Department of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Cancer

Department head: Christine PERRET
Assistant Department head: Anne-Françoise BURNOL

This department, build on the backbone of the previously EMC department, was reinforced by the arrival of  new teams coming from other departments of the Institute sharing common scientific interests. Thus, the department lead to a structure with major forces in basic research, in endocrine signaling, metabolism and cancer.

Major axes of Research

The research projects of the EMC‟s teams are focused around several major axes:

a) The genetic and biochemical dissection of the signal transduction pathways downstream of hormonal, nutrient and developmental signals in various organs, but with a special emphasis on endocrine, metabolic and digestive organs (all the teams)

b) The study of the transcriptional responses controlled by these signaling pathways (A.F Burnol and C. Postic, C. Perret, S. Vaulont and B.Viollet)

c) The analysis of the cellular responses such as proliferation, survival, differentiation and migration elicited by these different stimuli in both physiological and pathological situations such as liver fibrosis and carcinogenesis (J. Bertherat, H. Gilgenkrantz, R. Jockers, S. Marullo, C. Perret )

d) The dissection of metabolic pathways controlling energy and nutrient homeostasis and their disregulation during metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes (teams A.F. Burnol and C. Postic, R. Jockers, S. Vaulont and B.Viollet)

e) The genetic profiling of endocrine and digestive tumors ( teams J. Bertherat, C. Perret)

Three new topics are emerging from the common interest and collaborative studies of several teams:

- Metabolism and cancer (Teams A.F. Burnol and C. Postic, C. Perret, S. Vaulont and B.Viollet)

- Involvement of the immune system in liver diseases: carcinogenesis, metabolic syndrome and fibrosis (Teams H. Gilgenkrantz, C. Perret, C. Prip-Buus. S. Vaulont and B.Viollet)

- Angiogenesis, metastasis and cancer stem cells (Teams A. F. Burnol and C. Postic, S. Marullo, C. Perret)

The projects conducted by all the teams of the department require investigations at molecular, cellular and physiological levels. They largely take advantage of the various facilities of the Institute.

In addition to common approaches, various teams of the department have developed a number of sophisticated methods and tools:

      - Real time imaging, study of protein-protein interactions in living cells with Resonance Energy Transfer-based methods (BRET, FRET)

      - Development of genetically modified mice

      - Transcriptomic and proteomic approaches

      - Creation of tumour libraries, in collaboration with clinicians of the Cochin‟s hospital.