Jean-Philippe Girard

Jean-Philippe Girard currently holds a position of Senior Research Director at INSERM and is the Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS), a large Research Center from the CNRS and the University of Toulouse (France). He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Toulouse and did his postdoctoral training in Immunology and Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School (USA) with Pr Tim Springer. Jean-Philippe Girard’s research focuses on the role of high endothelial venules (HEVs) and IL-33 cytokine in homeostasis, inflammation and cancer. HEV blood vessels function as portals of entry for lymphocytes into lymphoid organs. He showed that blood vessels with HEV characteristics are frequently found in human solid tumors, in association with cytotoxic T cell infiltration, and are associated with favorable clinical outcome. In 2003, he discovered the IL-1 family cytokine IL-33 as a nuclear factor from HEV (NF-HEV). He showed that IL-33 is a tissue-derived nuclear cytokine constitutively expressed in blood vessels and epithelial barriers that functions as an alarm signal (alarmin) released upon cellular damage. Finally, he recently demonstrated that length IL-33 functions as a protease sensor that detects proteolytic activities associated with a large variety of environmental allergens. Dr. Girard was awarded several Scientific Prizes for his work, including the CNRS Silver Medal (2103), and several other Prizes from the National Academy of Sciences (2012), the National Academy of Medicine (2013), and ‘Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale’ (2016).