Job Research Foundation Makes Scientific Advisory Board Appointments: Professor Alain Fischer, MD Tapped as Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Andrew R. Gennery, MD Named to Board

(NEW YORK CITY, NY, February 19, 2019) –Job Research Foundation, which seeks to help find a cure for Job Syndrome by providing the scientific community with additional opportunities to further research into the rare immunodeficiency disorder, has announced the appointment of Dr. Alain Fischer as Chief Scientific Officer of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board and the addition of Dr. Andrew R. Gennery to the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board.

 Dr. Alain Fischer studied medicine, with a specialization in pediatrics, biochemistry, and pediatric immunology at the Université Paris Jussieu, where he received his medical and doctoral degrees in the same year. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University College London, he started independent research in a unit of the National Health Institute of Medical Research (INSERM) at the Necker Hospital in Paris. Since 1991, he has been the director of an INSERM unit for “normal and pathological development of the immune system.” Dr. Fischer also serves as a professor of pediatric immunology at the Université Paris Descartes and as a professor at the Institut Universitaire de France. Since 1996, he has served as the director of the pediatric immunology department at the Necker Hospital. He has been the founding director of the Imagine Institute on the Necker campus that gathers 500 scientists working on genetic diseases. Since 2014, he is professor at Collège de France, Paris. Dr. Fischer has received numerous awards and honors for his work in medicine and has authored more than 800 scientific papers. He has been an editor of the European Journal of Immunology, International Immunology, the EMBO Journal, Clinical and Experimental Immunology, the Annual Review of Immunology, and Science.

Dr. Andrew R. Gennery currently serves as Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Immunology and Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation at The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals in England. Dr. Gennery spent a year of post-doctoral studies working with Anne Durandy and Alain Fischer in the Necker Hospital in Paris and was involved in the discovery of Cytidine Deaminase one of the first genes to be discovered involved in class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation. Dr. Gennery has adapted new methods of T-cell depletion for patients with primary immunodeficiency and established extracorporeal photopheresis for the treatment of children with acute graft versus host disease. Dr. Gennery has written international guidelines for the treatment of patients with DNA repair disorders and CD40 ligand deficiency and is currently part of the working group writing guidelines for the use of extracorporeal photopheresis for the treatment of acute graft versus host disease. Dr. Gennery is currently Programme Director for the Academic Foundation Programme in the Northern Deanery and the Human Tissue Authority Designated Individual overseeing tissue for therapeutic use within Newcastle.

 Job Syndrome, also known as Autosomal Dominant Hyperimmunoglobulin E Syndrome (AD-HIES), was discovered in 1966 and is a multisystem immunodeficiency disorder found in males and females worldwide. It can be inherited from either parent or result from a new genetic mutation, a mutation of the STAT3 gene, which is encoded on chromosome 17q21. Approximately 300 cases of Job’s Syndrome have been reported since it was first discovered. Patients often suffer from life-threatening complications from basic infections as the disease makes the immune system extremely sensitive to bacteria. People with the syndrome often have multiple, recurring ailments, such as skin infections that cause lesions and boils, and lung infections that cause pneumonia. Visit www.jobresearchfoundation.org  for additional information about The Job Research Foundation.