Renowned global scientist, patent holder joins area college

TAMPA — Christian Bréchot, former head of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris, has joined USF Health’s Morsani College of Medicine as senior associate dean for research in global affairs, associate vice president for international partnerships and innovation and a professor of infectious disease.

According to a press release, Bréchot is one of the world’s preeminent virologists and will help university leaders strengthen biomedical and health-related areas of research. Serving on a part-time basis at USF, he will work to elevate interdisciplinary signature programs to the international level, while continuing to serve as executive director of the Tampa-based Romark Laboratories Institute for Medical Research.

Bréchot is also the president of the Global Virus Network, a coalition of the world’s foremost medical virologists, the release states, and he’s held high-level leadership at several other private- and public-sector health organizations in France. He holds 18 patents and has helped launch three biotechnology companies. 

“Dr. Bréchot has been at the forefront of catalyzing teams of top scientists to work together effectively on global solutions for emerging pathogens, malaria and microbial infections,” states Charles Lockwood, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, in the release. “He is the ideal person to work with leadership across USF Health and USF in strategically identifying opportunities to take our infectious diseases, cardiovascular, neuroscience and maternal-child health translational research to the next level, and to build upon the international networks he helped create at the Pasteur Institute and elsewhere to make that happen.”