Chair in Paediatric Oncology Research awarded to Dr. Catherine Metayer
As part of the ten-year strategy to fight cancer, Inserm launched in 2024 the international attractiveness programme “Chair of Research in Paediatric Oncology”. Dr Catherine Métayer, a physician epidemiologist in California (University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health), internationally recognised for her research on the role of the environment in the development of leukaemias in children, has successfully obtained this Chair position with her programme: imPACT – Childhood Cancers: PArtnership for Cancer Exposomic and GeneTic Research for Children. Dr. Metayer is also a laureate of a national program for attracting high-level researchers—Choose France for Science (Choose France for science | enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr), which will strengthen the capacities of her new research program.
imPACT-Childhood Cancers will establish a transdisciplinary ecosystem to comprehensively evaluate the impact of environmental chemicals, social factors, and genomics on the childhood cancer continuum from etiology to clinical outcomes. Major innovations include home sampling and biomarker studies to identify thousands of molecules and shed light on early-life origins of childhood cancers. The program will be developed within the research area focused on epidemiology of childhood and adolescent cancer, in the OPPaLE team, which has longstanding recognized expertise in pediatric cancer epidemiology and leads the national childhood cancer observation platform (HOPE-EPI/CCOP). This ambitious program will help consolidate and develop French and international epidemiological research on pediatric cancers. Dr. Metayer started her position as Research Professor at the University of Paris Cité in early May 2026 in the CRESS, at the Villemin site.
By Catherine Metayer
