05- CV Hafid Ait Oufella

Trained as a cardiologist, I am currently University Professor and Hospital Practitioner in a medical intensive care unit at Hôpital Saint-Antoine. I share my time between care and clinical research on the one hand, and experimental research on the other. Since 2002, I have developed a fundamental research activity on the exploration and modulation of the immune response in cardiovascular diseases. During my PhD, I explored the role of regulatory T cells and efferocytosis in atherosclerosis development under the supervision of Ziad Mallat (Ait-Oufella et al. Nat Med 2006, Circulation 2007 & 2007). During my post-doc, I studied the role of B cells in atherosclerosis (Ait-Oufella et al. J Exp Med 2009) in the Inserm unit U689. In 2010, I joined the Inserm unit U970, at PARCC-HEGP institute, where I developed and supervised new independent research projects  focusing on the role of immune system in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis (Joffre et al. JACC 2016, Zeboudj et al. JACC 2018, Zhang et al Nat Commun 2023), post-ischemic cardiac remodeling (Zouggari et al. Nat Med 2013, Santos-Zas et al. Nat Commun 2021) and aortic aneurysm (Giraud et al. Cardiovasc Res 2015; Vandestienne et al JCI 2021, Al-Rifai et al. Nat Commun 2022). Since January 2020 I am heading the Team 5 “Immuno-metabolic mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases”. Using genetically-modified mouse models and human tissue biobanks, I aim to improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of heart and vascular diseases, and to develop new therapeutic approaches targeting innate and/or adaptive immunity.