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Julien Mazières

Coordinator

CHU de Toulouse

Steering Committee Strategic Committee

Julien Mazières

Coordinator

Julien Mazières is a pulmonologist (primary specialization) and an oncologist (secondary specialization), heading the pulmonary medicine department at Toulouse University Hospital in France. He also leads the thoracic oncology program at Toulouse Cancer Institute (IUCT). He is a researcher at Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm) in the Oncology Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT, UMR1037, SIGNATHER team).

Olivier Calvayrac

Co-Coordinator

CRCT / SIGNATHER, Toulouse

Steering Committee Strategic Committee

Olivier Calvayrac

Co-Coordinator

Olivier Calvayrac’s main research objective is to decipher the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways underlying lung cancer progression and resistance to targeted therapies. His work particularly focuses on the Rho GTPases family that controls a wide variety of signal transduction pathways in response to cellular stress. Since joining the CRCT in 2012, he has been developing his scientific projects through a translational perspective in close relationship with clinicians, to integrate in vitro, in vivo and patient data, thus reinforcing the clinical relevance of his results and facilitating the transfer of fundamental knowledge to the patients.

Michaël Duruisseaux

Co-Coordinator (rotating)

Oncopharmacology, Lyon, HCL

Steering Committee Strategic Committee

Michaël Duruisseaux

Co-Coordinator (rotating)

Michael Duruisseaux is the coordinator of the general and orphan thoracic oncology team in the pneumology department of the Louis Pradel Hospital (Hospices Civils de Lyon) and the medical director of the Joint Research Unit in Thoracic Oncology of the Hospices Civilians of Lyons. He is a doctor-researcher in the OncoPharmacology team at the Lyon Cancer Research Center (INSERM 1052, CNRS 5286) and leads a group within this team. Michael Duruisseaux also coordinates the teaching of Pneumology at the Faculty of Medicine Lyon-Est, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1. He is a member of the board of the Intergroupe Francophone en Cancérologie Thoracique (IFCT) and co-directs the “CBNPC ALK Group” of the IFCT.

Virginie Albinet

Project Manager

CHU de Toulouse

Steering Committee Strategic Committee

Virginie Albinet

Project Manager

Virginie Albinet is the Project Manager of COALA. She holds a PhD in cancer research and has over 15 years of experience in biomedical research. For 11 years, she led preclinical project development and management at a preclinical CRO. Throughout her career, she has gained extensive expertise in designing experimental protocols, research ethics, collaborating with multidisciplinary teams, managing study execution, scientific communication, sponsor relations, and bridging academic and industrial research environments.

Marianne Navarra

Project manager (Clinical Research Unit)

CHU Toulouse

Steering Committee

Fatiha Boudouh-Ponsard

Guichet unique

CHU Toulouse

Steering Committee

Alexis Cortot

OncoLille, Lille

Strategic Committee

Alexis Cortot

Alexis cortot is a pulmonary onocologist at Lille University Hospital. His expertise encompasses human clinical research in lung cancer, targeted therapies, theranostic biomarkers in lung cancer, the biology of oncogene-addicted lung cancer, and the biological and clinical targeting of the MET receptor.

Aurélie Swalduz

Centre Léon Bérard, Lille

Strategic Committee

Aurélie Swalduz

Aurelie Swalduz practices in Lyon. Her top areas of expertise are Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), EGFR Positive Lung Cancer, and Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). Her clinical research consists of co-authoring 35 peer reviewed articles and participating in 7 clinical trials in the past 15 years.

Audrey Vézian

CNRS, Lyon, ENS Lyon

Strategic Committee

Audrey Vézian

Audrey Vézian has a PhD in sociology at Sciences Po and has been a post-doctoral researcher at ENS Lyon and Cancer center Léon Bérard since 2015. After completing a dissertation on the reorganization of Cancer Research in France between 2002-2013, she conducted two successive studies, one on the design and implementation processes of a public policy promoting personalized medicine in the cancer area (Sites intégrés de recherche sur le cancer) and the other on the intervention of private actors in the production of big data in biopathology.

Antoine DEROY

Diane Damotte

Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris

Strategic Committee

Diane Damotte

Diane Damotte is head of a scientist team in the “Inflammation, Complement and Cancer“ team in the Cordeliers Research Center (INSERM U1138, Paris, France) involved in the analysis of the tumor immune environment and focusing on lung cancer and Hodgkin disease. The team has developped several approach to analyze the immune environment using in situ technics such as multiplex immunostaining and Digital Spatial Profiling.

Eric Tartour

CRC - Hôpital Georges Pompidou, Paris

Strategic Committee

Eric Tartour

During his scientific career, Eric Tartour made several pioneer scientific observations in the tumor-immunology field : i) In collaboration with Ludger Johannes, he provide the proof of concept in preclinical model of the value to target antigen to dendritic cells to enhance specific CD8+T cells (Lee RS Eur J Immunol 1998)(Haicheur N J Immunol 2000) ii) he demonstrated the pro-and anti-tumor immunity of the cytokine interleukin-17 (Tartour E Cancer Res 1999)(Benchetrit F Blood 2002). This ambivalent activity of this cytokine has been generalized to most other cytokines. iii) He firstly showed that TH1 cytokine in the tumor microenvironment may be associated with a good prognosis (Tartour E et al J Natl Cancer Inst 1998). iv) He also recently provided arguments about the need to induce local mucosal tumor immunity to control mucosal tumors (Sandoval F Sci Transl Med 2013)(Nizard Clin Cancer Res 2016).

