Dr Jacques GRILL

Doctor Jacques Grill, a pediatrician oncologist at Gustave Roussy is the main investigator of two clinical trials co-financed by Imagine for Margo: VINILO and BIOMEDE.

Jacques Grill has worked as a pediatrician at Gustave Roussy since 2001, after a medical training in Strasburg and Paris and a scientific thesis completed in the Netherlands. He is in charge of the brain tumors program and of the paediatric committee.

He led several international studies, among which HERBY on diagnosed malignant gliomas, VINILO on low-grade gliomas and BIOMEDE on diffuse brainstem gliomas.

He currently leads a team of researchers on genomics and on the oncogenesis of paediatric brain tumors at the Research Unit UMR 8203 of the CNRS. His research is focused on glial tumors, specifically on malignant gliomas.

His team has recently made major discoveries in diffuse brainstem gliomas, serving as a scientific basis for the clinical trial BIOMEDE. By analyzing the biopsies performed at diagnosis, they found out that two distinct types of tumors existed, with different biologies and evolutions.

They also identified new therapeutic targets like the mTOR pathway or the ACVR1 receptor which is often mutated in those tumors.

This research program is unique of its kind in France and one of the few existing in Europe to understand the carcinogenicity of this very specific tumor whose most striking abnormalities (histone and ACVR1 mutation) have never been described in other types of cancers. His team has developed unique models from biopsies performed at diagnosis, which are now used to find new therapeutic targets and test new treatments.