Programs
Our key funders are the French Research Agencies ANR and ANRS, the European Union, the European Research Council (ERC), the ARC Foundation, the US National Institute of Health (NIH), Inserm and the Foundation of the University of Strasbourg.
Highlighted programs
RHU DELIVER
Laureate of the prestigious ANR call “Recherche Hospitalo-Universitaire en santé (RHU-5)”, DELIVER is a cutting-edge public-private R&D program that will combine patient-derived models, and integrate the latest imaging technologies with AI and large prospective cohorts of patients included in HCC surveillance programs, to deliver therapeutic innovation for advanced liver fibrosis and HCC.
To tackle this major challenge, world-class multidisciplinary teams from public and private sectors joined their forces: experts in translational liver disease research from our institute, IHU Strasbourg, Strasbourg University Hospitals, AP-HP Bobigny and University Sorbonne Paris Nord, will work together with the French-Swiss clinical stage rising star biotech Alentis, and the medical imaging leader Guerbet.
ERC Advanced Grant FIBCAN
Horizon 2020 ERC Advanced Grant FIBCAN (GA nr 101021417) focuses on novel therapeutic approaches to treat and prevent advanced liver fibrosis and liver cancer, using innovative patient-derived models developed in our institute. FIBCAN builds on previous success from ERC Advanced Grant HEPCIR (and subsequent ERC PoC HEPCAN and PRELICAN), and is completed by ERC PoC projects CANDY (GA nr 101069276), FLAMINCO (GA nr 101122510) and PACMAN (101208554).
D-SOLVE is a Horizon Europe Project (GA nr 101057917) coordinated by the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) in Hannover, Germany. The objective of D-SOLVE is to unravel the molecular mechanisms of Hepatitis D Virus (HDV) infection, and predict its outcome to develop personalized monitoring and antiviral treatment for patients. Our team is involved in WP5, dedicated the investigation of HDV-induced transcriptomic and epigenetic modifications, to understand the impact of these perturbations on disease progression and HCC risk post cure.
ARC PANCREAS PANCLAU
The PANCLAU project is funded under the PANCREAS program of the ARC Foundation. PANCLAU aims to investigate new therapeutic targets to treat pancreatic cancer, by leveraging state of the art models and technology developed within our unit.
ARC TheraHCC 2.0
Following the success of the TheraHCC 1.0 program the institute is leading a follow-up program with the Strasbourg IHU and the University Hospitals of Strasbourg on the development of next generation precision medicine diagnostics and treatment for liver cancer with the continued support of the French National Cancer Association (ARC).
Fondation Force Nizaprev
The Nizaprev project – “Biomarker-guided chemoprevention of liver cancer with nizatidine” is laureate of the Fondation Force program “Trophées de la Fondation 2024”. The project aims to accelerate the repositioning of nizatidine for the prevention of HCC by identifying and characterising new non-invasive biomarkers for monitoring treatment and stratifying patients at risk.
The National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute (NIH NCI US) funded study to systematically identify molecular liver cancer risk drivers based on decades of clinical follow-up, chemopreventive drugs, and less invasive cancer risk biomarker assays ready for subsequent clinical assessment. This program builds on the longstanding collaboration of Prof. Baumert’s team and Yujin Hoshida’s team at the UTSW.
French National Research Agency (ANR)
Dr Eloi Verrier is laureate of the “young researcher” programme (JCJC) from the highly competitive funding instrument from French National Research Agency (ANR). His project DELTArget aims to characterize liver host factors involved in hepatitis D virus infection for the identification of novel therapeutic targets.
ANRS MIE
Several of our virology projects have been supported by the ANRS MIE (French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis, Emerging Infectious Diseases). Recent projects aim to study the virus-host interactions of hepatitis B and D virus (HBV and HDV) infections (projects DeltaPath and ISGagainstBD), and developing non-invasive prognostic liver signature to detect HCC risk in HCV-cured patients (ProSiCure).
HepSYS
The Institute is proud to be a laureate of the prestigious award Laboratory of Excellence (LabEx), since 2011 as part of the French national program “Investments for the Future” and more recently the “Initiative of excellence” (IdEx) of the University of Strasbourg.
HepSYS consists of a team comprising highly qualified molecular and cellular scientists, bioinformaticians, hepatologists and liver surgeons from the ITM, the Service of Hepato-Gastro-Enterology of the Strasbourg University Hospitals (HUS) and the IHU of Strasbourg.
A key strength of HepSYS is the full integration of basic, translational, and clinical research, along with the establishment of strong collaborations and networks of excellence with leading experts from the field at local and international level. Since its creation in 2011, HepSYS has made major contributions to the field, supported by a long-standing track record, in the understanding of viral and metabolic pathogenesis of liver disease and their translation into clinical applications, including the development of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies for infectious diseases, fibrosis and cancer. By providing a novel understanding of liver disease biology and by discovering novel targets and biomarkers, HepSYS program aims to impact the management of patients with liver disease and liver cancer in France, Europe, and beyond.
ITI IMCBio+
With HepSYS, we are part of the Interdisciplinary Thematic Institutes (ITI) “Integrative Molecular and Cellular Biology” (IMCBio+) of the University of Strasbourg together with the IGBMC, IBMC, IBMP, GMGM. This cluster unites the forces of four LabEx of complementary leading expertise in molecular and cellular biology:
- INRT: Integrative biology, Nuclear dynamics, Regenerative and Translational medicine;
- MitoCross: Mitochondria-nucleus Cross-talk;
- NetRNA: Networks of regulatory RNAs;
- and HepSYS: functional genomics of viral hepatitis and liver disease.
This cluster drives scientific excellence and collaboration at the local level and also provides unique training opportunities for Master and PhD candidates in the frame of the IMCBio Graduate School.
ENACT Cluster
We are part of the ENACT Artificial Intelligence Cluster, that gathers key stakeholders from Eastern France across all sectors to develop Artificial Intelligence. Funded under the highly competitive France 2030 call “AI clusters”, ENACT aims to position Eastern France as a European leader in AI.