Michel De Waard, PhD.
Michel De Waard holds a PhD in Neuroscience. Following a post-doc at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he pursued an academic career at Inserm where he is now a class 1 Research Director.
At the Grenoble Neuroscience Institute, he leads a research group that investigates the structure, function and regulation of calcium channels. The group also investigates how ion channel mutations can lead to severe neurological diseases.
In parallel, he has developed a specific expertise on the structural determinants of animal toxins that control their activity on ion channels.
More recently, he has discovered that animal toxins can also act as exquisite cell penetrating peptides, enabling them to become biotechnological tools for the cell delivery of diagnostic, imaging and/or therapeutic agents. In line of with this concept, his efforts are concentrated on the cell delivery of anti-tumor agents to fight against chemo-resistance.
Author of more than 150 publications and in charge of the management of several patents, he has initiated and launched the start-up company, Smartox Biotechnology, devoted to the chemical synthesis and characterization of ion channel-targeting toxins of venomous origin.