Dr Philippe Clezardin, INSERM Unit 664, Laënnec School of Medicine, Lyon, FRANCE

INSERM is the French national medical research institute with 366 research units nationwide. INSERM Unit 664 (director: Dr Philippe Clezardin) is located in Laënnec School of Medicine, Lyon, and is active in the research related to osteoporosis and cancer related bone diseases.

Current research interests are on the mechanisms of bone metastases formation and the development of new therapeutic agents targeting bone metastases. Work has been done to show the role of aVß3 integrin in increasing the metastatic potential of tumour cells, and a fluorescent model for bone metastases in nude mice has been developed. The group is now developing research in genomic and proteomic analysis of human breast cancer cells for propensity to metastasise to bone. Testing of therapeutic agents has recently focused on bisphosphonates as potential antitumour (demonstrated in-vitro) and antiangiogenic agents (demonstrated in-vivo).

Activities in MetaBre: gene profiling and proteomic analysis, in vivo tests for bone metastases