The 2019 Bettencourt Young Researchers Prize was awarded to post-doctoral fellow Judith Aron-Wisnewsky for her research on fecal transplants in diabetes patients.

Modulating microbial diversity in obese patients with metabolic alterations

My post-doctoral project focuses on fecal transplants in humans, an innovative treatment for patients who remain diabetic despite bariatric surgery. “My goal is to try to improve their metabolic response with a pre-transplant antibiotic treatment.”Judith Aron-Wisnewsky is a physician-researcher specializing in obesity and related diseases. During her post-doctoral studies, she will work on fecal transplantation, an innovative treatment to control diabetes, but which is not effective in all patients, so that she can implement this technique in her clinical research lab upon her return. Research has shown that transplanting flora from healthy, thin patients can improve insulin sensitivity in pre-diabetic patients. Nevertheless, only patients with reduced microbial diversity prior to fecal transplantation respond positively. Dr. Aron-Wisnewsky hypothesized that an oral antibiotic, vancomycin, would decrease microbial diversity and induce a good response in all patients after transplantation. Patients in a randomized trial will receive antibiotic treatment or a placebo for a week followed by a fecal transplant from thin, healthy donors. Their insulin sensitivity will be measured before the transplant and six weeks after. The study will demonstrate the difference in efficacy of fecal transplantation with or without prior antibiotic use.

Judith Aron-Wisnewsky in a few words

2007: Doctorate in medicine: “Predictive factors of foot wounds and amputations in type 1 diabetics: kidney-pancreas transplantation", under the direction of Professor Hartemann, Pierre and Marie Curie Paris VI University and Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 - Specialization in Endocrinology and Metabolism

2013: Doctoral dissertation: “Interactions between alterations in adipose tissue characteristics and liver pathology during human obesity: impact of comorbidities and individual history", under the supervision of Professor Karine Clément, CHU La Pitié Salpêtrière, Pierre and Marie Curie Paris VI University

2019: Habilitation to supervise research, Sorbonne University, Paris

Post-doctorate under the supervision of Professor Max Nieuwdorp, University Medical Center (AMC), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers

Created in 1990, the Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers is one of the first initiatives of the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. Until 2021, this prize was awarded each year to 14 young doctors of science or doctors of medicine, to enable them to carry out their post-doctoral stay in the best foreign laboratories. 349 young researchers were distinguished. The prize endowment was €25,000.

All the award-winners