The Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers (CRC) is a public research center of excellence located in the heart of Paris. CRC develops fundamental, translational and clinical research in the field of biology and health. CRC’s research projects are multidisciplinary, mainly in the fields of oncology, immunology, the study of metabolism and the major physiological functions of the body.
In January 2022, CRC has more than 500 people working in 16 teams in three departments with 3 ISO9001-certified technology platforms. CRC is headed by Professor Jessica Zucman-Rossi, a specialist in oncology and tumor genomics.
The Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers is administrated by Inserm, Sorbonne Université, and Université Paris Cité, with the participation of the CNRS and Université Sorbonne Paris Nord.
The CRC has recently renewed its Scientific Advisory Board.
The 2019-2023 projects at the Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers
CRC has more than 500 employees who work in 16 teams organized in three departments:
- Dept. 1: Physiology and Metabolism
- Dept. 2 : Immunology and Cancer
- Dept. 3 : Genome and Cancer
The projects are grouped around 4 major research axes:
“Metabolism, Immunology and Cancer”
Interactions between cell metabolism, immune response and cancer occurrence emerged as a major physiopathological axis. Interactions of multiple partners remain to be elucidated to better understand their interplay at the molecular, cellular, organ and body level. Examples of ongoing research within CRC teams: role of metabolic syndrome and diabetes in cancer development, immunosurveillance in cancer and metabolic syndrome, alteration of cell metabolism in the development of chronic diseases, relationship between anti-proliferative agents and cell metabolism, cellular stress and inflammation.
“Environmental exposure in cancer and chronic disease occurrence”
In our modern world, we are submitted to an increased number of expositions that interfere with aging and disease occurrence. Also, we have to face with an increased incidence of cancer and chronic diseases potentially related to exposure to multiple agents. In this context, it is an urgent need to combine epidemiological studies with physiopathological analyses of disease mechanisms and molecular to draw new hypotheses and establish causal relation linking exposure to symptoms. In this line, several projects are developed at CRC with already innovative results:
– Impact of bisphenol A and other endocrine modifiers in the co-occurrence of specific phenotypes and chronic diseases (dental, liver phenotypes and chronic diseases)
– Impact of exposure to particles (asbestosis…), radiation (LED and retina…), genotoxic (Nutrition…) and others in chronic diseases and cancer occurrence
– Toxic exposure and impact on the genome.
“Innovation in precision medicine therapies”
Several teams at CRC develop projects that aim to improve therapy by adapting the type of treatment to patients’ features. Several levels of interference with clinical care options could be targeted to adapt surveillance of detection to the risk, detect disease at early stage, identify new therapeutic targets or therapeutic tools. A better understanding of the mechanism of drug targets and its relation with patients’ features is also investigated by the development of innovative pre-clinical models. Several topics are currently developed at CRC:
– Identification of novel therapeutic targets in well-characterized diseases
– Innovative pre-clinical models to predict drug efficiency, development of high throughput protocols for testing drug efficacy by microfluidics devices, animal models and cell lines.
– Identification of biomarkers for drug efficacy
“Ethics in Research”
The current landscapes of medical and research practices tend to overlap through complex translational processes that favor innovation implementation into clinical practices. Translational research in medicine is thus an evolving field that combines disciplines and expertise with the aim of promoting the transfer of knowledge and discoveries from basic science to healthcare. Emerging practices erase the traditional and artificial boundaries among basic, clinical research, and other applied research to let place to a continuum that gives rise to a multidirectional spectrum of more or less direct interactions. Numerous new ethical issues are arising from these new practices that overwhelm the old ethical codes for protection of human subject, encompass the field of scientific integrity and transparency, and may interfere with national legal and regulatory existing frameworks.
Our aims at CRC with the emergent team of Marie-France Mamzer (Team Ethics, research, translation) will be:
– to propose support actions dedicated to the promotion of ethical, legal and good research practices for CRC teams,
– to provide legal and regulatory information to researchers,
– to identify, analyze and deliberate about the ethical issues rising from the research,
– to build a local observatory of translational research practices,
– to develop a research program of “translational ethics” that will address special issues of patient information, consent, research results return, data and samples sharing and other issues emerging from the local observatory.
Les Cordeliers : a site historically dedicated to medicine
The Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers is located in the academic heart of Paris on a historical site. At the beginning of the 13th century, King Louis IX (Saint-Louis) offered fields of vines bordered by the enclosure of King Philippe Auguste to the brothers preachers of Saint-François: the Cordeliers, so named because of the rope that encircles their monastic dress. From the 13th to the 16th century, a convent was built with a church, two cloisters, gardens and a vast refectory, the only building that remains today. This community of Cordeliers will be a renowned educational centre in competition with the religious colleges located all around it, such as the Jacobins College or the Bernardins College. At the time of the French revolution in 1789, the Cordeliers convent was the meeting place of the “Club des Cordeliers, Société des amis des droits de l’homme et du citoyen” where Danton, Marat and Camille Desmoulins distinguished themselves.
In 1795, the new Medical School and its hospice were installed in the cloister. From 1872 onwards, the buildings were demolished to build the practical school of the Paris Faculty of Medicine. These premises, which belonged to the city of Paris since 1875, were transferred to the University in 1970. At present, medical education at the Pierre et Marie Curie and Paris Descartes Universities continues to be provided on the Cordeliers campus.
Organisation of the Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers
The Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers is directed by Jessica Zucman-Rossi and three co-directors who are also the heads of departments: Frédéric Jaisser, Guido Kroemer, Pierre Laurent-Puig.
CRC includes 16 research teams distributed in 3 departments.
