Invited seminar by team 6 MIRCADE (Methods and Innovations for the Research in Pediatric Cancers.) headed by Christophe Grosset.

Romain PARENT
Hepatitis Viruses & Liver Pathogenesis (PathLiv) Laboratory – UMR 1350
Inserm – Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University – Lyon Hepatology Institute

The interest of liver innervation in chronic liver disease and liver cancer.

Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) care has long been hampered by the enigmatic nature of disease onset across patients, evolution, as well as of response or resistance to treatment. Hepatic neural cells are likely the least studied liver cell type and mediate patients singularities from the ANS to the organ in real-time. These cells, belonging to the autonomic nervous system (ANS), mediate liver/whole body crosstalk. Pathological innervation of the ANS has been identified in cancer, nurturing tumor stroma and conferring stronger carcinogenic properties.
In this presentation focusing on a pathogenic continuum between normal liver and HCC, we will present evidence for: (i) deep alterations of neural markers along this spectrum, (ii) the presence of neural pools of cells in lesions, (iii) the introduction of a novel neuronal score-based approach for stratification with respect to pathological and immunological considerations, and (iv) functional studies causally demonstrating the interest of these notions for rational and accessible therapeutic intervention.

Biography
I obtained a PharmD at the U. of Aix-Marseille 1 in 2001 and a PhD in hepatic virology in 2004 through a PhD exchange program between the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C at the Rockefeller University of New-York and the Inserm Unit 271 in Lyon, working on the early HCV tissue culture systems.
I then spent four years at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle working on HCV virology and cell translation. I obtained an Inserm CR2 position in 2009.
I have been till then leading an independent group within Fabien Zoulim’s PathLiv laboratory, gradually evolving from translational virology towards the study of liver innervation in pathology, through a long term work on the axonal guidance cue netrin-1.
My group’s work on netrin-1 have ended up in the Phase III HCC-NET1 clinical trial which has for goal to target the axonal guidance factor netrin-1 in HCC. I recently obtained a Master degree in philosophy. As a teaching unit head at the Oncology Master of Lyon 1, I also tackle these issues through the mind-body philosophical paradigm with the students.