Partners

Université Paris Cité (UPCité) is a research-intensive university, with 51 680 students, holding an Initiative of Excellence (IdEx). It is 78th in the Shanghai rankings 2022. The University has a strong research focus, hosting 119 research units with 4500 researchers and researcher-educators, spread out over three Faculties: Health; Sciences; and Society & Humanities. UPCité participates in or leads ambitious collaborative projects at both national and international levels. At the heart of its research strategy UPCité aims to foster novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches through the activities of its laboratories. Therefore, UPCité’s research units, have a strong connection/collaboration with Inserm and university-hospitals group Assistance Public-Hôpitaux Paris (AP-HP) making them major players in developing translational health research. The Faculty of Health alone holds 2 IHU (Hospitalo-university Institutes) and is involved in 17 active RHU (1 as coordinator). The Faculty hosts 23 active European research projects, including ERCs and several partnerships in collaborative projects in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe.

The UPCIté/Inserm UMR976 unit (PI team) “Human Immunology, Pathophysiology and Immunotherapy” is linked to the Dermatology department of Saint-Louis Hospital, which is the national reference expert center of the GFELC Study Group on Cutaneous Lymphomas. The “Oncodermatology and Therapies” team of the U976 unit brings together clinicians specialized in dermatology and oncology, researchers in immune-oncology and expert pathologists in CTCL.

The UPCité/Inserm UMRS1160 “Microenvironment, lymphocyte development and homing” is based in Saint Louis Hospital and gathers three teams dedicated to the understanding of lymphocyte interactions with their environment within tissues. Team 1 “Chemokine-Regulated Interplays between Lymphocytes and their Microenvironment” co-directed by Drs. K BALABANIAN and M ESPELI, studies specialized niches interplay at various stages of lymphoid differentiation with a special focus on chemokine signaling. This is addressed at steady-state, after vaccination, during immunodeficiencies and in hematological malignancies. One original hypothesis that the team’s expertises addresses is that niches in malignancies may divert the normal development of lymphoid cells thereby participating to tumor evasion from the immune system

Domain Therapeutics (Domain) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specialising in the discovery and development of innovative immunotherapies targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). These receptors represent a major therapeutic target, accounting for more than a third of current drugs. As a leader in this class of therapeutic targets, Domain draws on recognised R&D expertise in immuno-oncology (IO), validated by numerous partnerships with pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Merck KGaA, Boehringer Ingelheim, etc.) in various therapeutic areas.

Thanks to the synergy between this solid expertise and an advanced target identification and drug discovery platform, Domain is positioned at the cutting edge of innovation. Today, Domain has the largest portfolio of IO drug candidates targeting GPCRs, including small molecules and monoclonal antibodies. Domain’s clinical positioning strategy aims to select, for each of its active ingredients, the tumour type, patient sub-populations and combinations best suited for optimal therapeutic effect and the best chance of success. The aim is to deliver the next generation of immunotherapies, offering new therapeutic perspectives for patients.

As part of this consortium, Domain is contributing its therapeutic programme DT-7012, the monoclonal antibody (mAb) that depletes tumour-infiltrating regulatory T cells (Tregs), which represents best-in-class potential for the treatment of CTCL and solid tumours. The company plans to launch a phase I clinical trial of DT-7012 in 2025, in order to validate its best-in-class therapeutic potential, which has been amply demonstrated in the pre-clinical phase.

Stephan SCHANN, Scientific Director of the company since its creation in 2008, has over 25 years’ experience in biomedical research. He has devoted his career to the development of new therapies targeting GPCRs and responding to unmet medical needs. As an active member of this consortium, Stephan also plays a key role in the governance of the SPRINT RHU and in the management of one of the consortium’s major deliverables.

TheraPanacea is an award-winning medical technology company, established in 2017, as a spinoff of the University of Paris Saclay (world-wide ranking: #1 in mathematics and #15 in all disciplines) and Gustave Roussy Excellence Cancer Care center. TheraPanacea is harnessing AI to develop cutting-edge software to effectively implement precision medicine in oncology, and beyond. TheraPanacea offers pioneering holistic approaches for medical/healthcare research and treatment based on a multiscale integration of medicine, information theory, data curation and computational medicine. TheraPanacea’s vastly experienced team (25% of R&D personnel has PhD degree), is devoted to unlock the unlimited power of AI-based software to drive innovation in healthcare. Endowed with an excellent IP portfolio, TheraPanacea’s vision is to exploit state-of-the-art research technology to accelerate health care’s transition towards predictive, evidence-driven treatment implementation as well as full scale optimization of holistic treatment pathways and prognosis. To bring these much-needed advancements faster to the patient, TheraPanacea counts on valuable collaborations with leading cancer centers and industrial partners all around the world while being present in 5 continents and more than 150 cancer care centers worldwide and contributing to the treatment of >250,000 oncology patients annually.

