Genethon’s leadership

Mother to a child suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Laurence Tiennot-Herment has been Chairwoman of AFM-Telethon since 2003. A parent and patient association, AFM-Telethon is a major player in research and development of innovative therapies for rare diseases (250 programs and young researchers funded each year, 33 clinical trials supported for diseases of the vision, blood, brain, immune system and muscle). She is also president of Genethon, of the Institute of Myology (two laboratories created by AFM-Telethon and both leaders in their fields, namely gene therapy and science and medicine of the muscle), and a qualified member of Inserm’s Board of Directors. AFM-Telethon is also a founding member of Genopole, the French foundation for Rare Diseases and the Institut Imagine.

Frédéric Revah has been Genethon’s CEO since 2010. He is also Chairman of the Board of Atamyo, a spin-off biotech from Genethon dedicated to  gene therapies for neuromuscular diseases and has been administrator of Genethon’s CDMO spin-off, YposKesi, specialized in gene therapies.

Before  joining Genethon, Frédéric Revah has had a long-standing experience in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as in biotech companies, both publicly traded and private, where he held several corporate managerial positions.

He has also been an advisor for life-science VC funds and a member of the Conseil national de la recherche scientifique, advisory committee contributing to the development of science policy at the French academic institution CNRS. He holds several board member responsibilities for biotech and service companies.

He started his career as tenure scientist in the field of Neuroscience, at Institut Pasteur (Paris) where he also obtained his Ph.D. (Institut Pasteur / Université Paris Cité), and he graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in 1985.

Serge Braun is currently Deputy scientific director general of AFM-Telethon (French Muscular Dystrophy Association) and President of Genosafe (CRO company dedicated to quality control of biotherapeutic products).

He worked for ten years in the academic sector in France and the United States, devoting himself to neuromuscular diseases (University of Strasbourg France and USC Neuromuscular Center, Los Angeles) and for the next ten years in the biotechnology sector (Vice-President of Research at Transgene SA, a gene therapy biotech company), where his career evolved in the field of gene therapy and immunotherapy for cancer and infectious diseases. He was also co-founder of Neurofit, a research entity under contract specialized in preclinical tests on the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, as well as Vice-President of the Alsace BioValley bioparc, a three-nation not-for-profit initiative, for development of a major biotech hub in Europe.

Scientific expert and member of Scientific Councils of various Institutions, Associations, Biotechs and Bioparcs, Risk Capital companies and scientific journals, member of the national Academy of Pharmacy, and author of some fifty publications and patents.

Angela has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industry. Before joining Genethon, Angela was Director at Sanofi Sunrise, the group’s innovative investment and partnership program.

She also held various positions at Sanofi in Marketing and Business Development & Licensing, in therapeutic fields such as neurodegenerative diseases, age-related muscular disease, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

With a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the School of Pharmacy and an MBA from Kingston University in London, Angela began her career as a researcher at Pfizer, in oncology, and at SmithKline Beecham.

Gérald has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Before Genethon, Gérald was Director of Therapeutic Innovations Projects at LFB Biotechnologies, an affiliate of the LFB group, responsible for R&D activities, and where he occupied several different positions and developed his experience in the therapeutic fields of immunology, hemostasis, oncology and anti-infectives, often for rare diseases.

Gérald has taught immunology for over 10 years at the University Orsay Paris XI and also teaches at the Pharmacy Faculty in Lille.

With a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, a Master’s degree in Economics from the IAE Paris-Sorbonne Business School and an MBA from INSEEC U-IFG, Gérald began his career as a Researcher at Sanofi in pharmaceutical development, then as Team Manager in the group’s Industrial Affairs division.

Patrick Santambien has 30 years of experience in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry. Before joining Genethon, he held various positions in the LFB group, first as manager of an innovative bioprocesses platform, then as Director of Technological Innovation to implement new technologies in the fields of production of recombinant and plasma proteins, their purification and their formulation and/or administration. He then took the position of Portfolio Director for Innovation Projects at LFB Biotech.

