Olivier Delattre - Biography#

Olivier Delattre (h-factor=57, >130000 citations), Head of the Unit 830 INSERM (Institut Curie, Paris) was trained as a pædiatrician. During and after his residency he was trained as a molecular biologist in the laboratories of Gilles Thomas in Paris, Pierre Chambon in Strasbourg and with Guy Rouleau while he was a postdoc in James Gusella’s lab in Boston. He was recruited at the INSERM in 1991. He is heading the group “Genetics and biology of pædiatric tumours and of sporadic breast cancers”.

His main research interests are the characterization and the functional studies of the genetic abnormalities that are found in cancer cells. His team unravelled key genetic alterations in Ewing’s sarcoma, rhabdoid tumours and neuroblastoma. His group is also strongly involved in the precise identification of the normal cell counterpart of the cancer models it is studying since it is becoming clear that the genetic lesions are oncogenic only in certain permissive cell contexts. More recently part of his team is involved in breast cancer research studying a particularly interesting subgroup of this cancer termed micropapillary carcinomas that exhibit striking cell polarity abnormalities.

Since 2009, he is also deputy director for biomedical research of the Institut Curie Research Center. He is director of the Integrated Research Site in Cancerology of the Institut Curie since 2010.

He received the Jacques Sylvain Bourdin award of Comité de l'Essonne of the Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer (1993), the EURE award of the Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer (1993), the Rose Lamarca award of Clinical Investigation of the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (1995), the Olga Sain award of Comité de Paris of the Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer (1995), the Gaston Rousseau award of Académie des Sciences (1996), the award of Académie Nationale de Médecine (2000), the EUROCANCER award (2007) and the Charles Oberling, great award (2009).

He is member of the EMBO (2011). He is member of the Editorial board of Carcinogenesis Journal and British Journal of Cancer and of several Scientific Advisory Boards: since 2007 AICR, CEPH, Cancer Genome Project at the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute, INCA, Institut Paoli-Calmettes, Centre Léon Bérard