The gastroenterology team at Henri-Mondor Hospital AP-HP and Université Paris-Est Créteil, led by Prof. Iradj Sobhani, and the Inserm and Institut Pasteur U1202 "Molecular Microbial Pathogenesis Unit" team, led by Prof. Philippe Sansonetti, who also holds the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Chair at the Collège de France, have shown that an imbalance in the intestinal microbiota, known as "dysbiosis", favours the development of colon cancer. The French teams, have been united under the Oncomix label since April 2016; these teams in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic cancer immunology team led by Prof. Khazaie in the USA have indeed shown that transplanting fecal flora from colon cancer patients into mice caused lesions and epigenetic changes characteristic of the development of a malignant tumor.
The pilot study, funded by the French National Cancer Institute and promoted by the AP-HP as part of a hospital-based clinical research program in oncology (PHRC-K), led to the design of a non-invasive blood test that identifies this epigenetic phenomenon associated with dysbiosis, and its validation in 1,000 people. The results were published on November 11, 2019 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