Jean-Marc ALLIOT

Lynnette Fernandez-Cuesta

IARC-WHO, Lyon

Strategic Committee

Lynnette Fernandez-Cuesta

Lynnette Fernandez-Cuesta has more than 15 years of experience in the field of thoracic cancer functional genomics. During her postdoc in the Max Planck Institute and Department of Translational Genomics in Cologne, Germany, she led the characterization of the genomic landscape of lung neuroendocrine neoplasms, identifying major molecular drivers of small-cell lung cancer, large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma, and pulmonary carcinoids. She also led the discovery of recurrent NRG1 fusions in lung adenocarcinomas from never-smokers. As a principal investigator at IARC-WHO, she launched the Rare Cancers Genomics initiative, leading to major breakthroughs in the field of thoracic tumors with the lungNENomics and MESOMICS projects. One to highlight is the discovery of supra-carcinoids. She currently leads, together with Matthieu Foll, the Computational Cancer Genomics team at IARC-WHO.

Marco Alifano

Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris

Strategic Committee

Marco Alifano

Marco Alifano is Chief of Department of Thoracic Surgery of Cochin Hospital (2019-currently) and Full Professor of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Paris Cité University (PU-PH 1C). He has also been appointed on October 2017 as Visiting Professor in Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, for three years and renewed in 2020.

Marie-Christelle PAJIEP CHAPDA

Marie Wislez

Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris

Strategic Committee

Marie Wislez

Marie Wislez has headed the Thoracic Oncology Unit since September 2018. She is a university professor involved in research into the role played by the immune and inflammatory microenvironment in cancer, within the "cancer, immune control and escape" Inserm U1138 Centre de Recherches des Cordeliers, University of Paris team. She is actively involved in setting up care pathways for rapid, outpatient diagnosis of lung cancer. Her team is heavily involved in clinical research, participating in numerous therapeutic trials, particularly in the early stages of lung cancer.

Matthieu FOLL

Quân TRAN

Robin SCHWOB

Sandra Ortiz-Cuaran

Centre Léon Bérard, Lyon

Strategic Committee

Sandra Ortiz-Cuaran

Sandra Ortiz-Cuaran did a PhD in Molecular Biology (2009-2012) in Lyon, France. During her post-doc in Roman Thomas’lab (UniKoeln, Germany) (2012-2015), she demonstrated that genomic alterations in KRAS, ERBB2 or MET functionally drive resistance to EGFR inhibitors in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). As a Research Associate in the team of Alain Puisieux (2015-2018), at the Cancer Research Center of Lyon (CRCL, France), her work evidenced that CD70 induces ZEB1 and promotes T-cell exhaustion in pulmonary sarcomatoid tumors. She also started an independent line of investigation to assess the mechanisms of resistance to therapy in BRAF-mutant LUAD, using ctDNA profiling. Since 2018 she leads a lung cancer group in the team of Pierre Saintigny (CRCL), as a tenured-research scientist, which focuses on understanding the role of cancer cell plasticity in resistance to therapy in LUAD. In this context, she started the institutional initiative for the generation of LUAD patient-derived organoids. In 2021, she initiated the BOLERO Consortium, gathering European leaders in the biology and clinical management of BRAF-mutant LUAD, to foster the discoveries of treatment strategies to improve the survival of these patients.

Patients’association representative

Patient’s association representative

ALK + ROS1, Paris

Strategic Committee

Patients’association representative

Patient’s association representative

ALK+ ROS1 is an association of lung cancer patients with ALK or ROS1 rearrangements (genetic mutations).

Their main objectives are to :
To raise awareness of these rare forms of lung cancer
To support patients in their care and inform them about the disease
To encourage research into the development of new treatments
To represent ALK and ROS1 patients in professional and decision-making bodies, and ensure that all have access to the latest therapeutic advances

Tania JOUFFREY

Vera Pancaldi

CRCT / NetB(IO)², Toulouse

Strategic Committee

Vera Pancaldi

Vera Pancaldi’s main current focus is relating patient heterogeneity, for example in tumor infiltrating immune cells, to patient prognosis in lung and other cancers and she has 15 years of experience in computational biology. She leads a 15 people strong team with a small wet-lab, and they use multi-omics integrative approaches, machine learning and network theory as well as mathematical models to describe and simulate the tumor microenvironment, with a special focus on the immuno-suppressive role of tumor associated macrophages. They have multiple collaborations with experts in immunotherapy and cancer metabolism and a strong interest in network medicine, as well as expertise on epigenomics.

Virginie Westeel

Cooperative intergroup representative

IFCT, Paris

Strategic Committee

Virginie Westeel

Cooperative intergroup representative

Virginie Westeel is Professor of Pulmonology at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, France and head of the Thoracic Oncology unit in the University Hospital of Besançon, France. She is a graduate of the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, France and her specialty is pulmonary medicine. Her clinical and research activities are exclusively dedicated to lung cancer and her research interests include lung cancer therapeutics, follow-up and evidence-based medicine. She has taken on the role of Joint Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Lung Cancer Review Group in 2013. She is currently the President of the French Thoracic Oncology Intergroup (Intergroupe Francophone de Cancérologie Thoracique, IFCT), an independent, non-profit academic research intergroup specializing in thoracic oncology.