Dr Jean-Philippe Chippaux

Jean-Philippe Chippaux (MD, PhD) was born in 1954. He was graduate in tropical medicine, parasitology, virology, medical entomology, epidemiology and public health. He is Director of Research at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development in the "Mother and child facing tropical diseases" Unit. He spent his entire career in sub-Saharan Africa and South America studying the transmission and management of tropical diseases, mainly NTD. For over 30 years, he conducted clinical research to improve the accessibility of drugs and vaccines effective and sufficiently safe for routine use at large-scale and in peripheral health centers.

After completing his national service in French Guiana at the Institut Pasteur as medical entomologist in 1981-1982, he was recruited by the IRD in 1984. He held positions in a) Benin (1985-1989) working on coastal and lagoon malaria, and dracunculiasis; b) Cameroon (1989-1994) performing clinical studies on ivermectin for prophylaxis of ocular complications of onchocerciasis, and studying loiasis transmission and management; c) Niger (1994-2000) as director of the Meningitis and Schistosomosis Research Center (CERMES) in Niamey where he carried out clinical trials on praziquantel against bilharziasis and vaccines against Hemophilus and Neisseria meningitis; d) Senegal (2000-2005) where he coordinated research activities in the demographic surveillance system of Niakhar; e) Bolivia (2005-2008) where he directed clinical trial on benznidazole against congenital Chagas disease. He returned in Benin (2010-2017) to build the Institut de Recherche Clinique du Bénin and prepare clinical development of a new candidate vaccine against malaria associated with pregnancy (VAR2CSA). He is currently at Institut Pasteur de Paris, studying scorpion sting and snakebite envenoming in Africa and Latin America, and performing clinical studies on antivenoms.

During all his various assignments, he participated in zoological studies on venomous animals, epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic studies on snakebite and scorpion stings envenoming.

He is member (Core Adviser) of the WHO Expert Group "Snakebite Envenoming Working Group" since November 2017.

He co-organizes the Venomous and Poisonous Animals course at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. He is members of several journal editorial boards: Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, Journal of Venomous Animal & Toxins, including Tropical Diseases (Associate Editor), PLoS NTD (Deputy Editor), Toxins, and Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique.

He published over 300 articles in peer review journals and 300 communications in international congress, mostly on snakebite and scorpion sting envenoming and management.