Olivier Le Saux, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Area of Expertise ~ Skin and cardiovascular diseases, ectopic calcification
Email: lesaux@hawaii.edu
Phone: +1 808-692-1504
Biography: Dr. Le Saux obtained an engineering degree in Biotechnologies from the Université d’Aix-Marseille I, Marseille in France. He continued on with graduate studies in microbiology at a CNRS/INSA laboratory in the city of Lyon, France and graduated with a Ph.D. in 1997. Moving half a world away, he joined as a post-doctoral fellow the laboratory of Dr. Charles Boyd at the University of Hawaii (UH) in Honolulu, HI. The Boyd’s lab focused on the extracellular matrix and more specifically on elastic fibers, lysyl oxidases and associated diseases, including supravalvular aortic stenosis, cutix laxa and pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE). Dr. Le Saux’ on PXE work led to the discovery of the causative gene (ABCC6) in late 1999. This discovery was published in Nature Genetics. Early in his career at UH, he became a Junior Investigator of the first (cardiovascular) COBRE grant in Hawaiʻi. He benefited from the support and mentorship from this award, which helped him secure a tenure-track position at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) and later obtain independent funding. In 2014, he contributed to the awarding of the COBRE Diabetes grant and the development of Diabetes Research Center at UH. His role on the COBRE Diabetes grant has been the mentoring of junior investigators (JI) and the development and management of the Resource Core that included animal phenotyping and genomics services as well as education and training.
Research: The Le Saux laboratory works towards understanding the molecular events regulating ectopic (abnormal) calcification in soft tissues. For this purpose, he continues to work primarily on PXE but also other heritable disorders with overlapping calcification phenotypes, including generalized arterial calcification of infancy (GACI). These diseases, through their respective animal models, are pertinent models to learn more about of pathophysiological processes leading to abnormal mineralization in a variety of common disorders such as atherosclerosis, diabetes and kidney diseases. The study of the multiple physiological roles of ABCC6 is off particular interest to Dr. Le Saux: what tissue and cells contribute to inhibition of calcification, how ABCC6 regulated atherosclerosis, diabetes-related calcification and cardiac functions through the expression of genes related to nucleotide and phosphate metabolism. He also uses genetically modified mouse models to evaluate therapeutic solutions to ameliorate pathologic calcification through pharmacologic treatments with support from pharmaceutical partners. He participates in a pilot clinical trial for PXE patients in collaboration with Drs. Martin and Leftheriotis of the University Hospital of Angers and Nice, France.