Subcellular Structure and cellular Dynamics

For more than a century, multidisciplinary work has been and continues to open the way for the research fields of tomorrow.

Basic research is conducted at the Research Center within joint research units associating the CNRS and/or Inserm, as well as universities of the Ile-de-France region, in Paris and Orsay.

Research activities cover the following main fields of activities:

• Cell biology and developmental biology

• Immunotherapy

• Genetics and oncogenesis,

• Epigenetics and genotoxicology

• Pharmacochemistry

• Physical chemistry of living organisms

• Molecular mechanisms and oncogenesis

• Cellular and molecular imaging

• Bioinformatics and Systems biology

Translational and preclinical research activities are structured within the Translational research department, which provides clinicians and researchers with the human and technological resources enabling the development of application-oriented projects, with the objective to improve care for cancer patients.

The multidisciplinary, cross-sectional approaches to research promoted at the Institut Curie enable researchers and clinicians to explore relationships between biology, developmental genetics and medicine in order to get a better understanding of cancers and develop innovative therapies. The Translational research department, a multidisciplinary approach in terms of research directions, objectives and structures, are indeed necessary conditions for rapid dissemination of information in the clinical fields explored by physicians and health care workers at the Institut Curie.

Clinical research

Over 10% of patients treated at the Institut Curie are invited to participate in a clinical research study. Clinical research enables to make progress in medical knowledge, to validate new methods for disease detection, to develop more effective treatments and to improve the quality of life of patients during and after treatment.

At the Institut Curie, clinical studies are carried out either exclusively within the institute’s own hospital structure in Paris, Orsay and Saint-Cloud, or more often in the framework of multicentric studies involving several national or international institutions associated to the Institut Curie.

Many academic studies are supported by public research institutions, while a certain number of studies are supported by industrials, in particular for the development of new drugs or facilities.

Mutualized platforms, open to the scientific community   

• Genomics/High-throughput DNA sequencing

• Proteomics/Mass spectroscopy

• Histology

•  Bioinformatics

• Chemolibrary

One of the most advanced scientific imaging facilities in Europe

• 30 advanced photon microscopes

• 5 atomic force microscopes

• 4 electronic microscopes

• 1 ion microscope

• 1 MRI unit dedicated to research