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Michel Brahic is a French/American scientist who has worked on viral infections of the brain and prion-like proteins responsible for human neurodegenerative diseases. He is Professeur Honoraire at the Pasteur Institute in Paris where he headed a laboratory from 1983 until 2007 [1]. He has been Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (1978-1983), Directeur de Recherche at the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (1988-2007) [2] and Consulting Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine (2007-2019) [3]. His work has been published in Nature, Cell, Journal of Experimental Medicine and elsewhere.
Education, academic career Born in Marseilles, France, Brahic, obtained his medical degree (MD) in 1968 and PhD in virology in 1976 from Aix-Marseille University. After post-doctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University and the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, he was appointed Assistant Professor at University of California San Francisco (1979-1983). In 1983 he was asked to head a laboratory studying persistent viral infections of the central nervous system and neurodegenerative diseases in the Department of Virology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. During that time, he had a double appointment as Professor at the Pasteur Institute and Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique. In 2007 he joined Stanford University School of Medicine as a Consulting Professor, first in the Department of Microbiology, then in the Department of Genetics. At Stanford he continued his work on neurotropic viruses and initiated a research program on the role of “prion-like proteins” in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s disease.
Research
Brahic has authored papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Genetics, Cell and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. In October 2024, Princeton University Press will publish his book The Power of Prions.
In 1978 Brahic described a technique for situ hybridization which for the first time allowed the detection and quantification of rare RNA molecules in tissue sections [5]. Using in situ hybridization and other molecular techniques, he discovered and studied gene regulations which allow some viruses to persist in the brain and cause chronic degenerative diseases.
At the Pasteur Institute, among other subjects, his laboratory studied the genetics of susceptibility to persistent viral infections. Using a mouse viral model of human multiple sclerosis, his group discovered a gene (Tmevpg1) which regulates the expression of interferon gamma, a cytokine essential in the fight against infectious agents [6][7]. Another project concerned a recombinant live attenuate vaccine platform based on the measles vaccine [8]. The measles platform is active against several human viruses, including neurotropic Zika virus.
At Stanford University, while pursuing his research on neurotropic viruses, Brahic turned his attention to human neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He showed that alpha-synuclein behaves as a prion protein in Parkinson’s and spreads in the brain by axonal transport [9].
References [1] https://www.academie-sciences.fr/archivage_site/activite/rapport/rst24_groupe.pdf [2] https://www.dgdr.cnrs.fr/bo/Nominations/nomi-bo1098.htm [3] https://profiles.stanford.edu/intranet/michel-brahic [4] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691252384/the-power-of-prions [5] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1978 Dec;75(12):6125-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.75.12.6125. [6] J Virol. 2003 May;77(10):5632-8. doi: 10.1128/jvi.77.10.5632-5638.2003 [7] Genetics. 1999 May;152(1):385-92. doi: 10.1093/genetics/152.1.385. [8] Vaccine. 2005 Aug 22;23(36):4463-72. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2005.04.024. [9] Ann Neurol. 2012 Oct;72(4):517-24. doi: 10.1002/ana.23747.