Catherine Alix-Panabieres's Biography

Catherine Alix-Panabieres, Associate Professor, University Medical Center of Montpellier

Dr Catherine Alix-Panabières received her PhD degree in 1998 at the Institute of Virology, University Louis Pasteur, in Strasbourg (France). In 1999, she moved to Montpellier where she did a postdoctoral research in the Department of Immuno-Virology of the University Medical Centre of Montpellier, France. During this last decade, Dr Alix-Panabières has focused on optimizing new techniques of enrichment and detection of viable disseminating tumour cells in patients with solid tumors. She is the expert for the EPISPOT technology which is used to detect viable tumor cells in the peripheral blood and the bone marrow of patients with breast, prostate and colon cancer. She is an associate-professor in the Laboratory of Cellular and Hormonal Biology at the University Medical Center of Montpellier and recently, she built a new laboratory (Laboratory of Rare Human Circulating cells - Institute of Research in Biotherapy – University Medical Centre Montpellier, France, http://irb.chu-montpellier.fr/index.html). Responsible of the Cancer Research department, they isolate, detect and characterize CTC/DTC using combination of the EPISPOT assay, the CellSearch® system (Veridex) and the last generation of a high tech flow cytometer (MoFlo-Astrios - Beckmann Coulter). She has authored or co-authored 25 scientific publications in this field during the last 5 years including 9 book chapters.