The CEO, Prof. Nikos PARAGIOS (H-index 73; 30,000 citations) is distinguished professor of Mathematics at Ecole CentraleSupelec, the school of engineering of the University of Paris-Saclay. Prior to that, he was senior fellow (2015-2020) at the Institut Universitaire de France, director (2011-2017) of the Center for Visual Computing at CentraleSupelec, scientific leader (2007-2017) at Inria (Galen Research Team), professor (2004-2005, 2011-2013) at the Ecole de Ponts ParisTech, and affiliated with Siemens Corporate Research (Princeton, NJ, 1999-2004) as a project manager, senior research scientist and research scientist. He was an adjunct professor at Rutgers (2002) and NYU (2004) and a visiting professor at Yale (2007) and University of Houston (2009).

Prof. Paragios is a fellow of IEEE (class of 2011), published > 350 papers in the most prestigious journals (DBLP server), and holds 30 international patents. He was the Editor in Chief of the Computer Vision and Image Understanding Journal (CVIU) between 2013 & 2022 and has served in editorial board of numerous and prestigious international journals (IEEE T-PAMI, IJCV, IVC, MVA, JMIV, Medical Image Analysis, SIIMS…). He received an IBM faculty award in 2014, a European Research Council excellence award in 2011 while in 2008 was the laureate of the Greece’s highest honor (worldwide) for young academics and scientists, the Bodossaki Prize. In 2006, he was named one of the top 35 worldwide innovators under 35 from MIT’s Technology Review. N. Paragios is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (ESA).

AP-HP is Europe’s leading university hospital centre (CHU). The AP-HP and its 38 hospitals are organised into six university hospital groups (AP-HP. Centre – Université Paris Cité; AP-HP. Sorbonne University; AP-HP. Nord – Université Paris Cité; AP-HP. Université Paris Saclay; AP-HP. Henri Mondor University Hospitals and AP-HP. Hôpitaux Universitaires Paris Seine-Saint-Denis) and are organised around five universities in the Paris region. Closely linked to major research bodies, AP-HP has four world-class university hospital institutes (ICM, ICAN, IMAGINE, FOReSIGHT) and the largest French health data warehouse (EDS). As a major player in applied research and innovation in healthcare, the AP-HP holds a portfolio of 650 active patents, its clinician-researchers produce more than 10,000 scientific publications every year and more than 4,000 research projects are currently under development, all sponsors included. In 2020, the AP-HP obtained the Carnot Institute label, which rewards the quality of its partnership research: the Carnot@AP-HP offers industrial players applied and clinical research solutions in the healthcare field. In 2015, the AP-HP also created the Fondation de l’AP-HP, which works directly with healthcare professionals to support the organisation of care, hospital staff and research within the AP-HP.

Maxime BATTISTELLA is a pathologist at Hôpital Saint-Louis AP-HP in Paris and Professor of Pathology and Dermatopathology at UPCité, a member of the UMRS 976 unit. He specialises in CTCL and is the author of more than 80 articles, notably in the JCO, Nat Genetics and Lancet Oncol. He is involved in the central review and ancillary studies of several international projects and is an expert member of the EORTC group on cutaneous lymphomas and the International Society of Cutaneous Lymphomas.

Dr C RAM-WOLFF is a dermatologist in the dermatology department of the Hôpital Saint-Louis AP-HP and national medical coordinator of the GFELC Cutaneous Lymphoma Group. The Biostatistics and Medical Information Department is headed by Prof. S CHEVRET, who creates innovative statistical tools to best adapt to the clinical context, in order to improve diagnosis, treatment or prognosis, with a particular interest in the design of early phase clinical trials (Prof. S CHEVRET, Dr. L. BIARD), and the evaluation of predictive biomarkers.

S. MOURAH heads the tumour genomics and pharmacology department at the Hôpital Saint-Louis AP-HP. Specialising in the pharmacogenomics of cancer therapies, Prof. S MOURAH’s hospital laboratory belongs to the INCa molecular genetics platforms and focuses on precision medicine in oncology, using innovative molecular tools for tumours or liquid biopsies (large NGS panels, RNAseq, TCRseq, cfDNA, etc.). The clinical research activities of Prof. MOURAH and Dr. L GOLDWIRT are also focused on pharmacological translational studies for clinical trials.

The CRB (Biological Resources Centre) is dedicated to the collection, processing and storage of biological samples from a wide range of fluids and cells. The CRB has solid experience in biobanking (over 3,400 samples in the Lymphoteq collection). Quality management has been certified (AFNOR). The CRB is coordinated by a full-time biologist and technicians.

Professor I. DURAND-ZALESKI, head of the clinical research unit on health economics and health services at the AP-HP, develops methods to support the analysis of clinical data.

