May 15, 2017 – University of Strasbourg (UNISTRA) hosts the Eurolife Minisymposium with the Eurolife Distinguished Lecture of Prof. Thomas Baumert.

The Eurolife Distinguished Lecture Series offers excellent scientists the opportunity to present current research findings to an international scientific audience in the context of semi-annual Eurolife meetings. In addition to fostering active dialog between the lecturers, researchers and students, the Distinguished Lectures serve to thematically position the Eurolife institutions in the international research environment.

Short biography

Prof. Baumert Professor of Medicine, Head of the Inserm Research Institute for Viral and Liver Diseases (Inserm U1110), Director of the Laboratory of Excellence HEPSYS at the University of Strasbourg and Chair of Hepatology at the Center for Digestive Disease and Hepatology at the Strasbourg University Hospitals. He received his MD from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Following his doctoral thesis at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and his internship in Internal Medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Liver Diseases Branch at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA. He subsequently joined the Department of Medicine at the University Hospital in Freiburg, Germany to become a board-certified internist and gastroenterologist, associate professor and to establish his laboratory focussing on the molecular pathogenesis of hepatitis B and C virus infection. He then relocated to the University of Strasbourg in France as full Professor of Medicine to create and head a new Inserm research unit on virus-host interactions and liver disease and establish a highly recognized program in translational virology and hepatology. He recently finished a sabbatical as a research scholar the BROAD Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, USA and the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

His laboratory focuses on the modelling and discovery of the cell circuits underlying virus-host interactions and disease. As a model, he uses chronic hepatitis B and C virus (HBV, HCV) infection – the major cause of chronic liver disease and cancer worldwide. The understanding of the molecular mechanisms of virus-host interactions and disease biology has allowed his laboratory to uncover novel strategies for prevention and treatment of chronic viral hepatitis, liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. He has received several awards including the Hans Popper Young Investigator Award, the Chair of Excellence and Laboratory of Excellence Awards of the French National Research Agency and the Infectious Disease Award of the German Infectious Disease Society. He has been awarded the Prix Galien France and Prix Galien International for the discovery of host-targeting entry inhibitors for HCV infection. Most recently, he received a European Research Council ERC Advanced Grant for the discovery and development of novel approaches to prevent and treat chronic liver disease. He has published more than 250 scientific articles including N. Engl. J. Med., Lancet, Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Cell Host & Microbe, PNAS, J. Clin. Invest. and J. Exp. Med. as a senior author. He is an inventor on 15 patents and patent applications. In his translational work, he focuses on novel approaches for HBV cure, development of an HCV vaccine and prevention of liver cancer.