Félix A. Rey
Curriculum Vitae
ORCID 0000-0002-9953-7988
URL for web site: https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/structural-virology/
- Education and key qualifications
1988 PhD. Department of Biochemistry, Université de Paris-Sud (today Paris-Saclay) France
1983 Master MSc (French DEA) in biochemistry, Université de Paris-Sud, France
1981 Master MSc (“Licenciatura”) in Physics, Instituto Balseiro, Universidad de Cuyo, Bariloche, Argentina
- Current position(s)
2012-present
Professeur de Classe Exceptionnelle, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
2005-Present
Head of the Structural Virology Unit, Virology Department, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
- Previous position(s)
2007-2024:
Director, UMR 3569 “Virology”, CNRS / Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
2004 – 2012:
Director of the Virology Department, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France;
1999 – 2004:
Director of the Structural Molecular Virology Laboratory, UMR CNRS/INRA, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
1995– 1999:
Junior Group Leader at the CNRS’ Structural Enzymology Laboratory Gif-sur-Yvette, France
RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS AND PEER RECOGNITION
HONORS: “Médaille d’argent” (CNRS award, 2004); EMBO membership (elected in 2005); Member of Academia Europaea (elected in 2008); “Prix René & Andrée Duquesne” Scientific Prize (in 2008); European Academy of Microbiology (Founding member); Elected to the French “Académie des Sciences” in 2010. “Chaire Professorale Serono” (5-year scientific grant, from 2005-2010); Thérèse Lebrasseur Prize in 2012; Beijerinck Virology Prize 2013 (awarded by the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences); European Research Council Advanced Grant 2014-2018; Pasteur-Weizmann / Servier International Prize 2015. Lucien Tartois Scientific Prize of the French Medical Research Foundation (FRM) (2018). 2023 Leibniz Virology Lecturer, Hamburg, Germany.
CLARIVATE “Highly cited scientist” 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
I have been invited to multiple international scientific meetings, often as plenary speaker. I list the last two here:
Plenary Speaker at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Virology (ASV 2024; June 24 – 28, 2024, Columbus, Ohio.)
Invited Speaker at the Cell & Membrane Fusion meeting, Cold-Spring Harbor, 6-9 November 2024
Research achievements
My research achievements relate mostly to the study of enveloped viruses and their mechanism of entry, and understanding the mechanism by which neutralizing antibodies interfere with this process. We were the first to identify that there are different structural “classes” of enveloped viruses, and have studied mostly class II, which we showed are also present in eukaryotes.
Below are listed ten of my most significant publications. Most of them are on virus work, but I have framed in red the two that concern the identification of eukaryotic proteins related to the viral class II fusion process that function to merge cells, during embryogenesis (EFF-1) and in fertilization (HAP2). My H index is 73, the total number of my publications is 208 with 27000 citations and an average of 130 citations per item. In the past 5 years, the average citations of my papers was around 2400 / year.
1. Pérez-Vargas J, Krey T, Valansi C, Avinoam O, Haouz A, Jamin M, Raveh-Barak H, Podbilewicz B*, Rey FA*! Structural basis of eukaryotic cell-cell fusion. Cell 2014 Apr 10;157(2):407-419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.02.020. Demonstration that the cell-cell fusion protein responsible for syncytia formation during biogenesis of the skin in C. elegans is a structural homolog of the class II viral membrane-fusion proteins, such as those present in the envelope of flaviviruses, alphaviruses, rubella virus and in multiple families of bunyaviruses.
2. Rouvinski, A, Guardado-Calvo P, Barba-Spaeth G, Duquerroy S, Vaney MC, Kikuti CM, Navarro Sanchez ME, Dejnirattisai W, Wongwiwat W, Haouz A, Girard-Blanc C, Petres S, Shepard WE, Desprès P, Arenzana-Seisdedos F, Dussart P, Mongkolsapaya J*, Screaton GR*, and Rey FA* Recognition determinants of broadly neutralizing human antibodies against dengue viruses. Nature. 2015 Apr 2;520(7545):109-113 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14130. Identification and structural characterisation of the quaternary E-dimer epitope (EDE) of highly potent and neutralising antibodies active against all four serotypes of dengue virus.