Patrick has a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics and Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Orléans. His career started with the company BioSepra (Pall Corporation) in the R&D team, then he developed expertise in the field of protein purification and development of processes in a variety of different positions.

Alexandre Lemoalle has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining Genethon, he held several positions in Finance at Sanofi, then worked in general management in subsidiary and as Vice-President of Mergers & Acquisitions for the Sanofi group. He then provided support to biotechs in their development and advised funds on their health investments. Alexandre is also President of Ampleia, the start-up studio dedicated to rare diseases created by AFM-Telethon. He  graduated of Institut Supérieur de Gestion (ISG) business school.

Ana Buj-Bello heads a research group certified by Inserm and a hematopoietic translational gene therapy program, a research team on neuromuscular diseases and a translational gene therapy program for treating myotubular myopathy at Genethon. She is a physician and has a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of St. Andrews (Great Britain) and an inter-university diploma in Myology, from Pierre et Marie Curie University (France); she did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, where she worked for a number of years on the physiopathology of myotubular myopathy. She joined INSERM in 2004 and Genethon in 2009. Ana Buj Bello has performed pioneering work on gene therapy for myotubular myopathy, published 63 articles in international journals and is an inventor on 12 patents. She has received the Outstanding New Investigator award from the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) in 2015 and the Léon Baratz, Docteur Darolles Prize from the National Academy of Medicine (France) in 2024.

Isabelle Richard joined Genethon in 1996 and heads a research group that develops innovative treatments for muscular dystrophies and also focuses on genetics and the physio-pathological mechanisms of these diseases.
She is also in charge of a translational muscular gene therapy program. Isabelle Richard is Research Director at the CNRS and obtained her PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Paris 7 (1996).
Isabelle Richard has published 190 articles in international journals and filed more than 25 patents over the last ten years. She was awarded the “Leadership in Collaboration at the 2024 Dysfernin conference by the Jain Fondation, and the”5th Annual Pioneer in LGMD2I award” in June 2024 by the Speak Foundation.

Giuseppe Ronzitti heads a research group about thirty people at Genethon, that is working tirelessly on the development of gene therapies for hereditary metabolic diseases. After his PhD in Biochemistry , he spent five years at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova, where he worked on characterization of the preliminary degeneration mechanisms in genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease. In 2013 he joined Federico Mingozzi’s laboratory and focused his research on developing the AAV vectors for gene therapies associated with Crigler-Najjar syndrome, Pompe disease and Glycogen storage disease Type III. From 2018, he leads the Immunology and Liver Gene Transfer (FMF) team at Genethon and since 2019, Giuseppe is a permanent researcher at INSERM, affiliated to the UMR_S951 ”INTEGRARE” led by Dr. Anne Galy.

Giuseppe has contributed to 81 publications, with an overall impact factor of 690 including original articles, journals and comments. He is the author of 21 patents on the development of gene therapy strategies by AAV.

He is currently involved in several European consortium such as ARDAT, AAVolution, MAGIC, ERDERA and was co-coordinator of CureCN, which aims to clinically test a gene therapy approach for Crigler-Najjar disease.

Mario Amendola leads a research group working on development of innovative gene transfer and gene editing tools, as well as their applications for treating genetic diseases. He obtained his degree in medical biotechnology from the University of Turin (Italy) and his PhD in molecular medicine at TIGET (San Raffaele Institute, Milan, Italy). After a post-doctoral fellowship as EMBO collaborator at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam (Netherlands), he joined Genethon in 2015 and Inserm in 2017. His research focuses on developing innovative gene therapies and transfer tools, using gene editing for gene therapy of hematopoietic stem cells using the CRISPR technique, as well as understanding the dynamic of chromatins, gene expression and micro-RNAs. Mario has contributed to 33 research articles published in international scientific journals and 11 patents. He received an excellence in research award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) and he is the Associated Editor of Molecular Therapy.