Speakers

Naim Akhtar Khan

Place of Birth : India
Born : 1959
Position : Director of the Nutritional Physiology & Toxicology division, INSERM UMR 1231, Université de Bourgogne, France
Field of study : Non-communicable diseases (obesity and diabetes); eating behavior; genetic polymorphism & obesity; Cell biology and drug-targeting; chemical synthesis of taste modifiers
H. Index : 31

Dr. Akhtar Khan is Director of the Nutritional Physiology & Toxicology division, INSERM UMR 1231, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. He is also professor of Physiology (Exceptional Class). He had worked at Institut Für Immunologie (Munchen), Neurology Institute (Mexico) and Chiba University (Japan). Member of several Editorial Boards and Associate Editor of “Frontiers in Physiology”, Obtained international prizes like Vltava and Robert Naquet from French Physiological Society. He has a long experience of guiding PhD students.

He has been working on non-communicable diseases, particularly on gene-nutrient interaction in obesity via tongue-brain-axis. His team is not only the pioneer to demonstrate the existence of the 6th sense of taste, i.e., taste for fat, implicated in the perception of dietary lipids, but also explored the taste signal transduction mechanisms that are altered in obese subjects. The taste sensor/CD36 genetic polymorphism in obese subjects is associated with high oro-sensory detection thresholds for dietary fat, and this phenomenon contributes to the aggravation of obesity. These clinical studies have been conducted on Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan and Czech populations where junk-food intake is rapidly growing up. At present, his team is not only exploring the use of plant ingredients but also synthesizing new class of agents, as “fat taste modifiers” that will bring no calories and can be used to decrease the fat-eating behaviour in obese and diabetic-obese subjects.

• In 2009, he was VLTAVA Laureate, discerned by the French Embassy in Prague in order to strengthen bilateral French-Czech collaborative research work.

• He has been awarded the “Linnolec Lectureship in Neurobiology” in 2010 by the Masaryk University in Czech Republic.

• In 2012, he has been awarded the “Robert Naquet Prize” by the French Society of Physiology for his excellent contribution in the field of Nutritional Physiology and to head a think-tank on “Digestion, Alimentation and Chemical Senses”

• Professor of Physiology - University of Burgundy, Dijon (From 1997 onwards)

• Associate Professor, Physiology - University of Limoges (1993 – 1997)

• Lecturer, Pharmaceutical Physiology - University of Rennes I, Rennes (1992 – 1993)

• Assistant-Associé, Cell Biology - University of Rennes I, Rennes (1989 – 1992)

• National scholarship of ARC, University of Rennes I (1988 – 1989)

• Assistant Research Officer - All India Inst. of Med. Sciences, N. Delhi, India (1986 – 1987)

• Research Associate - Institute of Biotechnology, AMU, Aligarh, India (1985 – 1986)

• Senior Research Fellow - All India Inst. of Med. Sciences, New Delhi, India (1984 – 1985)

• Junior Research Fellow - University of Garhwal, Pauri-Garhwal, India (1979 – 1984)