Prof. Gilles Gasser
Deputy Head of the Institute of Chemistry for Life and Health Sciences
Chimie ParisTech, PSL University, CNRS
Professional background: Gilles Gasser began his research career after completing his M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Neuchȃtel in 2000. He then joined a multinational agro-pharmaceutical company Lonza Ltd (Visp, Switzerland) in the research and Development Division for one year, where he developed more economical synthesis of drugs for industry. Thereafter, he returned to Neuchȃtel to undertake his Ph.D. in supramolecular/coordination chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Helen Stoeckli-Evans. In collaboration with Prof. James Tucker from the University of Exeter (now at the University of Birmingham), he developed new ferrocenyl ligands capable of recognising the presence of biological molecules (amino acids, urea and barbiturate derivatives) and metallic cations by electrochemistry. From 2004 – 2007, he carried out postdoctoral research with Prof. Leone Spiccia at Monash University (Australia). In 2007, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship that he took at the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) in the group of Prof. Nils Metzler-Nolte. There he worked on the preparation and bioevaluation of new metal-containing PNA bioconjugates for pharmaceutical and biosensing purposes. In 2010, he returned to Switzerland to start his independent research at the University of Zurich as a SNSF Ambizione fellow. In 2011, he became an assistant professor working mainly in the field of Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) and bioorganometallic chemistry. In 2016, he joined Chimie ParisTech thanks to a successful ERC Consolidator Grant and a PSL Chair of Excellence Program Grant. His current research interests cover various fields of inorganic chemical biology and medicinal inorganic chemistry, focusing on the use of metal complexes to modulate the properties of biomolecules.
Selected publications:
- N. Lao, N. Barron. Enhancing recombinant protein and viral vector production in mammalian cells by targeting the YTHDF readers of N6-methyladenosine in mRNA, Biotechnology Journal, 18, 4, 2200451 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1002/biot.202200451
- L. Bryan, M. Henry, N. Barron, C. Gallagher, R. M. Kelly, C. C. Frye, M. D. Osborne, M. Clynes, P. Meleady. Differential expression of miRNAs and functional role of mir-200a in high and low productivity CHO cells expressing an Fc fusion protein, Biotechnology Letters, 43, 1551-1563 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-021-03153-7
- I. Tzani, N. Herrmann, S. Carillo, C. A. Spargo, R. Hagan, N. Barron, J. Bones, W. S. Dillmore, C. Clarke. Tracing production instability in a clonally derived CHO cell line using single-cell transcriptomics, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 118, 5, 2016-2030 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.27715