The ImmunoTherapies, Autoimmunity and Cancer (ITAC) network is one of the nine major research and innovation network (DIM) selected by the scientific council of the Île-de-France region for the period 2022-2026. It is coordinated by Professor Caroline Robert, head of the Dermatology department, Inserm research director at Gustave Roussy and Professor at Paris-Saclay University, and Professor Xavier Mariette, head of the Rheumatology department and Inserm research director at Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital (AP-HP). Its objective is to create the first integrated ecosystem around immunology, bringing together experts from different disciplines: cancer, autoimmuny and immunotherapy.
Immunotherapies (IT) have become the “gold standard” for the cancer treatment. But, these revolutionary treatments often induce potentially serious or even fatal autoimmune/inflammatory diseases (AIDs). In the same way, certain autoimmune diseases, especially if treated with suppressive IT, can lead to cancer development. And it is still impossible today to predict this risk for a given patient.
Research carried out on cancers and autoimmune diseases uses similar methods and tools, but lack of interactions. This represents a major obstacle to real therapeutic advances, since the underlying immunological mechanisms can be common or opposed.
Accordingly, it is essential to consider these two fields of research in a global and integrated manner. This is the whole point of creating an ecosystem allowing knowledge sharing and common thinking between these two fields on the clinical, biological and epidemiological levels.
The main objective of the DIM ITAC is to create, within the Île-de-France region, this collaborative ecosystem composed of multidisciplinary experts, to explore the immune spectrum between cancer and autoimmune disease.
This collaborative work, combining joint reflection and knowledge sharing, will promote the identification of new biomarkers and the emergence of targeted innovative treatments, to better respond to cancer or autoimmune pathologies affecting patients.
The unique ecosystem generated, thanks to the DIM ITAC, will leads to the foundation the first multidisciplinary Immunopole positioning itself at the interface of these three areas of research : cancer, immunotherapy and autoimmunity.
