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Hervé Besançon

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests

  • Nanoparticle Pharmaceutics & Novel Antivirulence Therapies
  • Immune Response Modulation
  • Host-Pathogen Systems

At the Bench

Hervé did his academic training in Switzerland where he picked up a strong interest for bench to bedside translational research. During his undergrad studies at the University Hospital of Lausanne, in the group of Professor David Baud, he worked on a vaccine against Chlamydia trachomatis, using Salmonella as a trojan horse to deliver selected antigens. He then moved from the French speaking part of Switzerland to the German speaking side and landed in Bern, the Swiss capital. There he obtained his Ph.D. in the Draeger/Babiychuk lab where he developed an anti-virulence approach of tailored liposomal nanotraps for the treatment of bacterial infections. He currently works on expanding and advancing the nanoparticle vaccine technology in collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Liangfang Zhang.

Outside of Lab

Hervé loves watching or discussing films and learning about the history of cinema. He also likes to read, travel and visit all kinds of museums. He often watches football games (go Texans) and unsuccessfully tries to surf waves around San Diego.

Education

University Degree Year Field
University of California San Diego, La Jolla CA Postdoc 2024-present Microbiology, Vaccinology, Host-Pathogen Interactions
Central European Institute of Technology, Brno Czech Republich Internship 2023 Molecular Dynamic Simulations
University of Bern, Bern Switzerland Ph.D 2022 Cell Biology
University of Lausanne, Lausanne Switzerland M.S. 2016 Molecular Life Sciences
University of Lausanne, Lausanne Switzerland B.S. 2014 Biology

 

Honors

Year Honor/Award
2024 Postdoctoral researcher fellowship from Swiss National Science Foundation
2022 Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation

Publications

Besançon, H., Larpin, Y., Babiychuk, V. S., Köffel, R. & Babiychuk, E. B. Engineered Liposomes Protect Immortalized Immune Cells from Cytolysins Secreted by Group A and Group G Streptococci. Cells 11. 2022. PMID: 35011729

Besançon, H., Babiychuk, V., Larpin, Y., Köffel, R., Schittny, D., Brockhus, L., Hathaway, L. J., Sendi, P., Draeger, A. & Babiychuk, E. Tailored liposomal nanotraps for the treatment of Streptococcal infections. J  Nanobiotechnology. 2021. PMID: 33588835

Larpin, Y., Besançon, H., Iacovache, M. I., Babiychuk, V. S., Babiychuk, E. B., Zuber, B., Draeger, A. & Köffel, R. Bacterial pore-forming toxin pneumolysin: Cell membrane structure and microvesicle shedding capacity determines differential survival of immune cell types. FASEB Journal. 2020. PMID: 3191467