3. Barba-Spaeth G, Dejnirattisai W, Rouvinski A, Vaney M.-C., Medits I, Sharma A, Simon-Lorière E, Sakuntabhai A, Cao-Lormeau VM, Haouz A, England P, Stiasny K, Mongkolsapaya J, Heinz FX*, Screaton GR* and Rey FA* Structural basis of potent Zika-dengue virus antibody cross-neutralization. Nature 2016 536:48-53 . Demonstration that antibodies against the dengue virus EDE also potently neutralise the highly teratogenic Zika virus.
4. Fedry J, Liu Y, Péhau-Arnaudet G, Pei J, Li W, Tortorici MA, Traincard F, Meola A, Bricogne G, Grishin NV, Snell WJ*, Rey FA*!, Krey T*. The Ancient Gamete Fusogen HAP2 Is a Eukaryotic Class II Fusion Protein. Cell 2017 Feb 23;168(5):904-915. Demonstration that the ancestral gamete fusion protein HAP2/CSG1, considered to have been at the origin of sexual reporduction in eukaryotes, is also a structural homolog of the viral Class II membrane-fusion proteins. THis study had profound implications to understand the molecular mechanism of fertilisation.
5. Guardado-Calvo P*, Atkovska K, Jeffers SA, Grau N, Backovic M, Pérez-Vargas J, de Boer SM, Tortorici MA, Pehau-Arnaudet G, Lepault J, England P, Rottier PJ, Bosch BJ, Hub JS*, Rey FA* A glycerophospholipid-specific pocket in the RVFV class II fusion protein drives target membrane insertion. Science 2017 Nov 3;358(6363):663-667 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal2712. Demonstation that the virl class II fusion proteins recognize specific phoshpholipid heads in the target membrane in order to stably insert their fusion loop and drive membrane fusion during virus entry.
6. Serris A, Stass R, Bignon EA, Muena NA, Manuguerra JC, Jangra RK, Li S, Chandran K, Tischler ND, Huiskonen JT, Rey FA*!, Guardado-Calvo P*. The Hantavirus Surface Glycoprotein Lattice and Its Fusion Control Mechanism. Cell 2020 Oct 15;183(2):442-456.e16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.023. First structural visualisation of the class II membrane fusion machinery of hantaviruses and its organisation as a pH-sensitive surface glycoprotein lattice.
7. Sharma A, Zhang X,, Dejnirattisai W, Dai X, Gong D, Wongwiwat W, Duquerroy S, Rouvinski A, Vaney MC, Guardado-Calvo P, Haouz A, England P, Sun R, Zhou ZH, Mongkolsapaya J, Screaton GR*, Rey FA*!. The epitope arrangement on flavivirus particles contributes to Mab C10’s extraordinary neutralization breadth across Zika and Dengue viruses Cell 2021 Dec 9;184(25):6052-6066.e18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.11.010. Demonstration that the distribution of the EDE at the flavivirus surface allowing bivalent biding is responsible for the extraordinary neutralization breath of antibodies targeting this epitope.
8. Mishra AK., Hellert J, Freitas N, Guardado-Calvo P, Haouz A, Fels JM, Maurer DP, Abelson DM, Bornholdt ZA., Walker LM., Chandran K, Cosset FL, McLellan JS*, Rey FA*. Structural basis of synergistic neutralization of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus by human antibodies. Science 2022 Jan 7;375(6576):104-109. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl6502. This paper reveals the combined mechanism of neutralisation of two antibodies against the highly pathogenic CCHFV, one interfering with fusion loop insertion into the target membrane, the other blocking the required trimerization of the fusion protein reauired to drive membrane fusion for entry.
9. Fernández I, Saunders N, Duquerroy S, Bolland WH, Arbabian A, Baquero E, Blanc C, Lafaye P, Haouz A, Buchrieser J, Schwartz O, Rey FA*! Cell 2024 Structural basis of TMPRSS2 zymogen activation and recognition by the HKU1 seasonal coronavirus. Aug 8;187(16):4246-4260.e16. https://doi:10.1016/j.cell.2024.06.007 TMPRSS2 is a cellular protease anchored to the cell surface. It is over-expressed in malignant tissue where it drives a proteolytic cascade reauired for metastases. It is also used by coronaviruses to activate the fusogenic capacity of the spike protein, and in the case of HKU1 it is the entry receptor. This paper describes the activation of TMPRSS2 as an active protease and describes the interaction with the receptor biding domain of the HKU1 coronavirus spike.
