Benoit Déprez

Benoît Déprez was born in Lille (France) in 1967.

He received a degree of pharmaceutical sciences from the school of pharmacy of Lille and a PhD in medicinal chemistry in the Lab of André Tartar at the Institut Pasteur de Lille (1997).

With André Tartar, he created the High Throughput Chemistry laboratory of the Institut Pasteur that became in 1997 the chemistry department of Cerep. In 1999, after 3 years spent at Cerep as Head of Chemistry and Site Manager, he was hired by Devgen, a Belgian start-up in Gent (Flanders), where he set up High Throughput Screening using C.elegans and Medicinal Chemistry activities.

From 1995 on, he managed several collaborations between biotech or academic labs and pharmaceutical companies (Glaxo, Merck KGa, Sanofi, Genentech, Sumitomo, Fournier Pharma).

Benoît Deprez is currently Professor of Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy (U. Lille2) and heads Inserm Lab U761 based at the Institut Pasteur de Lille and the Faculty of pharmacy. His research interests primarily focus on drug discovery and medicinal chemistry. Areas that he explored with his team include novel targets in infectious diseases, cancer and Alzheimer (metalloproteases, allosteric receptor modulation and protein-protein interactions).

He is a member of the strategic committee of Inserm-transfert, correspondent member of the Académie Nationale de Pharmacie and editor of several journals including Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery.