Draft:Thomas F. Baumert

– Thomas F. Baumert, MD (born May 20, 1965) is a German-French physician scientist, innovator and entrepreneur. He is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Institute of Translational Medicine and Liver Disease, Inserm U1110 and Director of the Laboratory of Excellence HepSYS at the University of Strasbourg. He currently also serves as the Chief of the Gastroenterology-Hepatology Service at the Strasbourg University Hospitals. Furthermore, he is the founder of Alentis Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotech company in Basel, Switzerland.

Thomas F. Baumert is a pioneer in the basic, translational and clinical investigation of liver disease and cancer. The work of his team has resulted in the discovery and development of novel strategies to treat fibrosis and cancer which have entered the clinic. He has published more than 400 scientific articles including The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, Nature, Science Translational Medicine. His work has been recognized by several awards and honors, including the Galien Prize and the Inserm Research Award.

Biography
Thomas F. Baumert studied medicine at the Universities of Freiburg, Heidelberg, Chicago and the Baylor College of Medicine Houston.

After completing a doctoral thesis at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and a medicine internship at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich, Thomas F. Baumert received a MD degree from the University of Heidelberg (Germany). He then moved to the USA to become a fellow at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Liver Diseases Branch at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda. He returned to Germany to join the Department of Medicine at the University Hospital in Freiburg, to become a board-certified internist and gastroenterologist and to establish his research laboratory, working on the pathogenesis of viral hepatitis and liver disease. He later moved to Strasbourg (France), to become a full Professor of Medicine at the Univeristy of Strasbourg, to create a new Inserm research unit and start a research program in translational hepatology.

Thomas F. Baumert has served and is serving as an associate editor and a member of the editorial board of several scientific journals in the field of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Virology. He is a member of the American, European and Asian Liver Societies (AASLD, EASL, APASL, AFEF, GASL), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), elected member of the American Association of Physicians (AAP) and holds a Senior Innovation Chair at the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He serves as an advisor for pharma, investors, start-up incubators and national and international research organizations.

Scientific Contributions
Thomas F. Baumert is an internationally renowned hepatologist and a pioneer in the fundamental and translational research of liver disease and cancer with a focus on drug and target discovery. He leads an interdisciplinary program combining state-of-the-art molecular and clinical hepatology, virology, immunology, cell biology, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence to model and understand the pathogenesis of fibrosis and cancer, and develop new therapeutic strategies.

Early Career
His scientific career started as a MD student in the laboratory of Dietrich Keppler, MD at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ Heidelberg) headed by Nobel Laureate Harald zur Hausen, MD. At the DKFZ, he unraveled how leukotrienes are degraded in the liver contribute to alcoholic liver disease. This early exposure to translational science stimulated a strong desire to uncover the molecular mechanisms of disease and to develop novel therapeutic strategies which ultimately benefit the patient. To achieve that goal, Thomas Baumert trained in both basic and clinical science. Following a clinical internship at the University of Munich Medical Center – Klinikum Grosshadern with Gustav Paumgartner, MD, he performed a postdoctoral fellowship studying viral liver disease with T. Jake Liang, MD at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital and subsequently at the US National Institutes of Health where he unraveled how defined acquired mutations in the genome of hepatitis B virus contribute to liver disease and discovered and developed a vaccine candidate to prevent hepatitis C virus infection. Subsequently, he joined the University Hospital Freiburg under the leadership of Hubert E. Blum, MD where he created an EU-funded research group focusing on the viral pathogenesis of liver disease.

During his tenure at Inserm and the University of Strasbourg, his achievements include the identification of key host liver factors for hepatitis viruses as drivers and targets for virus-induced liver disease and cancer   and the elucidation of the crucial role of virus-specific antibodies for clearance and control of hepatitis C virus infection. As a mark of recognition of his work on viral hepatitis, he was trusted with the organization and hosting of the 22nd international symposium on hepatitis C virus and related viruses, in Strasbourg in 2015.

Achievements as an independent researcher
Following a sabbatical as a visiting scholar at the BROAD Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in 2014, he built a new program on the investigation of the cell circuits of liver disease and cancer, using cutting-edge patient-derived models combined with scRNASeq and integrative computational analyses. Using perturbation studies combined with integrative systems biology he and his team showed that chronic viral or metabolic liver injury results in epigenetic footprints in patients with advanced liver disease driving and predicting liver fibrosis progression and cancer risk. Using patient-derived liver models combined with scRNASeq and the first human liver single cell atlas established by his team with external collaborators he and his team uncovered novel approaches to treat fibrosis and prevent cancer. This work led to his discovery of the cell surface protein Claudin-1 as a previously unknown mediator and therapeutic target for fibrosis and cancer across organs. Using hepatitis C virus entering cancer cells as a model system, he discovered and developed a unique panel monoclonal antibodies targeting exposed Claudin-1 on epithelial cells to treat fibrosis across organs and cancer. Mechanistically, he and his team showed that therapeutic antibodies targeting exposed Claudin-1 on the cancer cell surface efficiently inhibit liver tumor growth by changing cell plasticity, suppressing carcinogenic signaling and reprogramming the tumor immune microenvironment.

Collectively, these achievements have transformed the understanding of liver disease biology and cancer enabling the discovery and development of therapeutic approaches which have entered the clinic.

Research programs
Thomas F. Baumert’s research has received support from prestigious European and international funding bodies including the highly competitive European Research Council (ERC), the German and French Research Foundations and the US National Institutes of Health including NCI, NIDDK and NIAID. Notably, he was awarded several ERC Advanced Grants (AdG) and Proof of Concept Grants (PoC).

During his career, Thomas F. Baumert has led more than 50 research programs in liver disease and cancer and mentored 40+ PhD and MD/PhD students, 50+ fellows and 20+ faculty members. He is currently leading the RHU DELIVER program – a consortium gathering academia, hospitals and pharma funded by the French Research Agency ANR to transform the care of patients with advanced liver disease.

Entrepreneurship
The translational and commercial impact of his research is reflected by more than 25 patent applications for novel therapeutic approaches in the last ten years, leading to multiple partnerships and collaborations with pharmaceutical industries and the creation of biotech companies in France and Switzerland. In 2019, Thomas Baumert founded Alentis Therapeutics, a clinical-stage, venture backed biotech based in Switzerland, developing monoclonal antibodies discovered with his team in his laboratory to treat fibrosis and cancer.

Awards

 * 2024 – Marigny Award, Alsace Contre le Cancer, France
 * 2023 – Inserm Research Award, Inserm, France
 * 2022 – Senior Innovation Chair Award - Institut Universitaire de France
 * 2021 – Distinguished Member of the American Association of Physicians (AAP), USA
 * 2020 – Mémain Pelletier Award – French Academy of Sciences
 * 2017 – Senior Member, Institut Universitaire de France
 * 2017 – Eurolife distinguished lecture, France
 * 2014 – Prix Galien International for Drug Discovery, France
 * 2013 – Prix Galien France for Drug Discovery, France
 * 2011 – Laboratory of Excellence Award, France
 * 2011 – OSEO Award for Technology Transfer, France
 * 2008 – Infectious Diseases Award, Infectious Disease Society, Germany
 * 2006 – Chair of Excellence Award, ANR, France
 * 1999 – Hans Popper Award, Falk Foundation, Switzerland
 * 1996 – Fogarty Fellowship Award National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA
 * 1994 – Fellowship Award German Research Foundation, Bonn, Germany
 * 1985 – German Scholarship Foundation Award (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)