Prof. Nicolas ORTONNE from Inserm is currently Professor at Paris Est Créteil University (UPEC), and medical practitioner in Dermatopathology in Henri Mondor hospital (APHP). He is an expert dermatopathologist in CTCL. In 2004, he obtained the European diploma from the European board of Dermatopathology, International Committee for Dermatopathology (ICDP) and was recipient of the Jean Civatte international prize of dermatopathology (“Prix international Jean Civatte de Dermatopathologie”) in 2007. He is currently head of the NFL (NeuroFibromatosis and Lymphoma oncogenesis) team (Team Gaulard-Ortonne) of the UMRS 955 unit of the Mondor Biomedical Research Institute (IMRB). He co-authored >260 publications and has deposited 5 patents (Inserm transfert) in 2007, 2013 and 2022 (n=3) in the field of diagnosis and treatment of T-cell lymphomas. He participates in a variety of education trainings for Pathologists as well as for Masters and PhD students in biological sciences and has supervised many research projects (3 PhD, 7 M2 and 4 M1 students since 2008).

The scientific project of the ORTONNE team (NFL, UMRS 955) team has two main axes. The first concerns the identification of new targets and new therapeutic approaches to treat T-cell lymphomas. The second concerns the characterization of the molecular and cellular mechanisms governing the development of lymphomas, in particular CTCL. The team has a wealth of internationally recognized principal investigators in the field (Pr GAULARD, Dr LEMONNIER), including CTCL (Pr ORTONNE), the study of early events affecting hematopoietic progenitors (Pr Wagner BALLON and Dr Ivan SLOMA, and translational research on lymphomas (Pr Marie-Hélène DELFAU, Pr Corinne HAIOUN). The axis relating to new therapeutic approaches is coordinated by Pr ORTONNE and Dr GIUSTINIANI, university researcher and expert in the field of immuno-oncology and benefits from industrial support in connection with the Carnot Institute CALYM of which the team is a member.

The team’s work is supported by the internationally recognized expertise of Pr GAULARD in hematopathology and Pr ORTONNE in dermatopathology, close links with national lymphoma study networks (LYSA and GFELC) and benefits from the access to large national cohorts of samples (TENOMIC PI: Pr Gaulard, >1200 frozen and FFPE of clinically annotated lymphomas samples, PHRC KIRs (PI: Ortonne, >500 frozen and FFPE of clinically annotated cutaneous lymphomas and control samples), CellyCut, LyCut collections), with informed consents, stored in the Cell and Tissue bank units of the Platform of Biological Resources (PRB) (certified NF S-96900 since July 2009). These studies allowed to initiate a therapeutic trial (ORACLE: NCT03593018) and to participate in another trial in which Pr ORTONNE is referent Pathologist (NCT04984837)

The “Translational Research in Oncodermatology and Rare skin Diseases Trio2” team belongs to the U1312 Unit “Bordeaux Institute in Oncology” in University of Bordeaux. The Inserm team developed for several years now (JP. MERLIO as previous leader of the team) expertise in CTCL, which has led to advances and innovations in the field, from identification of molecular biomarkers, investigation on telemorase and epigenetic, development of original preclinical models (S. POGLIO) and multiplexed fluorescence IF to characterize tumor microenvironment (A. PHAM-LEDARD). Altogether, the team has conducted 59 publications on cutaneous lymphoma, including in journals as J Invest Dermatol, Blood or Leukemia. M. BEYLOT-BARRY is co-author of 160 publications in cutaneous lymphoma.

Prf. Hélène MOINS-TEISSERENC from Inserm has been elected member of the National University Council (CNU) in Immunology 2016-2021, and elected member of the Board of Directors of the French Society of Immunology 2018-2022. She coordinates and teaches immunology for medical students at the Université Paris Cité. She is also a consultant for Pharmas working in CTCL as well as an advisor for ANSM. She has founded the CyTHem Sézary group (national network for standardized flow cytometry in CTCL). She is PI on a prospective study aiming at evaluating flow cytometry in Sezary syndrome and is also involved in international clinical trials and active member of the EuroFlow Consortium. She has published several papers on tumor heterogeneity and response to mAbs in CTCL. 

The department of Dermatology of University Hospital of Bordeaux, as a member of the national INCA labeled network for cutaneous lymphoma (GFELC), has a regional recruitment for all the region Nouvelle Aquitaine and beyond.

Prof. M. BEYLOT-BARRY (H-index 64), is the head of the department, she also belongs to the EuroBloodNet European Reference Network and to the International Society of Cutaneous Lymphomas. The Dermatology department has the authority habilitation to conduct early phase (I) trials (WP6). M. BEYLOT-BARRY and A. PHAM-LEDARD have been investigators in more than 20 trials in the field of cutaneous lymphoma and M. BEYLOT-BARRY has conducted a national multicentre PHRC (NCT01556035). M. BEYLOT-BARRY is co-author of 160 publications in cutaneous lymphoma.

