Date of birth: 27 February 1976

Address: Inserm U1177, “Drugs and Molecules for Living Systems”, School of Pharmacy, 3 rue du Pr. Laguesse, 59000 Lille

Phone number: (+33) 320 96 49 91

Email: nicolas.willand@univ-lille.fr

Curriculum vitae

Nicolas received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Lille in 2003 under the supervision of Professor André Tartar. After a postdoctoral position at the School of Pharmacy in Lille, he started his academic career in 2004 as an assistant professor and project leader in the department of Organic Chemistry. In 2013, Nicolas moved to a new role as full Professor of Organic Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry and project leader for the development of new antimicrobial strategies, in the research unit headed by Professor Benoit Deprez, in collaboration with Industrial partners such as Bioversys AG and GSK. Today, he leads a group of more than ten medicinal chemists. His research focuses on three main topics: (a) the development of new scaffolds and new synthetic pathways for the design of chemical libraries of biomimetic compounds, (b) the development of new strategies to tackle antimicrobial resistance with small molecules and (c) the design of new chemical probes to identify and validate new bacterial targets. My team works on 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. Nicolas has won several prizes such as the SCT-Servier Award for a young investigator in Medicinal Chemistry in 2011 and the Galapagos Award for Drug Discovery and he is co-author of 50 scientific papers and 14 patent applications.

Sept 2013 –present

Full Professor of Organic Chemistry

University of Lille, School of Pharmacy, UMR1177, Drugs and Molecules for living systems

      • Heading the department of Organic Chemistry

• Heading the Anti-infecive Drug Discovery team

• Leading medicinal chemistry projects

2004-2013

Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry

University of Lille, School of Pharmacy, UMR1177, Drugs and Molecules for living systems

2009 : University of Lille, Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches

2003 : Postdoctoral researcher – School of Pharmacy Lille in collaboration with Fournier Pharma

2003 : Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry, University of Lille in collaboration with Ferring

Advisor: Prof. André Tartar

Awards

2022 : Galapagos Award for Drug Discovery

2021 : Force Partners Award, Hauts de France

2016 : Innovation Prize together with Bioversys AG

2011 : Medicinal Chemistry Award from the French Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SCT) and Servier Laboratories

2009 : Prize for the creation of innovative technologies from Oseo and the french ministry of research

Grants:

2006 : Thioamides-Boost (Partner, ANR grant, 24 months, 190k€)

2010 : Tb-ETH-Boost (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, region-CPER, 24 months, 170k€)

2013 : NewBio4Tb (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, region-CPER, 24 months, 130k€)

2014 : 2FightTB (PI Dr Marion Flipo, Parter, ANR grant, 42 months, 230k€)

Tea-4-Two (Partner, ANR grant, 42 months, 500k€)

ANTI-TB-NANO (Partner, ANR grant, 48 months, 599k€)

2015 : TBBoost (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, SATT Nord grant, 18 months, 120k€)

2017 : ANAC (Partner, FRM grant, 36 months, 400k€)

ProActive (Partner, IPL-CPER grant, 12 months, 100 k€)

2018 : Smart-TB (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, ANR grant, 42 months, 600k€; https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-18-CE18-0018)

2019 : Smart-Lab (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, regional-ERDF grant, 36 months, 1 M€;

http://www.isite-ulne.fr/index.php/fr/2020/08/31/smart-lab-pour-la-decouverte-et-loptimisation-de-nouvelles-generations-dantibiotiques-equipe-mixte-laboratoire-entreprise-2019/)

EFFORT (PI Dr Marion Flipo, Partner, ANR grant, 42 mths, 1 M€; https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-19-AMRB-0007)

Tric-TB (Partner, European IMI2 grant, 48 mths, 6.9 M€; https://www.imi.europa.eu/projects-results/project-factsheets/tric-tb)

2020 : NL4TB (PI Dr Baptiste Villemagne, Partner, ANR grant, 36 mths, 270k€; https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-19-CE18-0034)

ProActive-2 (Partner, IPL-CPER grant, 24 months, 198k€)

ERA4TB (Partner, European IMI2 grant, 60 mths, 2 M€; https://era4tb.org/consortium/ )

etonator (Partner, ANR grant, 42 mths, 270k€; https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-20-CE18-0030)

Pearl (Partner, H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie – COFUND – doctoral program, 48 mths; https://www.pearl-phd-lille.eu/en/phd-candidate/results)

Re-Enforce (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, I-site ULNE grant, 24 months)

2021 : MustArt (Partner, ANR grant, 48 mths, 2400k€; https://anr.fr/ProjetIA-20-PAMR-0005)

Smart-NIM (PI Pr Nicolas Willand, SATT Nord grant, 18 months, 120k€)