Scientific activities

Research at the Institut Curie involves biologists, chemists, physicists, bio-informaticians and clinicians. In Paris and Orsay, in laboratories collaborating with CNRS or Inserm, research work is designed to understand the functioning of normal and cancerous cells.
Four big domains of research - Genetics and Oncogenesis, Molecular Cell Biology, Pharmacochemistry and Life Physico-Chemistry - have been defined with a view to improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
The excellent quality of its research, the wealth of its national and international partnerships, not to mention its high-performance technical facilities have made the Institut Curie a place particulary conducive to scientific discovery.
As anticipation of progress in science is an essential ambition of all research institutions, the Institut Curie has entered the post-genome era and is actively preparing for the major research developments of the 21st century.

Research topics

Molecular cell Biology and developmental biology

This important research sector has several teams working exclusively on cell-related issues :
  • cell movement and cell shape, which depend on internal cell architecture (cytoskeleton);
  • cellular adhesion, which ensures the formation of multicellular structures (tissues, organisms);
  • signalling pathways, which transmit signals from the environment into the cell;
  • protein transport to the various cell compartments, with particular focus on foreign elements (antigens), wich trigger immune response, cell cycles, etc.
This research draws on the microscopy laboratory's expertise in ultrastructural analysis of cell compartments.

A Department of Developmental Biology and Genetics is in the process of being set up with the CNRS, the Inserm, the Collège de France, the Paris-VI University and the French Ministry of Research in 2007.
Ten new teams, working in close cooperation with existing research units and clinicians, will then be assessing therapeutic approaches at a higher level of organizational complexity, that of the organism as a whole.

Immunotherapy

Relationships between biomolecular structure and activity are studied using concepts and instruments derived from physics. When constantly moving proteins interact within a cell, their structures undergo fluctuations which call for detailed analysis. Molecular biophysical also focuses on the imaging of living cells (in vivo) and the molecular analysis of radiation-induced cell damage (radiobiology). The setting up, in Orsay, of a pilot ionic microscopy center specializing in biological research, with a particular focus on oncology, is a major asset for the Institut Curie's work in field.

Genetics and Oncogenesis

Identifying genome alterations in the human cancers is the basic goal of oncologists working at the Curie Institute, who have pioneered work in this field.
Using highly sophisticated tools, they are engaged in detecting major and minor genomic modifications in tumoral cells and identifying genes carrying such alterations.

Epigenetics and Genotoxicology

Genotoxicology as a discipline is an integral part of the Curie Institute's history. It focuses on the study of interactions between DNA and various substances known as genotoxic agents (ionizing radiation, solar radiation, etc.), as well as on the DNA lesions caused by these agents. Research in this field aims to identify cell mechanisms used to detect and then repair such lesions in order to restore genome integrity.
In higher organisms, DNA is organized within cell nuclei in complex structures, known as chromatin. The functional integrity of the genome is intimately dependent on the preservation of this structure. During processes such as DNA replication and repair, chromatin undergoes disassembly followed by reassembly. Factors contributing to this dynamic chromatin assembly process are presently being subjected to detailed analysis.

Pharmacochemistry

Research in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry is designed to synthesize anticancer molecules acting specifically on cancer cells without killing healthy cells. This work uses two basic tools, molecular modelling - which allows for the design of tailor-made molecules - and combinatorial chemistry, thanks to which an almost infinite diversity of molecular structures can be developed.

Life Physico-chemistry

Curie Institute physicists er studying both theoretically and experimentally those organized molecular assemblies that have led to the development of what is known as soft matter. These structures are of particular interest to biologists, as they are involved in the major functions of living organisms, such as cellular mobility and adhesion, or intracellular exchanges. Controlling the migration of cells wich may go on to form distant tumoral metastases is one of the major objectives of this work.

Molecular Mechanisms and oncogenesis

In multicellular organisms, harmonious development and functioning depend upon the quality of the communication established between cells and the environment which sends them signals.
Receptors, special molecules located on the cell surface, pick up these signals, which are then amplified, transmitted and integrated into the cell. Cell reponse to the signal received can than take on a variety of different forms, from cell division through cell differentiation.
Normal cells have a very complex network of interconnected signalling pathways. The study of cell signalling is essential to the understanding of the pathway problem observed during oncogenesis.

Cellular and Molecular Imaging

Our research uses powerful imaging techniques to understand better the structural basis of cellular processes implicated in normal and pathological cell proliferation.

Systems biology

Institut Curie engineers, computer scientists, physicists and mathematicians wholly dedicate their skills and know-how to oncology, and so cancer research has access to state-of-the-art technologies to analyze the genes responsible for the development of cancer, and also to IT tools to process and interpret the data. The automation of biological techniques generates vast amounts of data which, to be used effectively, have to be analyzed, compared and stored.

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