Author of more than 190 publications and patents (h-index 38), Prof. Jacques Lebreton has been Professor at the Department of Science, Nantes University since 1999. He serves as a member of the Review Committee for international journals: European Journal of Organic Chemistry (2004-2014), Current Organic Synthesis (2004- ), Mediterranean Journal of Chemistry (2011) and more recently Molecules: Medicinal Chemistry section (2019-). He was also elected as Member of the National Committee for Scientific Research (CoCNRS – section 12, 2012-2016 and 2017-2022), and very recently, he was nominated (2022-) as panel experts for HCERES (Haut Conseil de l’Evaluation de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur).

He received his Ph.D. degree (1986) from the University of Paris XI-Orsay under the supervision of Professor Eric Brown (Le Mans). His thesis work included the total synthesis of C-nor D-homosteroids. In 1986, he began his first post-doctoral fellowship with Professor James A. Marshall at the University of South Carolina working on the [2,3]-Wittig rearrangement and its application in total synthesis. Followed by a second post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Robert E. Ireland at the University of Virginia working on the total synthesis of monensine. In 1990 he worked with Dr. Alain De Mesmaeker’s group in the field of antisense, in the laboratories of CIBA-GEIGY (Novartis) in Basel.

Most of his recent work has focused on the synthesis of bioactive molecules, such as steroids, nucleosides, alkaloids, azasugars, marine natural products, as well as Antibody-Drug Conjugates, for biological evaluation purposes in the fields of viral diseases, central nervous system diseases, cancer and drugs delivery through academic and industrial collaborations. His research efforts also include the synthesis of labelled molecules to study biological processes. His new major research interests focus on the development of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) inhibitors and broad-spectrum nucleoside and non-nucleoside antiviral agents.

Prof. Jacques Lebreton has been awarded the Drug Discovery and Development Award 2001 by the scientific committee of GlaxoSmithKline for a project about novel HIV inhibitors directed by Erwan Loret (CNRS Marseille).