Affiliation: INSERM

Farida Djouad received her PhD in Biology and Health from Montpellier University in Prof. Jorgensen’s laboratory, France, in 2005. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIAMS), Bethesda, in Prof. Tuan’s laboratory in the field of mesenchymal stem cells and cartilage engineering. In 2013, she was recruited at INSERM as a senior scientist (INSERM U1183) and started to head her own group “Stem cells, blastema, and regeneration” at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy, Montpellier, France. She pioneered research in the immunoregulatory properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). This discovery has a tremendous impact on clinical trials using mesenchymal stem cells and made her an internationally recognized researcher in this field. In 2021, she was promoted to research director at INSERM in part due to her significant contribution to the understanding of in vitro and in vivo mechanisms involved in the immunosuppressive properties of mesenchymal stem cells and their therapeutic potential in osteoarticular diseases. Currently, her group aims at developing: 1) innovative strategies to optimize the immunomodulatory and pro-regenerative capacities of MSC and MSC derivatives, and 2) innovative solutions to evaluate in vivo the regenerative and immunomodulatory effects of modified MSC and their derivatives for preclinical and clinical protocols.