Immunologist Brigitte Autran was appointed in August 2022 to head the 'Health Risk Watch and Anticipation Committee', heir to the Covid Scientific Council. A specialist in viruses, she is particularly recognized for having worked a large part of her career on HIV and in particular on triple therapy. Portrait.

Even if we saw and heard her several times during the Covid crisis, Brigitte Autran is not a person necessarily known to the general public. She will become since she was appointed head of ' Committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks 'on Wednesday August 17, 2022 according to a decree published in the Official Journal. This new body replaces the Scientific Council, created in the spring of 2020 to deal with the pandemic of Covid-19 and directed until July 31, 2022, by Professor Jean-François Delfraissy. Upon her appointment, she spoke in particular on the Covid pandemic , which she warns is not not completed and risks experiencing a new peak at the start of the school year after the current low. 'The most likely scenario is that of an epidemic peak at the start of the school year. Will it be due to a new variant or the return of the cold? We are not guessing, but it is almost certain that there will be a wave in the fall' , she explained in the columns of the Parisian . Brigitte Autran is currently Professor Emeritus of Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine Sorbonne-University in Paris . Portrait.

What is Brigitte Autran?

Brigitte Autran was born in 1954 in Paris. She is 68 years old.

Is Brigitte Autran married?

Brigitte Autran was born Grossin. Autran is the name of her husband, Jean-Michel Autran who died in October 2019 according to the funeral notice published by The New Republic of the Center West . They had two children.

Studies: a hospital-university career at AP-HP

Brigitte Autran began her medical studies at the Paris hospital boarding school in 1978. In 1981, it was the first intern to be confronted with a patient suffering from Like , at the Bichat-Claude-Bernard hospital. Two years later, she presented her doctoral thesis in medicine at the University of Paris 7. She completed it in 1992 with a doctoral thesis in immunology, obtaining in 1991 the Bernard Halpern Prize. While being assistant clinical director at the Bichat-Claude-Bernard hospital, Brigitte Autran joined the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in 1984 . She becomes lecturer and practitioner in 1989 then university professor in 1994, participating as such in teaching (in particular at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, renamed Sorbonne-University).

A specialist in HIV and Cancer

She then takes the management of the immunology department as well as the medical biology and pathology center at La Pitié-Salpêtrière . His most important contributions relate to the immunology of viruses and vaccines with a globally recognized expertise on HIV , and in particular on the care of AIDS patients (triple therapy). She was a member of the team of Spanish and French researchers who announced in 2013 a therapeutic vaccine that temporarily slows the progression of AIDS , reports the Health Insurance . Works that earned him the name Knight of the Legion of Honor in 2005 then Officer of the National Order of Merit in 2012 . Since 2009, she coordinates the Infection-Cancer-Immunity program within the Federative Research Institute 113, as well as the Immunity and Antiviral and Vaccine Immunogenetics research team attached to the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). She conducts her research at the Center for Research in Immunology and Infectious Diseases ( Cimi-Paris ).

A vaccine specialist

Brigitte Autran has developed research on the immunology of vaccines, in particular therapeutic anti-HIV vaccines, and other vaccines, particularly in immunocompromised subjects. She has long sat on the Technical Committee for Vaccines (CTV) of the Ministry of Health and on the Global Vaccine Safety Committee (GACVS) of the WHO. She founded and coordinated CoReVac, the AVIESAN/I3M consortium on French vaccine research. She spoke out several times during the Covid-19 crisis to support the government's vaccine strategy. She was then a member of the Vaccine Strategy Advisory Council, led by Alain Fischer, and of the former Scientific Council on Covid-19 vaccines.

“When you are vaccinated, you feel free”. Brigitte Autran, Emeritus Professor of Immunology at Sorbonne University ( @MedecineSU ), answers your questions about the #vaccination against Covid-19 with @governmentFR . Discover his intervention https://t.co/2szD4MjbMs pic.twitter.com/Z6d0APEPtg

— Sorbonne University (@Sorbonne_Univ_) June 29, 2021

What role in the new Scientific Council?

With the lifting of the health emergency at the end of July, the Scientific Council stopped at the end of July 2022 to make way for a Committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks, qualified by the Minister of Health Francois Braun like a commando team of very high level scientists '. With a broader aim, this committee aims not only to Covid-19 monitoring and its variants but also that of possible emergence of other health threats . In particular, he will closely monitor the evolution of monkeypox , or 'monkeypox', and its vaccination campaign; but also the animal-human interactions , them consequences of global warming and anything that is likely to pollute the environment or food. This global vision, qualified as 'one health' by its promoters, is increasingly defended by many public health specialists.

Sources :

Brigitte Autran, High Council of Public Health .

List and biographies of the members of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council. Ministry of Health .

Source journaldesfemmes.fr