IRSN, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sureté Nucléaire
Avenue de la Division Leclerc, 31
92260 Fontenay aus Roses

France

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UPRES EA 27-10
IGR, Institut Gustave Roussy
39 Rue C Desmoulins
94805 Villejuif

France

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Project Leader

Dr. Marie-Catherine Vozenin-Broton Phone: +33 142114283  Fax: +33 142115296  Contact

Project Staff

Institute Presentation

The IRSN field of expertise covers all of the risks related to ionising rays used within industry or medicine, or even natural radiation rays. IRSN shares since 1999 with the radiotherapy department of the Institut Gustave Roussy a research unit supervised by the South Paris Medical school (Paris XI, KB), "Unité Propre de Recherches de l'Enseignement Supérieur” (UPRES) EA 27-10. This laboratory aims to transfer the recent increase in the understanding of cancer and normal tissue biology into direct therapeutic benefit for patients. Mechanisms of tumor response and normal tissues to ionising radiation are studied in parallel to selectively increase the therapeutic ratio of radiotherapy ie to increase tumor response and spare as much as possible normal tissue. Normal tissue toxicity in the fields of enteritis, cardiovascular diseases and skin burns after radiation exposure are investigated.
Cardiac function depends on the contractile activity of cardiac myocytes interacting with various signals generated by other cellular types including the macro and micro-vascular endothelial cells. These signals include enzymatic cascades that modulate in a coordinated manner the activity of different cellular compartments and trigger the mechanical response through the activity of contractile proteins. Recently, a key role has been proposed for the Rho/ROCK pathway in the patho-physiological process associated with cardiovascular damages and cardiomyocytes function.

In the context of radiation-induced cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis and heart failure targeting Rho/ROCK and cardiomyocyte function could offer new therapeutic opportunities, but their contributions to radiation-induced toxicity have never been investigated so far and will be the main aim of the present study.