The objective of FHU CARE is to put together clinicians and basic scientists involved in Autoimmunity / Inflammation and Cancer from Université Paris-Saclay Hospitals, in order to improve collaborations between Autoimmunity and Cancer experts and to favor emergence of new paradigms that are:

  • Pathophysiology of Cancer and of Autoimmune Diseases (AID) / Inflammatory Diseases (ID) may share common or opposite mechanisms
  • Treatment of Autoimmunity and treatment of Cancer are inter-related

A first step of collaboration between both fields has emerged with management of IrAEs. FHU CARE aims to go beyond and pave the way of new Immunotherapy of Cancer and Autoimmunity, based on the knowledge learnt from the interaction between both.

Innovative and structuring nature of the FHU

FHU CARE federates together 11 clinical departments (8 of them also leading a research team), 9 other research teams, 2 pathology departments, 1 epidemiology department and 1 biological resource centre, all from Université Paris-Saclay and Hospitals.

FHU CARE allows to structure interactions between these teams, in order to boost university and hospital relations and improves:

  • The quality of care: the better management of ICI in Cancer and of immunosuppressive drugs in AID/ID and transplantation.
  • The quality of research: connections are created between basic scientists, clinicians and epidemiologists. FHU CARE is crucial for boosting a platform with advanced technologies for human immune monitoring at Bicêtre hospital | Greater Paris University Hospitals - Greater Paris University Hospitals - AP-HP in a new research building dedicated to translational medicine.
  • The quality of teaching: creation of dedicated teaching on Cancer (C), Autoimmune Diseases (AID), Inflammatory Diseases (ID) interactions for Master Students (MD), PhD students, nurses and health professionals, but also engineers and people from industry from all fields.

FHU CARE enhanced visibility of the relation between Cancer (C), Autoimmune Diseases (AID), Inflammatory Diseases (ID) improves the collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry for setting up new treatments of Cancer (C), Autoimmune Diseases (AID), Inflammatory Diseases (ID) and is the basis for applying to ambitious national or European grants for transforming the new concepts demonstrated in FHU CARE into new treatments and new standard of care of patients with AID/ID and those with Cancer.

Objective of clinical and translational research, added value of the FHU

Université Paris-Saclay (UPSACLAY), launched in January 2020, is one of the strongest French universities and comprises two medical schools (Paris-Sud and Versailles St Quentin) with doctors and scientists working now in the same hospital institution (Paris-Saclay Hospitals).

This community is very rich in experts involved in Cancer (C), Autoimmune Diseases (AID), Inflammatory Diseases (ID). Thanks to the very strong Institut Gustave Roussy (IGR) Cancer institute, belonging to the same Université Paris-Saclay, interactions between experts of Cancer and of Autoimmunity have been pioneers regarding the management of Immune related adverse events (IrAEs) of Immune check points inhibitors (ICI).