Céline Vallot: CNRS 2018 bronze medalist

Every year, the CNRS awards the men and women who have made the greatest contribution to advances in research and outstanding work in their fields. This year, Institut Curie researcher Céline Vallot, who heads up the Dynamics of Epigenetic Plasticity in Cancer team, was awarded the CNRS 2018 bronze medal. A prestigious award and a mark of recognition for her research into epigenetics at the CNRS (UMR7216), the Université Paris 7 and Institut Curie since 2017.

“Being awarded the CNRS bronze medal is such an honor. I see it as recognition, and encouragement for the years to come. I hope this medal will boost visibility for my team and the work we do.”

Céline and her team are working on understanding how epigenetic alterations occur in tumorigenesis and in response to chemotherapy, assessing their stability over time and defining their links to tumor phenotype. These questions must be answered before these alterations can be used as therapeutic targets.

“One of our team’s major advantages is that we have in-depth expertise in exploring data and molecular biology. We are developing multi-disciplinary approaches to understand the complexity of epigenetic modifications in cancerous cells, on a single cell scale.”

The team has been granted SiRIC (‘Integrated cancer research site’) status and is backed by the ATIP–Avenir program.

Her CV

2009: PhD in cancerology and molecular biology at the Université Paris-Sud (cellular dynamics and compartmentalization laboratory)

2013: Joins the CNRS - Head of Research at the Epigenetics and Cell Fate laboratory

2016: ATIP-Avenir awardee

2016: CNRS Paoletti Prize

2017: Sets up a research team with Translational research certification (SiRIC) on the dynamics of epigenetic alterations in cancer at Institut Curie