Scientific Advisory Board

An exceptional Support to follow the road to Success

Professor Antoine Andremont

M.D., Ph. D. - Co-founder and President of the Scientific Advisory Board

Professor Antoine ANDREMONT is amongst the leading international experts in the field focused on the consequences of antibiotherapies on the evolution of bacterial resistance and on the occurrence of nosocomial infections. He is the author of over 140 international publications and has filed 5 patents dealing with mechanisms of resistance.

Primarily trained as a pediatrician and as a microbiologist, both in France and in the USA, he discovered at the Pasteur Institute the first enzymes capable of hydrolyzing a large number of macrolide antibiotics during his Ph.D. He then long acted as medical microbiologist and infectious diseases consultant at the Institut Gustave Roussy, the major French referral center for cancer research and treatment. He gained there in-depth understanding of the role of the commensal flora in the development of resistance, as well as of opportunistic and nosocomial infections. Having also taken at the time a professorship at the School of Pharmacy of University of Paris XI, he became aware that the use of high technology drug delivery systems could help to prevent the emergence of bacterial resistance during antibiotic treatments when combined with antibiotic inactivating agents. This formed the basis of the concepts on which Da Volterra products have been developed. In 1996 Prof Andremont joined University of Paris7 Denis Diderot Medical school where there is a century-lasting tradition in the study of infectious diseases. He currently leads there a research group focusing on the emergence of bacterial resistance in the commensal flora.

At the medical level, Prof Antoine Andremont heads the clinical bacteriology laboratory of the Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, one of the foremost referral centers for infectious diseases. In this capacity, he is confronted daily with the continuous rise in bacterial resistance and the consecutive difficulties to treat infected patients. The unique position and expertise of Prof. Andremont, with a long tradition in the evaluation of innovative treatments of infectious diseases, are major success factors for Da Volterra products positioning and development strategies towards patient needs.

Professor Stuart B. Levy

M.D., Ph. D.

Professor Stuart B. Levy is a pioneer and world-renowned expert in the field of antibiotic resistance. Dr. Levy serves as Director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he holds professorships in the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, and in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Levy has over 30 years of research experience on the mechanisms of microbial drug resistance and, among other work, discovered the efflux mechanism of resistance to tetracycline and the mar operon. He is a past President of the American Society for Microbiology and serves as the President of the Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics. He is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Paratek Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Levy received his BA degree from Williams College and MD from the University of Pennsylvania. He has received honorary degrees in biology from Wesleyan University and Des Moines University.

Professor Patrice Courvalin

M.D., Ph. D.

Professor Patrice Courvalin is Director of the National Reference Center for Resistance to Antibiotics and Head of the Antibacterial Agents Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Professor Courvalin is a worldwide renowned expert in the genetics and biochemistry of antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Prof Courvalin has described major mechanisms that confer to bacteria resistance to many antibiotics, including to aminoglycosides, macrolides and glycopeptides. He has been the first to demonstrate that resistance genes can spread among bacteria with no apparent species barrier. He is amongst those who warned early on that bacterial resistance to antibiotics would become a major public health concern and should be considered as an emerging disease.
 

Professor Jennifer Dressman

Ph. D.

Professor Jennifer Dressman is Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. She received a Pharmacy degree from the Victorian College of Pharmacy and worked successively working in academic labs at the University of Kansas and the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor, and in companies at Burroughs Wellcome Co. Merck/Interx. Professor Dressman's research is centered around predictive models for the delivery of drugs via the gastrointestinal tract, based on physiological as well as drug and dosage form related considerations. In addition, she is working closely with the World Health Organisation to develop guidelines for approval of multisource (generic) drugs and her laboratory were officially made a Collaborating Center of the WHO in 2006. As specialist in gastroenterological physiology and drug delivery/absorption in the GI tract, Prof Dressman advises Da Volterra on the development and testing of colonic drug delivery systems.

Professor Daniel Lew

M.D., Ph. D.

Professor Daniel Lew is Professor of Medicine at the University of Geneva Medical School and Chief of the Unit of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine at the Geneva University Hospitals. He obtained his MD from Geneva University in 1976 and specialized in infectious diseases both in Geneva and then subsequently at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He is a recipient of numerous scientific awards and grants for his research work. Professor Lew lectures widely, acts both as reviewer and editor for several major scientific journals, and is author of many publications on neutrophil function, bacterial pathogenesis and drug resistance.

Professor Bruno Fantin

M.D., Ph. D.

Professor Bruno Fantin is Professor of Internal medicine at University of Paris7 Denis Diderot Medical school. He obtained both his MD and PhD from Paris University. Having been trained in the clinical pharmacology of antibiotics in the laboratory of Professor WA Craig in Madison (Wisconsin), he is a renown expert of the relationships between PK/PD properties of antibiotics and emergence of bacterial resistance. Professor Fantin heads the Department of internal medicine of the Beaujon University Hospital in Paris, as well as a research unit devoted to the study of the emergence of bacterial resistance in vivo. He serves on the committee for antimicrobial agents of Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), the 36-hospital network grouping all university hospitals of the Paris (France) area.