Patrice D. Cani

Professor Patrice D. Cani is researcher from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research and group leader in the Metabolism and Nutrition lab at the Louvain Drug Research Institute from the UCL, Brussels, Belgium. He is WELBIO investigator and recipient of an ERC Starting Grant 2013 and a PoC ERC Grant 2016. He is laureate of the Baillet-Latour grant for medical research and the international prize of Physiology Lucien Dautrebande. His main research interests are the investigation of interactions between the gut microbiota, the host and specific biological systems such as the endocannabinoid system and the innate immune system in the context of obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic inflammation. In 2007, he published the discovery of the concept of metabolic endotoxemia, and in 2008 the first experimental evidence that gut barrier alteration contribute to metabolic alteration during obesity and diabetes. More recently, he discovered the beneficial role of the bacteria Akkermansia muciniphila on obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors, and isolated active metabolic compounds from this bacteria. He is author and co-author of more than 250 scientific research publications, member of several international associations; he is member of the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences.