Epidémiologie intégrative et génétique du vieillissement cérébral et vasculaire – VINTAGE

Constance Bordes obtained a master’s degree in Public Health/Epidemiology from the Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development (ISPED) in Bordeaux (2019). Constance joined ELEANOR team during her master’s internship, where she explored the mechanisms of early MRI-markers of cerebral Small Vessel Disease. Between 2019 and 2021, Constance worked in Pr. Debette team as an epidemiologist. Her research interests are focus on exploring the very early mechanisms of structural brain changes leading to cognitive decline or dementia as well as the mechanisms underlying the association between Small Vessel Disease and cognitive decline/dementia. 

She is currently a PhD student in epidemiology under the supervision of Pr. Debette with the purpose of exploring the lifetime impact of cerebral small vessel disease on cognitive decline and dementia, by using genomics as a tool.

 

Ilana Caro obtained a Master’s degree in Genetic, Genomic and System Biology (GGBS) in 2021 in Nantes. She has been awarded a PhD grant from the Digital Public Health graduate program, to work with Prof. Stéphanie Debette in the VINTAGE team on « Deciphering the molecular signature of covert cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) with a focus on transcriptomic and proteomic biomarkers ».

Functions

Stéphanie Debette is Professor of epidemiology at Bordeaux University and INSERM Center U1219, where she directs the VINTAGE team.
She is also practicing neurologist at Bordeaux University Hospital and adjunct associate professor in the department of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, USA. S Debette holds a master degree in statistical genetics and a PhD in Epidemiology (2008).

She co-authored 100+ papers (including first or last author papers in Nat Genet, Lancet Neurol, BMJ, Ann Neurol, Circulation, Neurology). She obtained a Fulbright fellowship, a Chair of Excellence from the French National Research Agency (ANR), a Chair of Excellence from Bordeaux University, and is member of a Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence on cerebral small vessel disease. Recently she obtained and ERC starting grant to study genetic determinants of early structural brain alterations in young students, and she coordinates a European JPND grant on “next generation” genomic approaches to detect risk and protective factors for brain imaging markers of cognitive decline and dementia.

S Debette is a longstanding collaborator of the CHARGE consortium, where she co-leads projects on the genomics of stroke, MRI-markers of vascular brain injury and memory. She is currently vice-chair of the International Stroke Genetics Consortium (ISGC), of which she hosted a workshop in 2014. She initiated and coordinates the international CADISP consortium on genetic and environmental risk factors of cervical artery dissections and young stroke (>15 publications).

S Debette coordinates the Bordeaux Hospital-University Federation SMART on small artery disease in brain, heart and retina.
She recently launched the neurepiomics summer school, an international course on “neuroepidemiology in the omics era” and co-edited a book on the risk factors of stroke and cerebrovascular disease. S Debette is a member of the editorial boards of Stroke and the European Journal of Stroke, the scientific committee of the French Foundation for Stroke Research, and founder of the Music for the Brain philanthropic initiative.

Marie-Gabrielle is a Public Health resident in Bordeaux. She is following the MD-PhD program “Ecole de l’Inserm Liliane Bettencourt” (Paris), that allowed her early research training. She did her master 1 directed by Pr Bloch, working on the anatomy of dopamine receptors in rats (Unit “Mouvement – Adaptation – Cognition”, Bordeaux). She obtained a master 2 in Neurosciences (“Ecole pratique des hautes études”, Sorbonne, Paris) where she studied anatomical correlation of neuropsychological tests in a cohort of healthy elderly subjects (3C-cohort) with Voxel Based Morphometry, directed by G. Catheline.

She is currently a master 2 student in Epidemiology at the Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development (ISPED) in Bordeaux. She is focusing on MRI markers of cerebral small vessel disease and their shared genetic variants, under the supervision of Stéphanie Debette.

