Draft:Laurence Zitvogel

Laurence Zitvogel is a clinical oncologist, researcher in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy and professor at Université Paris-Saclay. She was born on December 25, 1963, attended medical school in 1992, but her scientific career started at the University of Pittsburgh as she took part in Michael Lotze’s laboratory. She has spent 30 year studying the correlation between the immune system and the success of cancer treatments. Since then, she has received various honors and awards ranging from the Bob Pinedo Cancer Care Award 2022 to the ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology for her advancements within the field. Through her work as a professor and a researcher, she found that mouse models, revealed that chemotherapy could retard the growth of tumors, her team reported the first anticancer probiotic, Enterococcus hirae, and is currently finding an effective and inexpensive diagnostic test to predict dysbiosis and to quickly correct it. She is currently pursuing the promising lead on the role of certain gut microbiotes in anti-tumour immunotherapy.

Education
Zitvogel received her MD in Clinical Oncology, PhD in Tumor Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, and graduated in Medical Oncology in 1992. She started her scientific career at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) in 1993.

Career and Leadership
Zitvogel supervised the work that analyzed the multifaceted modes of action of this anticancer probiotic. Zitvogel leads the French RHU Torino-Lumière and European Oncobiome consortia for the development of tests for gut dysbiosis associated with frequent cancers. Zitvogel has authored or co-authored over 350 publications. She is also the Editor-in-Chief and founder of one of the first journals in immune-oncology, OncoImmunology. Zitvogel is Professor of Immunobiology at the University of Paris XI Medical School and scientific director at the Department of Immuno-Oncology, Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, in Villejuif, France. Zitovgel is also the director of U1015 INSERM Tumour Immunology and Immunotherapy Laboratory at INSERM and co-director of the Center for Clinical Investigation in Biotherapies of Cancer, INSERM. Zitvogel is also the company co-founder of EverImmune, a clinical-stage biotechnology company specialized in the development of live biotherapeutic products as adjuncts to cancer immunotherapy. Zitvogel has led a team that found that bacteria in the gut had a major effect on the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors in mice.

Research
Zitvogel found that cancer therapies with long-term beneficial effects may have limited impact on local disease but should activate a relevant adaptive immune reaction. Pioneering work by Laurence Zitvogel and Guido Kroemer, in mouse models, revealed that chemotherapy could retard the growth of tumors growing on immunocompetent but had no effect on tumors established on immunodeficient mice. In 2013, Zitvogel's work was the first to report the first anticancer probiotic, Enterococcus hirae isolated from spleens of animals treated with the immunological adjuvant cyclophosphamide. Zitvogel and her team of 30 people are at the origin of a major discovery in the treatment of cancers, which today gives this researcher a new scientific identity. She set up a patient diagnosis platform, this platform allows the patient's tumor to be removed when the operation is performed. Zitvogel hypothesized that disruption of the MAdCAM-1–α4β7 interaction that retains Treg17 cells might cause their migration from the gut to tumors and thereby compromise the anticancer effects of ICIs Accompanying this, Zitvogel saw that the relocation of enterotropic and immunosuppressive Treg17 cells to cancerous tissue (tumors and tdLNs) is repressed by the molecular interaction between the HEV addressin MAdCAM-1 and the integrin α4β7 expressed by Treg17 cells. Zitvogel's research also revealed that antibiotics administered before or during treatment may worsen the efficacy of immunotherapy. She examined the connections between nutrition, inflammation, and the immune systems impact on cancer. Correspondibly, Zitvogel found that nutritional interventions are emerging as novel strategies for improving the outcome of treatments with PD-1/PD-L1–targeting ICIs. Continuing on with Zitvogel's cancer research, she found that Probiotics used as complement to the existing therapeutic arsenal (surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy) could become a sixth therapeutic modality against cancer. Zitovgel's ongoing research falls into three main categories: studying the modes of action of immune checkpoint inhibitors and seeking predictors of response to immunomodulators; defining the role of the gut microbiome in cancer immunosurveil.

Awards

 * 1) Zitvogel was granted the newly established ESMO award for immune-oncology by The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)
 * 2) Received the Bob Pinedo Cancer Care Award for her pioneering research and passionate commitment to improving the quality of treatment and care for cancer patients
 * 3) Received various awards for her work and has been nominated as an Officer in the French L’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur and at the French Academy of Medicine
 * 4) Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research in 2017
 * 5) Baillet Latour Prize in 2018
 * 6) ARC Griffuel Prize in 2019
 * 7) Jakob-Herz Prize