Le 26 mai 2026, 13h:00 - 14h:00
Each month, the IHU SEPSIS invites a leading researcher to present their work on sepsis.
🎤 Evangelos J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece)
Evangelos J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis, MD, PhD, is Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and director of the MSc program of Infectious Diseases at the University of Athens. His main research contribution is immunomodulation in sepsis and in auto-inflammatory disorders. He has 606 publications in international peer-reviewed journals with more than 46,000 citations and h-index 99. He has contributed in the development of clarithromycin for immunomodulatory treatment of severe infections; and in the recognition of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) as an auto-inflammatory disorder and in the licensing of adalimumab for HS treatment. He is the current chairman of the European Sepsis Alliance and the current President of the Hellenic Society of Chemotherapy. His main achievement is the approval of anakinra for COVID-19 pneumonia in adults by the European Medicines Agency and the Food and Drug Administration through the phase 2 and 3 trials SAVE and SAVE-MORE that he designed and conducted.
💬 Interferon pathways in sepsis
One new sepsis endotype has recently been described, affecting roughly 20% of patients. Interferon (IFN)γ produced by neutrophils, NK cells, NKT cells and Th1 cells drives excess production of the chemokine CXCL9 from tissue macrophages. CXCL9 is cytotoxic for tissues leading to organ dysfunction. This endotype, called IFNγ-driven sepsis (IDS), is pro-inflammatory and it is diagnosed by the combination of blood IFNγ more than 3 pg/ml and CXCL9 more than 2200 pg/ml; 28-mortality is ranging between 40 and 43% (Giamarellos-Bourboulis EJ, et al. eBioMedicine 2024; 109: 105414). Emapalumab is a fully humanized monoclonal antibody which blocks and inactivates both free and cell-bound IFNγ. It is registered for the treatment of primary hemophagocytotic lymphohistocytosis in children. The EMBRACE randomized phase 2a controlled trial in 75 adult patients with IDS has recently been completed where two different dose regimens of emapalumab were studied versus placebo (EU CT 2024-515255-38-00; Clinicaltrials.gov NCT06694701). In EMBRACE the efficacy of emapalumab on organ function and blood biomarkers was studied.
