Andrés Finzi

Biography

Dr. Finzi graduated from the Université de Montréal. He continues his postgraduate studies in virology in Dr. Joseph Sodroski’s laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard Medical School) where he identifies key structural elements within HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins essential for viral entry. This discovery earned him the prestigious Mathilde Krim Scholarship, awarded by the American Society for AIDS Research (amfAR). Dr. Finzi began an academic career in the Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology at the Université de Montréal in September 2011, and received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Quebec Health Research Fund (FRQS). Since 2014, Dr. Finzi has been awarded a Canada Research Chair in retroviral entry Dr Finzi made several seminal contributions to the field of HIV/AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 research. His work has important implications for the development of new therapeutic strategies to fight HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.   His work earned him several prestigious awards, including the Young Faculty Award bestowed by the NIH Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine and Immunogen Design (CHAVI-ID, 2016), the Joe Doupe Young Investigator Award (Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, 2019), the André Dupont Young Investigator Award (Club de recherches cliniques du Québec, 2020), Étoile Effervescence by Montréal INVIVO (2022). The quality and impact of his research was recognized by his admission to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada in 2020. F

Team

• Étienne Bélanger (MSc student)
• Katrina Dionne (MSc student)
• Guillaume Beaudoin-Bussières (PhD student)
• Lorie Marchitto (PhD student)
• Mehdi Benlarbi (PhD student)
• Manon Nayrac (postdoctoral fellow)
• Alexandra Tauzin (postdoctoral fellow)
• Kaho Matsumoto (postdoctoral fellow)
• Shilei Ding (research associate)
• Jonathan Richard (research associate)
• Catherine Bourassa (technicien)
• Debashree Chatterjee (research coordinator)
• Halima Medjahed (research assistant)

Themes

• Virology (HIV, SARS-CoV-2, emergent viruses)
• Immunology

Research topics

• • Structural and functional studies of HIV Env and SARS-CoV-2 Spike
  • Neutralizing and Fc-effector functions against HIV and SARS-CoV-2
  • Impact of Env/Spike conformation on humoral responses
  • Development of new strategies to eliminate HIV-1-infected cells
  • Development of new HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors

Publications

• Veillette M, Désormeaux A, Medjahed H, Gharsallah N, Coutu M, Baalwa J, Guan Y, Lewis G, Ferrari G, Hahn B, Haynes B, Robinson J, Kaufmann D, Bonsignori M, Sodroski J and Finzi A. Interaction with Cellular CD4 Exposes HIV-1 Envelope Epitopes Targeted by Antibody-Dependent Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity. Journal of Virology. 2014. 88(5):2633-44.
• Richard J., Veillette M., Brassard N., Iyer SS., Roger M., Martin L., Pazgier M., Schön A., Freire E., Routy JP., Smith III AB., Park J., Jones DM., Courter JR., Melillo BN., Kaufmann DE., Hahn BH., Permar S., Haynes B, Madani N., Sodroski J., and Finzi A. CD4 Mimetics Sensitize HIV-1-Infected Cells to ADCC. 2015. PNAS. 19;112(20):E2687-94.

• Prévost J., Anand SP., Rajashekar JK., Zhu L., Richard J., Goyette G., Medjahed H., Gendron-Lepage G., Chen HC., Chen Y., Horwitz JA., Grunst MW., Zolla-Pazner S., Haynes BF., Burton DR., Flavell RA., Kirchhoff F., Hahn BH., Smith III AB., Pazgier M., Nussenzweig MC., Kumar P., and Finzi A#.  HIV-1 Vpu restricts Fc-mediated effector functions in vivo.  Cell Reports. 2022. 41(6):111624. https://doi.org/1016/j.celrep.2022.111624

• Laumaea A#., Marchitto L., Ding S., Beaudoin-Bussières G., Prévost J., Gasser R., Chatterjee D., Gendron-Lepage G., Medjahed H., Chen HC., Smith III AB., Ding H., Kappes JC., Hahn BH., Kirchhoff F., Richard J., Duerr R., Finzi A#.  Small CD4 mimetics sensitize HIV-1-infected macrophages to antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity.  Cell Reports. 2022. 42(1):111983. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(22)01887-3.pdf
• Tauzin A., Gong SY., Beaudoin-Bussières G., Vézina D., Gasser R., Nault L., Marchitto L., Benlarbi M., Chatterjee D., Nayrac M., Laumaea A., Prévost J., Boutin M., Sannier G., Nicolas A., Bourassa C., Gendron-Lepage G., Medjahed H., Goyette G., Bo Y., Perreault J., Gokool L., Morrisseau C., Arlotto P., Bazin R., Dubé M., De Serres G., Brousseau N., Richard J., Rovito R., Côté M., Tremblay C., Merchetti GC., Duerr R., Martel-Laferrière V., Kaufmann DE., and Finzi A. Strong humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 Spike after BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination with a 16-week interval between doses.  Cell Host and Microbe. 2022. 30:97-109.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2021.12.004

Beaudoin-Bussières G., Chen Y., Ullah I., Prévost J., Tolbert WD., Symmes K., Ding S., Benlarbi M., Gong SY., Tauzin A., Gasser R., Chatterjee D., Vézina D.,