France. (Dr Y. Courty)

Scientific topic: protein marker of prostate cancer.

Fellowship from Région Centre (1997-2000) and ARC (2000 -2001)

Scientific summary

Dr. Nathalie Heuzé-Vourc’h (Ph.D.) is Research Professor at INSERM and adjunct director of the Research Centre for Respiratory Diseases – Inserm U1100, in Tours. In CEPR-Inserm U1100, she leads a technologically-oriented team dedicated to ‘Aerosoltherapy and Biotherapeutics for Respiratory Diseases’, gathering scientists of different fields (Biology, health technologies) and MD-PhDs with different specialties. She has experience in leading this interdisciplinary group towards successful outcomes; the team was ranked the highest score A+ at the last international and Inserm evaluation. She also has a substantial devotion to training and education, having served as preceptor to 8 postdoctoral associates and a dozen of PhD students.  In 2018, she was appointed as an expert to monitor H2020-FETOPEN-1-2016-2017-767015 — CURE project and since 2019, she has been acting as a remote evaluator for H2020-FETOPEN and recently for Horizon Europe - Pathfinder. At the national level, she serves as a council member in the scientific committee of the research multi-institution organization ITMO for “health technologies”.Nathalie Heuzé-Vourc’h has a long experience in the field of biotherapeutics inhalation for respiratory diseases. Her main research interests involve monoclonal antibodies, focusing on their stability during the aerosolization process and understanding their fate and pharmacodynamics after deposition into the respiratory tract, with a special attention to develop relevant experimental models (animal and non-animal) to bridge preclinical studies to clinical trials. She has become one of the opinion leaders in this field and often serves as consultant for biotech and biopharmaceutical companies. She is accustomed to private company environment, since she used to work in a start-up developing therapeutic antibodies in the US and co-funded, in 2017, “Cynbiose Respiratory”, a CRO specialized in preclinical models for respiratory medicine. Furthermore, she conducted and participated to several public-private consortia, one of them resulting in the development of the first delivery system for an inhaled anti-ricin antibody to use as a countermeasure. She carried out and she is carrying on an important activity of scientific management of several projects (more than 20), both at the European and National levels, thus implying many collaborations abroad and an intense research activity.

Published over 70 peer-reviewed publications and reviews. Patent applications : 4; H-index: 24. RESEARCH ID:  P-8081-2016/ORCID: 0000-0003-4929-5068