Guillaume Sandoz

Guillaume Sandoz is a First-Class Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Principal Investigator of the Biology of Ion Channels (BIC) laboratory at the Institute of Biology Valrose (iBV) in Nice, France. He is a former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former Visiting Professor at the University of Turin.

His research explores how nerve cells sense the world, communicate with one another to generate behaviour, and how genetic mutations disrupt these processes to cause neurological disorders such as migraine and chronic pain. By studying ion channels, small gateways in cell membranes that control electrical activity in the brain, he has revised established views of their organisation, specificity, and classification. Importantly, his laboratory identified how these channels regulate neuronal excitability and uncovered a novel mechanism of inherited migraine transmission, enabling the identification and validation of new therapeutic targets.

Building on this fundamental and translational research, the Sandoz lab has developed innovative molecular tools, including photopharmacological agents and new classes of rhodopsins that allow reversible, spatiotemporal control of pain, analgesia, and muscle contraction in freely moving animals. The lab has also advanced translational strategies for migraine, dry eye syndrome, and cystic fibrosis, as well as industrial applications in bio-inspired robotics and high-throughput analgesic drug screening. Most recently, this work led to the development of light-induced analgesia (LIA), a non-invasive, drug-free approach that efficiently reduces pain in laboratory animals, improves animal welfare during experimentation, and enhances data quality and experimental reliability.