The 2019 Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers was awarded to post-doctoral fellow Emmanuel Weiss for his research on cirrhosis of the liver.

Inflammation or transplant: the double life of the liver

“Cirrhosis, the most common chronic liver disease, is the 8th leading cause of death in the world. I’m developing a new research program to understand the inflammation mechanisms that lead to liver failure in patients with cirrhosis.”

Acute decompensated cirrhosis is the most common cause of end-stage liver failure. A large proportion of patient deaths is related to acute decompensated cirrhosis associated with organ failure: this is called Acute Chronic Liver Failure (ACLF) syndrome. Inflammation plays a major role in the progression of cirrhosis. However, the inflammation mechanisms during ACLF are poorly understood. The challenge is to determine the gene expression of circulating immune cells by single cell sequencing and, more specifically, to study the effects of albumin on the cells’ genetic program.

After bioinformatics analyses, Dr. Weiss hopes to obtain the global landscape of the immune response in cirrhosis to improve understanding of the disease’s inflammatory conditions.

Emmanuel Weiss in a few words

2012: Doctorate in medicine: ""Study of the Nexfin™ system’s ability to detect blood pressure variations during anesthetic induction"", under the supervision of Professor Marc Fischler, Paris Diderot University - Anesthesia - Specialization in Resuscitation

2015: Doctoral dissertation: “Alterations in the innate immune response to Lipopolysaccharide in immune cells of patients with decompensated alcoholic cirrhosis"", under the supervision of Dr Richard Moreau, Inflammation Research Center, Inflammatory Responses and Stress in Chronic Liver Diseases Team, Paris Diderot University, Bio Sorbonne Paris Cité Doctoral School - Physiology and Pathophysiology Section

Post-doctorate under the supervision of Professor Vicente Arroyo at the European Foundation for the Study of Chronic Liver Failure (EF Clif), Barcelona, Spain

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