Prof. Pierre MIOSSEC (France)

Doctor Pierre MIOSSEC MD PhD is currently professor of Clinical Immunology at the Hospital Edouard Herriot in Lyon. He first trained as a resident in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, at the Brest University Hospital where he started doing research and teaching. He got his MD degree there in 1983. From 1983 to 1985, he worked as a research fellow with Pr Morris Ziff at the Department of Internal Medicine, Rheumatic Diseases Unit, University of Texas at Dallas. There he developed an interest for the role of cytokines in arthritis and was the first in interaction with Dr Charles Dinarello to identify Interleukin 1 in the synovial fluid of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He later worked on the abnormal functions of T cells in the context of arthritis, editing a multi-author book on the subject. From 1985 to 1989, he was an assistant at the University of Montpellier. He got his PhD degree in Immunology from the University of Marseille in 1987. From 1989-1996, he was an associate in Clinical Immunology at the Claude Bernard University, Lyon. Since 1996, he has been a professor of Clinical Immunology at the same institution. He got the Robecchi Prize for Rheumatology Research in 1995 and will get the 2010 Carol Nachman prize in Rheumatology for his contributions to the field.

His current work combines dealing with patients with various inflammatory and autoimmune conditions as well as doing research on the same topics. According to Pubmed, he has published more than 210 papers. These include the demonstration of the anti-inflammatory properties of Interleukin 4, the interactions between Interleukin 12 and Interleukin 18 in chronic inflammation. He was the first to identify the destructive properties of Interleukin 17 and to introduce the concept of its production by a new T cell subset. In addition, he has studied extensively genetic, genomic and biochemical markers to better define disease heterogeneity and patterns in treatment response particularly to cytokine inhibitors.

Since 2002, he is the funding director of a new institute located inside the hospital and supported by both public and private efforts. The topics of interest include various aspects of chronic and acute inflammation (rheumatoid arthritis, vasculopathy in inflammation and autoimmunity). The focus includes extensive gene pattern studies combined with in vitro and ex vivo models of these conditions.