Education:

2011-2012: Study coordinator degree (DIU FARC)

2009 – 2011: MSc degree on Neurosciences et Neuropsychopharmacology 

2006-2009: Bachelor degree on Biology

Positions:

Jul 2011 – Apr 2012: Clinical Research Technicien in Hepatogastroenterlogy department (Bordeaux Hospital)

May 2012 – Mar 2017: Study Coordinator in Neurology department (Bordeaux Hospital) on parkinsonian syndromes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, neuromuscular disease

Since Jan 2017: Project Manager in the ELEANOR team of the clinical and regulatory part of the Prof Stephanie Debette’s projects (SHIVA University-Hospital Research, PRESTIGE-AF…)

 

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

 

• Bordeaux Population Health Research Center (team ELEANOR),  INSERM U1219, Univ Bordeaux, France  & Research Institute for Environmental and Occupational Health (team 9), INSERM U1085, EHESP, Univ Rennes
  • Since Apr 2022 : Postdoctoral Research Fellow
• François Baclesse Cancer Center, ANTICIPE INSERM U1086, Caen, France
  • Nov 2020 – Mar 2022 : Biostatistian
• Rush University Medical Center, Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, Chicago, United States
  • Mar 2020 – Oct 2020 : Postdoctoral Research Fellow
• Bordeaux Population Health Research Center (team LEHA),  INSERM U1219, Univ Bordeaux, France
  • Nov 2019 – Feb 2020 : Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  • Oct 2016 – Oct 2019 : PhD Fellow (Supervision: C. Samieri)
  • Feb 2016 – Sept 2016 : MSc Training Course

---

EDUCATION

• Oct 2019 : Public Health – Epidemiology, PhD, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
• Sept 2016 : Agri-Food Sciences, MSc (French Engineering Degree), Agrocampus Ouest, Rennes, France
  
• Sept 2016 : Applied Statistics, MSc, University of Rennes 2 – Agrocampus Ouest, Rennes, Franc

---

 

Serial Number	Degree	University	Year
1.	Bachelor of Engineering in Biotechnology	Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India	2004-08
2.	Master of Science in Analytical Genomics	University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom	2009-10
3.	PhD in Statistical Genetics	University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia	2011-15

Carole Proust is Engineer inserm since 2004. Carole is a biologist working with David-Alexandre Trégouët to characterize the role of rare DNA variants in thrombotic disorders using various experimental functional analyses. Carole was recruited at INSERM in 2004 to reorganize, perpetuate and establish new cardiovascular DNA biobanks (up to ~50 000 samples) as part of the previous INSERM U525/U937 department directed by Dr François Cambien in Paris. She was then in charge of several high-throughput genotyping and transcriptomics projects to search for new susceptibility genes for cardiovascular diseases. By 2014, as part of the Team Genomics of Cardiovascular Diseases headed by David Trégouët at INSERM U1166 in Paris, she gained experience in more experimental biology to functionally characterize the role of genetic variations on thrombotic processes. In 2018, she followed David Trégouët and move to Bordeaux, INSERM U1219 , to pursue their joint research program on venous thrombosis. On a daily basis, Carole is working in the INSERM U1034 lab directed by Thierry Couffinahl which offers the necessary environment to follow her experimental work.

Parcours

EDUCATION/TRAINING

INSTITUTION AND LOCATION	DEGREE	COMPLETION DATE	FIELD OF STUDY
Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France	HDR (Habilitation à diriger des recherches ; accreditation to direct research)	2018	Epidemiology
INSERM U897 and Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France	Junior Research Position (French Fondation Plan Alzheimer grant)	2012-2015	Epidemiology – Alzheimer’s disease
Channing Division of Network Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA	Postdoctoral Research fellow	2011-2012	Epidemiology
Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France	Postdoctoral Research fellow	2010-2011	Epidemiology (applied Biostatistics and neuro-imaging)
Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France	Ph.D (upper honours, Mention Très Honorable)	2007-2009	Epidemiology
Université Paris XI, Paris, France	M.Sc (upper honours, Mention Très Bien)	2005-2006	Methodology and Statistics in Biomedical Research
Université Paris XII, Paris, France	Doctorate	2004	Veterinary medicine
Lycée Michel Montaigne, Bordeaux, France	Baccalaureate diploma (upper honours, Mention Très Bien)	1997	Mathematics

Aïcha Soumaré, earned a PhD in Public Health-Epidemiology with upper honors from the Paris-Sud 11 University in 2009, and is a recipient of the Halimi/Aguirre-Basualdo Ph.D award specialized in medicine*.

