Elias Fattal is a lecturer at the Paris-Saclay Galien Institute (IGPS - Univ. Paris-Saclay, CNRS), where he was its director from 2010 to 2019. He specialises in nanomedicine, to which he has dedicated 40 years of research. His recent work focuses on designing nanoparticles for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and pulmonary nanotoxicology.

After completing a scientific baccalaureate, Elias Fattal began studying pharmacy at Université Paris-Sud (now Université Paris-Saclay). Why did he choose this discipline? Undoubtedly due to the influence of a pharmacist grandfather and a photographer father, with whom he spent long hours in the darkroom, developing a taste for chemistry, which is highly prevalent in pharmacy. He obtained his doctorate in pharmacy in 1983 and initially pursued a career in hospital pharmacy. He spent three years as an intern in hospitals in northern France, before deciding to dedicate his fourth year to research. In 1986, he joined the Physical-Chemistry, Pharmaceutics and Biopharmacy unit, the forerunner of the Paris-Saclay Galien Institute, to complete a 2nd year master‘s degree in research. He worked under the supervision of Patrick Couvreur, a pioneer in nanomedicine and then a young professor, becoming one of his first PhD candidates. He defended his thesis on the treatment of intracellular infections with antibiotic polymeric nanoparticles in 1990. He then spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, an experience that would completely transform him.

"During my time in San Francisco, I conducted experiments that helped to explain the mechanism of action of lipid nanoparticles loaded with nucleic acids," recalls Elias Fattal. "Published in Biochemistry in 1994, these studies continue to be highly cited 30 years later." In San Francisco, he worked closely with Francis Szoka, one of the pioneers in the design of lipid nanoparticles. On returning to France in 1992, he became a lecturer in galenic pharmacy at Université Paris-Sud, obtaining his Accreditation to Supervise Research in 1996 and becoming a professor four years later. He has continued his work on nucleic acid nanoparticles. "Unlike viruses, the vectors we‘ve designed are created from chemical molecules. Nucleic acids, antisense oligonucleotides and interfering RNAs, which control gene regulation, need to be administered using these nanoparticles in the same way that messenger RNA vaccines are administered today."

Elias Fattal‘s recent work focuses on the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Along with Xavier Mariette, Professor of Rheumatology at the Faculty of Medicine of Université Paris-Saclay, he discovered that vectorizing a short nucleic acid fragment, known as antagomir, corrects certain biological processes involved in rheumatoid arthritis. "The nanoparticles are captured by certain immune cells involved in the pathology, and the antagomirs released modify the behaviour of these cells by providing them with anti-inflammatory functions."

The lecturer is also interested in the possibility of delivering drugs directly to organs such as the lungs. "We‘re now developing interfering-RNA lipid nanoparticles by inhalation to treat inflammatory lung diseases. We coat these nanoparticles with elements recognised by the specific cells in lung tissue involved in these diseases." Elias Fattal has benefited from collaborations arising from the creation of the PROMETHEUS University Hospital Institute (IHU) to try and develop pulmonary vectorization approaches for small molecules such as dexamethasone. This molecule has proved effective in treating the acute inflammation experienced during coronavirus disease. "Our aim is to facilitate its administration through inhalation by delivering it as close to the target as possible."