Sébastien Deshayes

Sébastien Deshayes graduated in Organic Chemistry in 1999 at the University of Nice-Sophia-Antipolis (France) and in Molecular Biology and Biotechnologies in 2001 at the Free University of Brussel (Belgium). In 2005, he received his PhD in Biophysics from the University of Montpellier (France) achieving the physico-chemical characterization of peptides for the delivery of therapeutic agents under the supervision of Dr. Frédéric Heitz at the Centre for Biochemical and Macromolecular Research of Montpellier (CRBM) (France). He then joined the group of Dr. R. Robert Brasseur at the Centre for Digital Molecular Biophysics of Gembloux (CBMN) (Belgium) as a post-doctoral fellow to further improve the development of a method for the de novo molecular modelling of the secondary structure of peptides. In 2007, he was appointed as a junior researcher (Chargé de Recherche) at the CNRS in the Montpellier Cell Biology Research Center (CRBM) (France) in order to design, develop and optimize peptide-based nanoparticles (PBNs) for the cellular delivery of therapeutic agents. In 2021, he joined the team "Development of visceral smooth muscle cells and associated pathologies" in the PHYMEDEXP institute of Montpellier in order to apply PBNs to down- or up- regulate specific proteins/genes involved in different mechanisms, from proteins/genes involved in the development/differentiation of smooth muscle cells of the gastrointestinal tract to the proteins/genes involved in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) progression. Skills: - Vectorization of therapeutic agents using cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) and peptide-based nanoparticles (PBNs). - Design, development and targeting of CPPs and peptide-based nanoparticles. - Biophysical analyses of CPPs and colloidal characterization of PBNs. - Investigation of both cellular activity and mechanism of internalization of CPPs and PBNs. - Structural analyses of biological molecules in various conditions (membrane models or biological membranes mimicking environments, interactions with partners) - Studies of peptides/membranes or peptides/cargoes interactions by biophysical approaches (fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism, infrared spectroscopy, surfaces physics and Langmuir-Blodgett films, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, electronic and atomic force microscopy). - Molecular modeling: structural aspects and studies of peptide/membranes interactions. Significant results: - Biophysical and cellular studies of Pep-1, MPG, CADY, RICK and WRAP cell penetrating peptides . - Optimization of CPPs and peptide-based nanoparticles for cellular delivery of siRNA. - Design and development of short peptides for cellular delivery of small molecule and therapeutics