Professor Pierre-Louis Tharaux

Pierre-Louis Tharaux is Research Professor at Inserm (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research), The Paris Cardiovascular Centre – PARCC, and appointed by the Division of Nephrology, Georges Pompidou European Hospital, AP-HP, Paris.

He obtained an MD at the Paris Descartes University in Paris (1990). He was registered as nephrologist in 1998 and obtained a PhD in 2000 (Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris). He received postgraduate training in physiology, cell and molecular biology for two years as a Research Associate at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC (Thomas M Coffman lab) and the University of North Carolina (Bev Koller lab). He recently spent a year as visiting Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Freiburg, Germany.

Prof. Tharaux is a member of the American Society of Nephrology, the International Society of Nephrology, the European Renal Association and European Dialysis and Transplantation Association, the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes. He is a councillor of the French Society of Cardiology/GRRC (2013-present) and of the French Society of Hypertension (2017-present).

As an ERC Investigator, Pierre-Louis Tharaux performs high risk/high potential benefit research in areas of major medical need.

Research in his laboratory involves analysis of mouse vascular and renal pathophysiology with translation to clinical studies, with a particular emphasis on genes or pathways implicated in disease tolerance. His work covers:

  1. GPCRs and RTK signaling and metabolism in kidney and vascular cells in accelerated ageing, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and hypertension. He is interested in the pathophysiology of target-organ damage in hypertension. His research aims at promoting the tolerance of the kidney and the microcirculation to immune injury (vasculitides) and to hypertensive and metabolic injury (diabetes).
  2. Involvement of neutrophils and endothelial cells in Sickle Cell Nephropathy and Vasculopathy.
  3. Drug repositioning and new drug development for hypertensive thrombotic microangiopathy, microvascular auto-immune diseases and sickle cell disease.