Pierre-Yves Bochud Lab

Pierre-Yves Bochud, MD
Service of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine
University Hospital
++41 (0)21 314 4379
pierre-yves.bochud@chuv.ch

Research topics

Genetics of Innate Immune Responses to Infectious Diseases and Vaccines

Despite the continuous development of antimicrobial drugs over the last 50 years, infection is still one the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. For many years, it has been known that susceptibility to infection depends on both environmental and host factors. In recent years, increasing evidence has highlighted the importance of host genetic factors in susceptibility to human diseases. The availability of high throughput genotyping techniques has opened new perspectives to further improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. Most recent genotyping techniques allow the detection of large numbers of markers, providing screening capabilities that could not be imagined a few years ago.

1. Severe infections in immunocompromised patient

Genetic polymorphisms associated with increased or decreased risk for infections may be particularly relevant for immunocompromised patients, such has those undergoing organ transplantation and/or taking long-term immunosuppressive drugs. Patients who are at high risk for specific pathogens may benefit from personalized and preventive measures, such as individualized surveillance, antimicrobial prophylaxis and/or specific vaccination programs.

Studies on genetic factors associated with severe infections in hematopoietic cell transplant recipients are conducted in collaboration with Prof. M. Boeckh and Prof. J. A. Hansen from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Prof. A. Aderem from the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, and Prof. T. Calandra and Dr. T. Roger from the Service of Infectious Diseases of Lausanne University Hospital.

2. Hepatitis C

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has an estimated worldwide prevalence of 3% and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Several clinical features of HCV infection show a large inter-individual variability. The aim of the project is to investigate which genetic factors are associated with the clinical presentation of HCV infection within the Swiss Hepatitis C Cohort Study (SCCS, coll. Prof. F Negro and Prof. D. Moradpour).

This project is carried out in collaboration with Dr. P. Descombes, UNIGE, Frontiers in Genetics, Prof. S. Bergmann at the Department of Genetics of the University of Lausanne and Dr. M. Bochud at the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, university of Lausanne. It is supported by the Leenaards foundation.

3. Hepatitis B vaccine (Vaxigen B)

There are about 360 millions chronic carriers of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and 600’000 HBV-related deaths per year worldwide. For healthcare workers regularly exposed to human blood, the risk of infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is an important concern. This risk can be controlled by the use of HBV vaccine that has proven to be safe and efficient. However, ~5% of vaccinated subjects do not mount an efficient antibody response against HBs antigens. Hyporesponsiveness is (at least in part) due to genetic factors. The aim of the project is to detect host genetic factors that influence non-response to HBV immunization.

This project is performed in collaboration with the Healthcare worker Service “Médecine du Personnel”, CHUV (Dr Catherine Lazor and Prof. Patrick Francioli), the “Hôpital Fribourgeois” (PD Dr Christian Chuard), the “Institut Central des Hôpitaux Valaisans” (PD Dr Nicolas Troillet and Dr Frank Bally), the Service of Infectious Diseases of CHUV (Dr Thierry Roger, Prof. Thierry Calandra) and Prof. A. Telenti (IMUL). It is supported by the Infectigen foundation

Selected publications