visit to the heart of the brand new institute dedicated to female cancers

Researchers from various fields will pool their skills to better understand, better prevent and better cure these types of cancers, using cutting-edge techniques and new approaches.

Every year, 78,000 women are affected by breast cancer and gynecological cancer, and 20,000 die. To improve treatments, particularly for cancers with a poor prognosis, a new IHU (University Hospital Institute) was launched on Tuesday June 25: the Women’s Cancer Institute. The establishment is supported by the Curie Institute, Inserm and the University of Paris Sciences Lettres.

In her laboratory, Stéphanie Descroix manipulates small transparent squares that look like electrical circuits: these are tumors on a chip. The team leader from the Curie Institute injects diseased cells and drugs into these small cubes in order to see how the tumor reacts. Stéphanie Descroix then studies the images she sees on the screen using super-microscopes.“We have cells here which are tumor cells. They are kind of big potatoes. And we have very small cells which move, which are the immune cells. When the cells are infected by something particular, they turn red and when they die, they turn green”, she explains.

“Thanks to this, we are able to say that for these cells to die, they must have a certain number of contacts with immune cells. What types of unit cells? How many contacts? We are really able to understand how this tumor works.”specifies the specialist.

These avatars of patient tumors make it possible to test tailor-made treatments. “One of the objectives we have in this institute is to be able, in the shortest possible time, to test different drugs and determine it for each patient. We will be able to say: ‘This patient , be careful, it is this medication, this treatment that must be given to her, because it is the one to which she responds best…”explains Stéphanie Descroix.

To collect as much information as possible, researchers will create a giant atlas of female cancers: this will be the beating heart of this new institute.

“What we want is to have real-life data from our patients, to know where they live, what the air pollution conditions are in the neighborhoods in question.”

Professor Anne-Vincent Salomon, director of the IHU.

at franceinfo

The objective is also to have “data from routine care, mammograms, scanners, PET scanners. And in correspondence with single cell sequencing, the study of gene expression on tumor tissues, at start-up, under treatment, and in case of relapse”she continues.

The institute will also carry out clinical trials on women over 70 who are currently little studied, even though they are the most affected by breast cancer. Patients will also contribute their ideas and their feelings, with the aim of transforming patient care.