Chloé-Agathe Azencott, PhD

Chloé-Agathe Azencott is an assistant professor at the Centre for Computational Biology (CBIO) of Mines ParisTech, Institut Curie and INSERM, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.

Her research focuses on the development of methods for efficient multi-locus biomarker discovery. It has numerous applications, in particular in precision medicine, where we try to develop treatments that are adapted to the (genetic) characteristics of patients, by contrast with a classical one-size-fits-all approach.

She has completed her PhD in computer science in 2010 with a focus on chemoinformatics at the University of California, Irvine. From 2011 to 2013, she has subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Machine Learning & Computational Biology Lab of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany. Her research there focused more on the other side of the coin, namely the search for the genetic determinants of diseases.

She joined CBIO in 2013 where her research centers on multi-locus analysis of GWAS data, learning from graphs, biomarker discovery, and learning from multi-modal data, including electronic health records.

Dominique Bellet, PharmD, MD, PhD

Dominique Bellet is professor emeritus of immunology at Université de Paris (formerly Université Paris Descartes) where he has been a member of the faculty since 1987. He has also been a member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital since 1983.

Since 1982, he has been appointed as physician in charge of pathology laboratories in comprehensive cancer centers and specialized in the diagnosis and follow-up of cancers using tumor biomarkers. He has been the head of pathology at Gustave Roussy until 2005, and subsequently the head of oncobiology at Institut Curie’s Hôpital de Saint-Cloud until 2018.

His main scientific interest is the characterization of biomarkers and the translation of basic research findings into clinical practices and new medicines. His translational research group has developed five tests for the diagnosis and follow-up of liver, bladder, thyroid, testis or placental cancers; the screening of Down’s syndrome; and the diagnosis of sepsis. These tests have been used routinely by thousands of laboratories in more than 90 different countries around the world, and have benefited about 200 million patients to date. He is the co-author of more than 150 scientific publications and co-inventor of 19 patents.

Dr. Bellet earned a PharmD degree in 1973 from Université Paris-Sud, an MD degree in 1982 from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, and a PhD in immunology in 1985 from Université Paris-Sud.

Martin Aryee, PhD

Martin Aryee is an assistant professor in the department of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Aryee’s lab develops computational and statistical methods for studying the genetic and epigenetic basis of cancer and other diseases. Most of their work has focused on improving our understanding of how aberrations in the physical and chemical structure of DNA within the nucleus is linked to cancer and other common diseases. Projects range from basic biology, to probing how DNA misfolds in cancer cells, to clinical applications aiming to develop blood tests for early detection of cancer. His lab also develops tools that aim to enable the safe translation of gene editing techniques such as CRISPR into human therapeutics.

He also holds a secondary appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he teaches an introductory course in statistical genetics.

Dr. Aryee earned an MEng in electronic engineering from Imperial College London, and an MSc in neuroscience at King’s College London. He subsequently earned a PhD in biostatistics from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Jean-François Zagury, MD, PhD

Jean-François Zagury is professor and holds the Chair of Bioinformatics in Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM, Paris) since 2004. He is the director of the Laboratory Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Molecular Chemistry (EA7528) with 35 researchers. His research focuses on understanding the molecular etiology of human diseases, with the consequent development of new therapeutic approaches using computational methods for genomics and drug design. His work thus relies heavily on computer tools to leverage biological data in the development new therapeutic approaches. His research efforts have led to more than 145 scientific publications, 22 patents, and 4 copyrights. He also co-founded two biotech companies: Néovacs, as CEO from 1992 to 1998, and then as co-CSO from 2002 to 2003; and Peptinov, more recently.

Dr. Zagury has completed a dual curriculum in computer science (MSc in artificial intelligence) and in biology (MSc in immunology) as a student at École Normale Supérieure de la rue d'Ulm since 1982 (initial major in maths). He has subsequently completed a PhD in immuno-virology at the National Institute of Health (Bethesda, USA) in Prof. Robert Gallo’s Laboratory from 1987 to 1990. In parallel, he has also completed his medical school cursus in 1992 at the Faculty Broussais-Hotel-Dieu.