The team works closely with the Inserm 1312 team Trio2 (which M.BEYLOT-BARRY is codirector) and with the biopathology department (Pr B. VERGIER and Dr F. BELTZUNG) and tumor Bank (JP. MERLIO) in the CHU of Bordeaux. These departments are expert centers of the French Study Group of Cutaneous Lymphoma, in which M. BEYLOT-BARRY is the general secretary. B. VERGIER and F. BELTZUNG, are expert pathologists in cutaneous lymphoma and BV is responsible for the coordination of the current pathological database.

She has notably coordinated a retrospective study of 2760 cutaneous lymphoproliferations included in the GFELC data base between 2020-2011 and between 2015-2027 to analyse the impact and relevance of diagnostic algorithms built in the group (Menguy S. Ann Pathol 2021). She has also participated as co-author to the most recent 5th edition of the World Health Organization classification of haematolymphoid tumors published in 2022.

With 200 years of history, HCL comprise 13 hospitals of excellence bringing together all medical and surgical disciplines. It is one of the largest hemato-oncology center in Europe. Prof. DALLE is Prof. & Head of Dermatology at HCL. He is board-certified in Oncology, and Research Director at Inserm Institute of Functional Genomics since 2020. He participates as investigator in international clinical trials in CTCL and is the author of >300 publications on skin cancer including in N Engl J Med, Lancet and Lancet Oncol. Prof. TRAVERSE-GLEHEN is a pathologist and the Lymphopath regional coordinator (histological review of lymphomas within the INCa-labeled Lymphopath network), coordinator of the pathological and ancillary studies of the Lysa (international network on lymphomas), the scientific coordinator of the CRB (Centre de Ressources Biologiques) at HCL, and author of >140 publications on lymphoma including in Blood, J Clin Invest and Leukemia.

The GFELC Study Group of Cutaneous Lymphomas (GFELC) is a network of 42 centers in France, Belgium and Swiss. It is an INCa-certified network for rare cancers. Dr Ram-Wolff is the medical coordinator of the GFELC and Prof BEYLOY-BARRY is the general secretary. Prof. BAGOT is past Chair of the Dermatology Dept at St Louis Hospital in Paris. She co-authored 743 publications. Her bibliography includes many clinical trials in dermato-oncology, reference guidelines for cutaneous lymphomas, a therapeutic area where she is KOL.

She has served as Board member of the International Society for Cutaneous Lymphoma (2002-2007, 2015-2023), Board member of the European Society for Dermatological Research (2001-2005), President of the European Dermatology Forum (2012-2013) and President (2008- 2011) of the EORTC Cutaneous Lymphoma Task Force, among many others, illustrating her leading position in the field. Caroline RAM-WOLFF, Béatrice VERGIER, Marie BEYLOT-BARRY, Nicolas ORTONNE and Fanny BELTZUNG will put to contribution pro bono time as GFELC members, in addition to their salaried time accounted for by their respective employers.

ELLyE Leukemia Lymphoma patient association is an association of patients and relatives under the French law of 1901, specializing in lymphomas, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Waldenström’s disease.

Founded in 2006 under the name France Lymphome Espoir by its President Guy BOUGUET, it obtained its national accreditation from the Ministry of Health in 2018 (renewed in 2023), enabling it to officially represent patients in regulated bodies (Haute Autorité de Santé, Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament, Agences Régionales de Santé, healthcare establishments…).

In June 2021, the France Lymphome Espoir and SILLC associations (created in 2007 by Christian PUPPINCK) decided to merge to create a single entity, ELLyE. Today, ELLyE has some 2,000 members, 5,000 members and over 8,000 supporters, all of whom are directly concerned or interested by hematological malignancies. The association relies on a national network to develop its opinions and build its action. 

To carry out its missions, ELLyE relies on a multi-skilled team of professionals and volunteers, as well as on a scientific advisory board with diverse but recognized profiles in the field of hematological malignancies.

EuroBloodNet, the European Reference Network ERN in Rare Hematological Diseases (RHD) was officially approved by the European Commission (EC) in 2016 and started its activity 1st March 2017. EuroBloodNet results from a joint effort of the European Hematology Association, the European Network on Rare and Congenital Anaemias (ENERCA), the European hematology patient organisations represented in both the EURORDIS European Patient Advocacy Groups (ePAGS) and the EHA Patient Organisations Workgroup.

EuroBloodNet gathers 96 highly skilled and multidisciplinary healthcare teams in 18 Member States. Involvement from the outset of patient associations contributes to patient empowerment and keeping a patient-centred approach. EuroBloodNet seeks to guarantee that European citizens affected by a RHD benefit from the same level of highly specialised care, improving their overall quality of life, and reducing inequalities on access to healthcare.