Marianne Abifadel

Professor Marianne Abi Fadel is the elected Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Saint Jospeh University of Beirut since 2013, the director of the laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Therapeutics (LBTM) at the School of Pharmacy, and a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at USJ. She is also an invited researcher at INSERM U1148 at Bichat hospital and Paris Cité University in Paris, and the director of the Laboratory Rodolphe Mérieux in Lebanon since 2018.

She obtained her Pharmacy Diploma in 1996, and her Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Biochemistry Specialization Diploma from USJ, then her PhD in Molecular Genetics in 2003 and the French accreditation to supervise research in 2009 from the University Paris-Descartes. Her main scientific achievement is the discovery of the implication of PCSK9 in Familial Hypercholesterolemia by identifying its first gain of function (GOF) mutations (Abifadel et al. Nature Genetics 2003). This was the seminal paper linking PCSK9 to cholesterol metabolism and was the starting point of the PCSK9 adventure from gene to a new therapeutic class: the anti-PCSK9.

With several publications in journals with high impact factor, she was awarded several national and international distinctions: the prestigious Christophe Mérieux Prize 2021 from the “Institute de France” in Paris and the Golden Award of the Italian Society of Atherosclerosis in 2022. She is an elected member in the National French Academy of Pharmacy as international correspondent since 2019. National Lead of Lebanon at EAS-FHSC; Member of the International Society of Atherosclerosis representing the MENA region.

Her research focuses on PCSK9, the genetics of Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH), dyslipidemia, aneurysms, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in Lebanon, in the Middle East and in the French population in collaboration with INSERM in Paris and other teams around the world.