10. Saha P, Fernandez I, Sumbul F, Valotteau C, Kostrz D, Meola A, Baquero E, Sharma A, Portman JR, Stransky F, Boudier T, Guardado-Calvo P, Gosse C, Strick T*, Rey FA*, Rico F*. Modulation of SARS-CoV-2 spike binding to ACE2 through conformational selection Nat Nanotechnol 2025 Jul;20(7):926-934. doi: 10.1038/s41565-025-01908-1. Epub 2025 Jun 10. PMID: 40494932. Single-molecule study describing in detail the open/closing dynamics of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in the SARS-CoV-2 spike and how this dynamics modulates the interactions opf the RBD with its receptor ACE2.
Other contributions to the research community
- ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS
2009 Co-organizer, bi-yearly French structural biology meeting (“GTBio” congress)
2009 Co-organizer, Phage-Virus Assembly Meeting, Annecy, France (with Tavares). (l)
2010 Co-organizer of the EMBO conference “Emerging themes in infectious biology”
2010 Organizing committee, 5th(2010) and 6th (2012) International conference on structural analyses by hybrid methods Lake Tahoe, USA
2013 EMBO Conference on Allosteric interactions and biological regulation, May, Paris, France
2013 Conference on 30 years of HIV, May, Paris, France
2013 EMBO conference on Cell-Cell Fusion, November 3-7,2013 in Ein Gedi, Israel.
2015 Organizer of the “Targeting Ebola” International Scientific Meeting, May 27-29, I. Pasteur, Paris
2016 EMBO Workshop “Membrane Fusion in Health and Disease”, June 20-24, Institut Pasteur, Paris
2020 Organizer of the scientific communication on coronavirus research at the Institut Pasteur campus
- INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
2005 – 2012 Programs Committee of the Swiss Light Source (Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland)
2006 – 2012 Scientific Advisory Committee of the SOLEIL synchrotron light source (St. Aubin, France)
2006 – 2010 International scientific council of Institut Pasteur -Korea (Seoul, South Korea)
2006 -2022 Scientific council of Institut Pasteur of Montevideo (Uruguay)
2015 – 2017 Board, Institute of Technological Research (IRT) BioAster (Lyon, France );
2017 – 2025 Board of Directors, Institut Pasteur, Paris.
2014 – 2020 Conseil d’Orientation, Agence Nationale pour la recherche contre le SIDA (ANRS)
2021 – 2023 Conseil d’Orientation, ANRS-MIE
- REVIEWING ACTIVITIES
2009 – 2022 Scientific Advisory Board of Institut Pasteur of Shanghai (China)
2009 – 2015 Scientific Advisory Board of the Partnership for Structural Biology, Grenoble, France
2010 – 2024 Scientific Council of Institut Pasteur Lao PDR (Vientiane, Laos)
2014 – 2020 Scientific Advisory Board of IGBMC, Illkirch, France
2014 – 2022 Scientific Advisory Board of Heinrich Pette Institute of Virology, Hamburg, Germany
2016 – present Scientific Advisory Board of the French Infrastructure for Integrated Structural Biology (FRISBI)
2016 – present Scientific Advisory Board of Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS), Grenoble, France
2016 – 2022 International Scientific Advisory Board, Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics, Oxford, UK
2016 – 2022 Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany)
SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
I directly supervised 15 graduate students, while four others were supervised by senior members of my lab (the French University system does not allow more than two PhD students at a given time per university-habilitated scientist). I have also supervised 38 post-docs in total. Among the former PhD students, several are now in Academia: S. Bressanelli is Research Director group leader at the CNRS; F. Coulibaly is assistant Professor at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Others joined industry or private ONGs. Juliette Fedry has a tenure track position at the LMB in Cambridge, UK. She obtained a prestigious “Fondation Bettancourt-Schueller” award in 2018 for her PhD work. Among former post-docs, J. Lescar is Professor at the Nanyang Technological University(NTU) of Singapore; Thomas Krey is a W3 Professor in Germany and Director of the Institute of Biochemistry in Lubeck; A. Rouvinski is a principal investigator at the Hebrew university of Jerusalem; RM DuBois is Associate Professor at UC Santa Cruz; I. Gutsche is Research Director and group leader at the CNRS in Grenoble; P, Guardado-Calvo is a G5 Junior PI at Pasteur Institute. Others have moved to industry, such as M. Mathieu and E. Navarro-Sanchez who work in Sanofi; S. Igonet in AbCellera (Vanouver), R. Tawar in Evox Therapeutics (Nothingham).
