
nicolas willand
- UFR DES SCIENCES DE SANTE ET DU SPORT
- FACULTE DE PHARMACIE
Présentation
Professeur de Chimie Organique et Chimie Médicinale / Full Professor of Organic and Medicinal Chemistry
Nicolas Willand received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Lille in 2003 under the supervision of Professor André Tartar. He started his academic career in 2004 as an assistant professor and project leader in the department of Organic Chemistry. In 2013, Nicolas moved into a new role as full Professor of Organic Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry and project leader for the development of new antimicrobial strategies, in the Inserm research unit headed by Professor Benoit Deprez at the school of pharmacy and at the Institut Pasteur de Lille. His team works today on the design of small drug-like molecules or biomimetic compounds, driving the optimization of their physicochemical, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics properties and contributing to the successful development of novel anti-infectious drug candidates and one clinical candidate BVL-GSK098. Nicolas has published more than 60 papers including one in Science, one in Nature medicine, one in Science Translational Medicine and is co-author of 14 patents.
Nicolas leads the group entitled "Anti-Infective Drug Discovery (AIDD)" in the research unit M2SV (www.deprezlab.fr). Nicolas heads the department of Organic Chemistry at the school of Pharmacy (UFR3S, Lille).

Projets en cours / On-going projects
AIDD-U1177
SMARt-NIM : SATT-Nord grant (Coordinator: Pr Nicolas Willand; partner: Dr Alain Baulard, CIIL)
SMARt-TB : ANR grant (Coordinator: Pr Nicolas Willand; partners: Dr Alain Baulard, CIIL and Dr Xavier Hanoulle, ISB)
https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-18-CE18-0018
NL4TB : ANR JCJC Grant (Coordinator: Dr Baptiste Villemagne; partner: Dr Ruben Hartkoorn, CIIL)
https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-19-CE18-0034
EFFORT: ANR grant (PI: Dr Marion Flipo; coordinators: Dr Ruben Hartkoorn, CIIL and Pr Klaas Martinus Pos, Goethe University Frankfurt)
https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-19-AMRB-0007
Detonator: ANR grant (PI: Pr Nicolas Willand; coordinator: Pr Alexandra Aubry, APHP)
https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-20-CE18-0030
Re-Enforce - PEARL: I-Site ULNE grant (coordinator : Pr Nicolas Willand; partners: Dr Alain Baulard and Dr Ruben Hartkoorn, CIIL; Pr Jean-Louis Hilbert, ICV)
Era4Tb: European IMI-2 grant (PI: Pr Nicolas Willand)
https://era4tb.org/consortium/#advisors
SMARt-Lab: Region-FEDER CPER grant (Coordinator: Pr Nicolas Willand; partners: Dr Marilyne Bourotte and Dr Olivier Defert, Bioversys; Dr Alain Baulard and Dr. Hartkoorn, CIIL)
Mustart: ANR grant (PI: Pr Nicolas Willand, Coordinator: Dr Alain Baulard)
https://anr.fr/ProjetIA-20-PAMR-0005
OutSMARt-TB : Region-FEDER CPER grant (PI: Pr Nicolas Willand; coordinator: Dr Alain Baulard, CIIL)
ProActive-2: Region-FEDER CPER grant (PI: Pr Nicolas Willand; coordinator: Dr Ruben Hartkoorn, CIIL)
Tric-TB: European IMI-2 grant (Coordinators: Bioversys and GSK)
https://www.imi.europa.eu/projects-results/project-factsheets/tric-tb
Dernières actualités
Last publications
Nature Communications
Plé, C., Tam, HK., Vieira Da Cruz, A. et al. Pyridylpiperazine-based allosteric inhibitors of RND-type multidrug efflux pumps. Nat Commun 13, 115 (2022).
https://doi-org.ressources-electroniques.univ-lille.fr/10.1038/s41467-021-27726-2
Science Translational Medicine
Flipo, M ; Frita, R ; Bourotte, M ; Martínez-Martínez, MS ; Boesche, M ; Boyle, GW & al, The small-molecule SMARt751 reverses Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistance to ethionamide in acute and chronic mouse models of tuberculosis.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aaz6280
Orchid Link
Vidéos
Prix / Awards

Prix Galapagos pour la découverte de Médicaments / Galapagos Award for Drug Discovery
Le premier prix Galapagos pour la Drug Discovery a été attribué, en Septembre 2022 à l'occasion du symposium international de Chimie Médicinale organisé à Nice par l'EFMC, au projet interdisciplinaire porté par BioVersys (Dr Olivier Defert et Dr Michel Pieren, représentants de l'équipe candidate), par l'Université de Lille (Pr Nicolas Willand), par l'Institut Pasteur de Lille/Inserm (Dr Alain Baulard), et par GSK (Dr Modesto Remuinan).
En partant d'une recherche académique et biotechnologique précoce, leur travail a abouti à l'identification d'un nouvel agent antituberculeux, BVL-GSK098, comme candidat clinique ciblant un nouveau facteur de transcription mycobactérien, appelé "VirS".

Prix / Awards
Prix du Public, Force Awards Hauts de France
Le projet Smart-Lab, coordonné par le Pr Nicolas Willand, a remporté le prix du public à l’occasion de l’édition 2021 des Force Awards Hauts-de-France, évènement qui a pour objectif de promouvoir des partenariats entre la recherche académique et les entreprises et des candidats porteurs de projets innovants remarquables, sur le territoire Hauts-de-France.