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Stewart Cole

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See also: Kenneth Stewart Cole

Sir Stewart Thomas Cole KCMG FRS (born 1955) is a British/French microbiologist. He was the Director General of the Pasteur Institute since January 2018 to December 2023.

Early life and education

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Cole grew up in Wales, where he was educated at Milford Haven Grammar School and then at Ardwyn Grammar School, Aberystwyth. Following a life-threatening bout of paratyphoid he developed an interest in bacteria, viruses and infectious diseases, which led to his reading microbiology at the University of Wales, in Cardiff (now Cardiff University) followed by research for his PhD at the University of Sheffield, England. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Umeå (Sweden) and a research assistant at the Max-Planck-Institut for Biology, Tübingen (Germany).

Career and research

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Stewart Cole has been active in infectious disease research and global health for many years. Between 2007 and 2017, he was a full professor and director of the Global Health Institute at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology).[1] His laboratory at EPFL closed in December 2018. He was previously professor, senior vice president and scientific director of the Pasteur Institute in Paris (1983 – 2007), which he later rejoined as Director General.

His research accomplishments in microbiology have been widely acclaimed and are of direct relevance to global health and disease-control in both the developing world and the industrialized nations. Over four decades his team has investigated a range of topics including: bacterial electron transport systems; the genomics and diagnostics of retroviruses (HIV) and oncogenic papillomaviruses (HPV); antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and the molecular microbiology of toxigenic clostridia. Cole is best known for his pioneering work on the genomics, evolution and virulence of pathogenic mycobacteria, especially those causing the human diseases tuberculosis (TB), leprosy and Buruli ulcer.

Cole has supervised numerous students for MS and PhD degrees, and trained >50 postdoctoral fellows and clinicians. With them, he has published over 400 scientific papers and review articles.[2] Notable alumni include Priscille Brodin, Bruno Canard, Roland Brosch, Stephen Gordon, Alexander Pym and Tim Stinear.

Cole is also an inventor on many patents, several of which were licensed to industrial partners giving rise to diagnostic and therapeutic products that have found direct application in human medicine and helped save lives.[3]

Cole was scientific coordinator for the New Medicines For Tuberculosis project (NM4TB),[4] running from 2006 to 2009 and the ensuing More Medicines For Tuberculosis project (MM4TB)[5] running from 2011 to 2016 in the context of the FP7 European Union's Research and Innovation funding programme. This work led to the discovery of the TB drug candidate BTZ043[6] and PBTZ169[7] based on the benzothiazinone scaffold.

In 2014, EPFL mandated its spin-off iM4TB, (Innovative Medicines for Tuberculosis ) a not-for-profit foundation, to raise funds and undertake preclinical development of PBTZ169. This was achieved with support from EPFL and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Both BTZ043 and PBTZ169 completed phase 1 clinical trials and then entered phase 2a trials.[8][9]

In 2019, Cole was appointed academic Scientific leader of the public-private initiative ERA4TB (European Regimen Accelerator for Tuberculosis). ERA4TB is developing new treatment regimens for TB and receives funding from the European Commission's IMI Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Accelerator.[10]

Director of the Pasteur Institute

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Stewart Cole was appointed as the 16th director general of the Pasteur Institute on 13 October 2017,[11][12] 130 years after its foundation, thus becoming the first non-French appointee. He took office on 2 January 2018, when he began to prepare the institute's Strategic Plan for 2019–2023. The overarching ambition of the Strategic Plan was to give new impetus to basic research at the institute and to increase its impact on human health. Priority areas of the Strategic Plan included (re)emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, brain connectivity and neurodegenerative diseases.[13] From the Strategic Plan it is clear that the four missions originally defined by Louis Pasteur for his institute - research, public health, training/education and translating research into applications of value to humanity - are as relevant today as they were in 1887 when the Pasteur Institute was founded. He completed his term on 31 December 2023.

In 2024 joined the Ineos Oxford Institute[14] on antimicrobial research as Executive Chair and became President of the Pasteur Foundation - UK.[15]

He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to science.[16]

Awards and distinctions

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Notes and references

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  1. ^ "UPCOL – Cole Lab – Chair of Microbial Pathogenesis".
  2. ^ "Stewart Cole". scholar.google.com. Archived from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  3. ^ "Stewart Cole Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications - Justia Patents Search". patents.justia.com. Archived from the original on 29 February 2024. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  4. ^ "New Medicines For Tuberculosis". Archived from the original on 9 October 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  5. ^ "More Medicines For Tuberculosis". Archived from the original on 9 October 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  6. ^ Makarov, Vadim (14 March 2009). "Benzothiazinones Kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Blocking Arabinan Synthesis". Science. 324 (5928): 801–804. Bibcode:2009Sci...324..801M. doi:10.1126/science.1171583. PMC 3128490. PMID 19299584.
  7. ^ Makarov, Vadim; Lechartier, Benoit; Zhang, Ming; Neres, João; Sar, Astrid M; Raadsen, Susanne A; Hartkoorn, Ruben C; Ryabova, Olga B; Vocat, Anthony; Decosterd, Laurent A; Widmer, Nicolas; Buclin, Thierry; Bitter, Wilbert; Andries, Koen; Pojer, Florence (March 2014). "Towards a new combination therapy for tuberculosis with next generation benzothiazinones". EMBO Molecular Medicine. 6 (3): 372–383. doi:10.1002/emmm.201303575. ISSN 1757-4676. PMC 3958311. PMID 24500695.
  8. ^ "Search of: BTZ043 | Tuberculosis - List Results - ClinicalTrials.gov". classic.clinicaltrials.gov. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  9. ^ "Search of: PBTZ169 | Tuberculosis - List Results - ClinicalTrials.gov". classic.clinicaltrials.gov. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  10. ^ "Homepage". IMI Innovative Medicines Initiative. Archived from the original on 19 June 2024. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  11. ^ Papageorgiou, Nik (23 October 2017). "Stewart Cole appointed president of Institut Pasteur".
  12. ^ "Professor Stewart Cole appointed President of the Institut Pasteur". 13 October 2017. Archived from the original on 18 November 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
  13. ^ "Strategic plan for 2019-2023". Institut Pasteur. 21 May 2019. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  14. ^ "Sir Stewart Cole joins the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research as Executive Chair | University of Oxford". www.ox.ac.uk. 9 January 2024. Archived from the original on 2 March 2024. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  15. ^ "Pasteur Foundation - UK". pasteurfoundation.uk. Archived from the original on 6 June 2024. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  16. ^ "No. 63571". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 2022. p. N3.
  17. ^ "Marjory Stephenson Prize Lecture". Society for General Microbiology. Archived from the original on 10 January 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  18. ^ "2009 Kochon Prize Award Winners". STOP-TB Partnership. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  19. ^ "Warm congratulations to Stewart Cole". EPFL. 11 June 2014. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  20. ^ Papageorgiou, Nik (8 August 2016). "Stewart Cole receives the Gardner Middlebrook Award 2016". EPFL. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  21. ^ sam (1 July 2023). "Honorary degrees". Your University. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
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