Research Center Director's Editorial

Promoting Innovation and Excellence

Pr Daniel Louvard, Research Center DirectorKnowledge derived from human genome mapping has opened up new vistas in cancer research that are likely to lead to diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
The Institut Curie is located in the heart of Paris on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève in an exceptional scientific environment. Among its most salient assets is perhaps the fact that its research is rooted in constant and productive exchanges and cooperation between scientists and clinicians.
Over recent years, the Institut Curie has kept abreast of, and even anticipated, change and progress in the life sciences. Funding to foster emerging areas of research, grants to enable young investigators to develop their groups, acquisition of innovative technologies, international cooperation, and partnerships with industry have stimulated and extended the scope of research projects, thereby creating conditions favorable to scientific innovation and development.
A leading European center for molecular cell biology, the Institut Curie has strengthened its activities in human genetics and immunology, encouraged exchanges between physicists, biologists, and chemists, and created a developmental biology program. Its research development strategy for the post-genomic era aims to make use of this new knowledge for the benefit of patients.
The challenge may well be awe-inspiring, but the stakes in the fight against cancer are clear. Over the next decade, technologies such as DNA microarrays will be used to define the molecular signatures of individual tumors, to improve diagnostic accuracy, and so to propose personalized treatments.
The Institut Curie's research units, working with Inserm, CNRS, and universities, therefore have the required skills and know-how to carry out the basic research needed to develop new diagnostic tools and innovative therapies.

Crédit photo: Pedro Lombardi / Institut Curie