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About our Editors

Romeo Cecchelli, Editorial Board Member
University of Artois, France
Find publications in PubMed

Prof Romeo Cecchelli graduated as a physiologist and holds a PhD in Physiology and a Doctorat es sciences in Biochemistry from the University of Lille.

He soon became interested in the transport of drugs across the blood-brain barrier and in the early 90s, he set up, at the Pasteur Institute in Lille, an in vitro blood-brain barrier model; consisting of a co-culture of brain capillary endothelial cells and glial cells. The model has shown a high correlation between in vitro and in vivo permeability analysis of a wick range of molecules. In 1997, he was appointed as full Professor of Cell Biology at the Université d’Artois, Faculté des Sciences Jean Perrin in Lens (France).

In 2001, he founded a spin-off of his laboratory (Cellial Technologies) which is specialised on in vitro studies for drug brain penetration and toxicity studies at the level of the central nervous system. He is still scientific advisor of the company.

The current research on his laboratory is focused on three axis: cell-cell interactions at the neurovascular unit, the neurovascular protection during ischemia and the role of the BBB in neurotoxicity using neuronal-glial cultures and Alzheimer disease; The group has a notable experience in European Union projects in toxicology (FP6-ACUTETOX and FP7- PREDICT IV) and EUSTROKE (FP7), where it is in charge of WP1 “Modelling the neuro vascular unit”.

Since 2005, he is first vice-president of the University in charge of the research.