Prof. Alain Puisieux, Chairman of the Executive Board of Institut Curie

Prof. Alain Puisieux took office as Chairman of the Executive Board of Institut Curie on May 25, 2024. In accordance with Article 4.2 of the statutes of the institute, he has been appointed by the Supervisory Board for a period of 6 years.

Biography of Prof. Alain Puisieux

A French pharmacist and biologist, Alain Puisieux is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Pharmacy and former member of the University Institute of France. After completing his biology internship there in the late eighties, Prof. Alain Puisieux was a member of the Scientific Commission of the Institut Curie Research Center from 2013.

After receiving his doctorate in Boston (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA), he joined the Leon-Berard Center (CLB), a cancer control center in Lyon, as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a hospital practitioner biologist. Appointed University Professor (Lyon 1 University) in 2000, Prof. Alain Puisieux created the Inserm 590 Oncogenesis and Tumor Progress Unit in Lyon, then the Lyon Cancer Research Center (Inserm UMR 1052 - CNRS 5286 - UCBL – CLB), today composed of 26 research teams and 500 members, which he headed from 2011 to 2019. Prof. Alain Puisieux's research focuses on the dynamics of tumor development.

At the head of the Research Center of Institut Curie from 2019 to 2024, Prof. Alain Puisieux and his teams developed the impact and quality of scientific production and strengthened its innovation potential by adopting an essential strategic line - developing interdisciplinarity. The restructuring of the joint research units (UMR) carried out in the context of five-year contracts, the establishment of the Curie 2030 scientific project with 6 priority programs identified, and the strengthening of interactions with the caregivers of the Hospital Group through the implementation of ambitious institutional projects marked his term.

Prof. Alain Puisieux is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in understanding the mechanisms of plasticity of cancer cells and their consequences during the early phases of tumorigenesis and metastatic dissemination. Author of over 180 publications in international journals such as Cancer Cell, Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Genetics or Nature Medicine, Prof. Alain Puisieux has received various prestigious awards and distinctions. He was the winner of the René and Andrée Duquesne Prize in 2019 and the Grand Prix Ruben Rose for breast cancer research in 2018. He was also appointed to the rank of Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honor in March 2022, a distinction rewarding nearly 35 years of success in academic and scientific research, as well as in the teaching and training of pharmacy and medicine students and young researchers.