INSERM UMRS1138 Integrative Cancer Immunology

Laboratory of Integrative Cancer Immunology

People

Integrative Cancer Immunology · 15 Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, 75006 Paris, France
Tel +33 1 4427 9101 · Fax +33 1 4427 8117 · URL http://www.ici.upmc.fr/index.shtml

INTEGRATIVE CANCER IMMUNOLOGY

We hypothesize that integrative biology approaches (at multiple levels, DNA, RNA, miRNA, proteins, cell types, 3D-localization) will provide a better knowledge of the local interplay between the immune components and the tumor cells. In particular, the research project is focusing on the analysis of immune response against cancer with basic and clinical aspects.
The objectives of this project are to develop innovations in oncology research, based on a better global understanding of the tumor microenvironment and of the dynamics of the host-immune response in human, using high-throughput methods, novel technologies, and integrative biology approaches.

The team is open to collaborators from very diverse disciplines such as immunology, cancerology, math, computer science, bioinformatics, statistics, biostatistics, chemistry, physics, genetics, microbiology, … They are welcome to join the team to tackle ambitious questions including :

- Is the immune system important against cancer, and which immune reaction would be required?

- How to understand the host immune response against cancer during tumor evolution?

- Is there a correlative or rather a causative relationship between intratumoral immune reaction and tumor development?

- Why is the presence of a memory T cell reaction within the primary tumor, prognostic? Why is the primary tumor not eliminated by the immune system?

- Which immune events and/or tumor events lead to inadequate host-immune response in the control of tumor development? and of tumor relapse?

- What are the immune escape mechanisms in human cancer?

- How to identify patients with poor prognosis who would benefit from adjuvant therapy?

- How to develop an efficient cancer immunotherapy?

We have developped a multi-disciplinary network with research scientists in immunology and cancerology, clinical teams and bioinformaticians. Global understanding of cancer requires the integration and analysis of genomic, proteomic, transcriptomic, molecular, cellular, as well as clinical data and requires bioinformatics. Bioinformatics nowadays has an essential role both, in deciphering data generated by high-throughput experimental technologies, and in organizing information gathered from traditional biology and medicine.
Bioinformaticians built specific databases for (i) clinical and biological data, (ii) DNA microarrays, and (iii) Software for complex analysis and visualization of the data.
Our Studies of human cancer involves close collaboration with the European Georges Pompidou Hospital, Paris; Graz University of Medicine, Graz University of Technology, Innsbruck University of Medicine, Austria.
Our team (Galon J, Pagès F, and coll.) is integrated in Canceropole Ile-de-France, and received support from INSERM, the National Cancer Institute (INCa), Ville de Paris and Europe-7FP (GENINCA).

key words: cancer, prognosis, immune system, integrative biology, bioinformatics