Congratulations to the two first CARe students to defend their thesis!

Emmanuel Gonzalez Bautista and Lea Da Costa Fernandes were the first two PhD students of the CARe Graduate School to defend their thesis.

Emmanuel’s thesis defense took place on December 5th, 2022, on the subject « Screening for abnormalities of intrinsic abilities with advancing age within the framework of the WHO ICOPE program: example of the locomotion approach », under the supervision of Pr. Sandrine Andrieu and Philipe de Souto Barreto, from the Centre for Epidemiology and Research in Population Health – CERPOP.

Lea defended her thesis on March 21st, 2023, on « Modeling the inflammatory response dynamics following tissue damage in adult mammals », under the supervision of Pr. Beatrice Cousin of the Restore Institute, and the co-supervision of François Peres, from the National School of Engineering in Tarbes – ENIT.

We congratulate them on this achievement and wish them every success in their future career.

Launch of CARe’s 2023 call for PhD proposals 2nd phase

The pre-selected projects in the framework of CARe’s 2023 call for PhD proposals are available here.

PhD candidates for the pre-selected projects will submit the full proposal to Claire Mendoza (rf.3e1745661480slt-v1745661480inu@o1745661480irreb1745661480-azod1745661480nem.e1745661480rialc1745661480) and Clemence Grosnit (rf.3e1745661480slt-v1745661480inu@t1745661480insor1745661480g.ecn1745661480emelc1745661480) using this template. PhD candidates must be identified and are asked to send a complete CV including references.

At this step, PhD candidates must be identified and are asked to send a complete CV. Special attention will be given to candidates coming from foreign universities or countries. In addition, it is mandatory to provide a full description of the 3-6 months internship, including a signed attestation from the hosting foreign university or from industry.

The files must be submitted as a single PDF before May 12th, 2023. Applicants will defend their proposal in early June 2023, in front of a jury representative of the CARe Graduate school, with delegates from Toulouse partner doctoral schools. The audition will consist of 12 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes of questions. The presentation and the answers to questions will be done in English.

The presentation must include, in this order, 1 title slide, 1 slide presenting the candidate. The rest of the slides are dedicated to the presentation of the project (scientific justification of the research project, strategy, methodology, feasibility and risk management), including a description of the internship abroad or in industry. The following criteria will be evaluated by the jury: discussion of a previous research experience, quality of the oral presentation and of the response to questions.

Alternative lenghthening of telomeres in cancer: diagnosis and therapeutic perspectives

On Thursday, March 23rd, Annabelle Decottignies, Research Director of the National Funds for Scientific Research (FNRS) at the Duve Institute will give a lecture at RESTORE at 1 PM. Annabelle Decottignies is the Leader of the research team TELOMERES in the Unit « Genetic & Epigenetic Alteration of Genomes and Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

Her research focuses on the mechanisms used by cancer cells to acquire the « eternal youth » that allows them to divide without limit.

Participate here

 

 

Exchange opportunities between CARe & LSAMP

Toulouse has been chosen by the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program to be the french ambassador and develop exchanges of students. This is a great opportunity for the CARe Graduate School to welcome american gifted students in its Master’s and PhD programs.

The LSAMP is an alliance-based program.  The program’s theory is based on the Tinto model for student retention referenced in the 2005 LSAMP program evaluation.1   The overall goal of the program is to assist universities and colleges in diversifying the nation’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce by increasing the number of STEM baccalaureate and graduate degrees awarded to populations historically underrepresented in these disciplines: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. 

If you want to read more about the Louise Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, click here.

Lessons from the melanoma ecosystem

On Friday, February 3rd, Pr Florian Rambow from the Institute for AI in Medicine (IKIM) University Hospital of Essen will give a lecture about resistance in Immune Checkpoint blockade in melanoma.at the Center of Research in Cancerology of Toulouse from 11 am to 12 pm.

 » Primary resistance drastically limits the clinical success of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) in melanoma. Resistance to ICB may also develop when tumours relapse after targeted therapy. To identify cancer cell-intrinsic mechanisms driving resistance to ICB, we generated single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from a prospective longitudinal cohort of patients on ICB therapy, including an early time point obtained after only one cycle of treatment. Comparing these data with murine scRNA-seq datasets, we established a comprehensive view of the cellular architecture of the treatment-naïve melanoma ecosystem, and defined 6 evolutionarily conserved melanoma transcriptional metaprograms. Spatial multi-omics revealed a non-random geographic distribution of cell states that is, at least partly, driven by the tumour microenvironment. The single- cell data allowed unambiguous discrimination between melanoma MES cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts both in silico and in situ, a long-standing challenge in the field. Importantly, two of the melanoma transcriptional metaprograms were associated with divergent clinical responses to ICB. While the Antigen Presentation cell population was more abundant in tumours from patients who exhibited a clinical response to ICB, MES cells were significantly enriched in early on-treatment biopsies from non-responders, and their presence significantly predicted lack of response. Critically, we identified TCF4 (E2-2) as a master regulator of the MES program and suppressor of both MEL and Antigen Presentation programs. Targeting TCF4 expression in MES cells either genetically or pharmacologically using a bromodomain inhibitor increased immunogenicity and sensitivity to targeted therapy. »

Numerical and technical tools to better investigate metabolism, inflammation and cancer

Co-intervention of international speakers and CARe PhD students

On January 26th, 2023 a panel of international experts and CARe PHD students will analyse and discuss numerical and technical tools in disease investigation at the Toulouse University Cancer Institute.

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Recordings of seminars

Pauline Chassonery – PhD student

Léa Da Costa Fernandes – PhD student

Yoram Vodovotz – CIRM University of Pittsburgh

Camille Champigny – PhD student

Ambre Bertholet – UCLA School of Medicine

 

Workshop on « Epigenetics and epigenomics of aging (with insights into sex-differences with aging »

On Thursday, November24th from 5 to 7 PM, Berenice Benayoun, PhD, who is an Assistant Professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences at University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology  will speak about epigenome and transcriptome remodeling with aging in vertebrates, how these changes interact with overlooked cues such as biological sex, and the roles that these changes can play in the aging process.

Participate online here.