Her research focuses on the environmental and genetic determinants of stroke, dementia, and MRI markers of brain aging.

Prior to joining the Bordeaux team of Pr. Debette in 2015 as an epidemiologist, she worked in the same capacity at the Parisian INSERM unit U708-“neuroepidemiology” for five years. There, she contributed, among other things, to the identification of risk factors of dilated perivascular spaces in the general population, as well as to the first study and paper reporting the increased risk of dementia associated with this particular emerging MRI marker of cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) in the context of a large population-based sample of elderly individuals. 

Since then, her Bordeaux adventure has led to various other contributions to the scientific literature including –but not limited to– the investigation of the influence of environmental factors (e.g., orthostatic hypotension, lipids, blood biomarkers or individual protein levels) on dementia and MRI-cSVD markers, the exploration of causal pathways between cerebrovascular disease and dementia using genetic instruments/polygenic risk scores, or the assessment of the prevalence and severity of brain incidental findings on healthy young adults MRIs.

Recently, she has developed an interest in the “the retina is a window to the brain” concept which proposes that the retinal microvasculature might be used as a proxy for its brain counterpart based on their similarities. Leveraging this concept could theoretically facilitate early detection of patients at high risk for cSVD and improve characterization of cSVD into subtypes based on retinal vascular characteristics. Hence, one of her objectives is to test this “retina-brain”model as reflected by some of her current orientations that involve for example (i) conducting a systematic review of the literature summarizing current data on the relation between brain MRI and retinal cSVD biomarkers, (ii) examining, as proof of concept, whether traditional fundus-based retinal microvascular geometric features are associated with common visible MRI-cSVD markers including a newly generated extreme cSVD phenotype, (iii) extending those investigations to novel high-resolution AO and OCT-A retinal microvascular biomarkers and cSVD biomarkers (common and emerging) quantified by cutting-edge methods developed by her group (RHU SHIVA), (iv) exploring associations of genetic (polygenic) risk scores of those cSVD biomarkers with incident dementia…

Dr. Soumaré also collaborates with the Steering committee of the 3C study by handling the proposals of ancillary studies and data access to the cohort in the context of its coordinating center.

 

* from the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris

Judith Thomas Crusells est titulaire d’un doctorat en neurosciences de l’université d’Helsinki (Finlande), d’un master en biotechnologie de l’université de Kuopio (Finlande) et d’un diplôme en commerce, marketing et relations publiques de l’université ouverte de Catalogne (Espagne). Sa carrière scientifique dans les domaines des facteurs de croissance neuronale et de la survie neuronale après une lésion a été développée dans des institutions internationales renommées telles que l’Institut de biotechnologie (Helsinki, Finlande), l’hôpital universitaire de la Sarre (Homburg, Allemagne), l’hôpital universitaire de Zurich et l’École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich (ETH, Zürich, Suisse).

Judith a également été engagée comme consultante technique à l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS, Genève, Suisse) dans les départements de la santé publique et environnementale, des vaccins et de la santé mentale, où elle était responsable de la coordination de projets et d’initiatives internationaux, de l’organisation de conférences internationales et de l’élaboration de documents techniques sur l’évaluation de la charge mondiale de morbidité.

Depuis janvier 2016, Judith travaille en tant que chef de projet dans l’équipe ELEANOR en collaborant à la gestion de projets nationaux et internationaux dirigés par le Prof. Stéphanie Debette