Our Story

I started my scientific career as a PhD student in the team of Jean-Marc Egly in the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (Illkirch, France) investigating the role of the TFIIH transcription factor. After my PhD defense during the summer 2000, I decided to work in the field of pediatric sarcomas and more specifically on Ewing sarcomas, in the team of Olivier Delattre from the Institut Curie (Paris), where I obtained a permanent position as an INSERM researcher. Following our discovery in 2012 of the new BCOR-CCN3B chromosomal translocation, I developed interests in the characterization of the so(badly)-called “Ewing-like” sarcomas -and more broadly of all unclassified small blue round cell tumors. After obtaining a position as INSERM Director of Research in 2015, I moved to Lyon  during the summer 2016 to start a new research group (namely the “Biology of rare sarcomas”  lab) in the team of Alain Puisieux in the Cancer Research Center of Lyon (CRCL) associated to the Centre Léon Bérard cancer center. Since January 1st, 2021, I lead the "Genetics, Epigenetics and Biology of Sarcomas" CRCL's team, which integrates researchers, oncologists and pathologists, dedicated to the identification and characterization of new oncogenic mechanisms in unclassified sarcomas, with a special focus on tumors harboring a fusion of genes involved in chromatin remodeling processes.