Raphaël Rodriguez

Raphaël Rodriguez, born on 27 October 1978 in Avignon (France), is a French scientist. </br></br> Research Director at the CNRS, he leads the "Chemical Biology" team at Institut Curie (Institut Curie/CNRS/Inserm/Université de recherche Paris-Sciences-et-Lettres). His work focuses on understanding the biology of cancer at the molecular level. In particular, he studies the role of metals in the regulation of cell plasticity. 
==Biography==
Raphaël Rodriguez was raised by his parents in the south of France alongside his older brother and young sister. Has has two children. 
==Career==
Raphaël Rodriguez, PhD, FRSC, is a Research Director at the CNRS and a Senior Principal Investigator at Institut Curie where he holds the Marie Curie Chair of Chemical Biology. He trained as a PhD student and then as a postdoctoral scientist under the mentorship of Sir J. E. Baldwin (Oxford, 2004) ans Sir S. Balasubramanian (Cambridge, 2005) from whom he acquired the knowledge of synthetic chemistry and supramolecular chemistry. Then, he trained in cell biology from Prof. Stephen Jackson (Cambridge, 2009) with whom he co-founded Adrestia Therapeutics. </br></br> At the age of 32, he established his laboratory at ICSN (Gif-sur-Yvettes, 2012). He obtained the Habilitation to Supervise Research from the University of Paris-Saclay that same yeat. He then moved to Institut Curie (Paris, 2015) to investigate the molecular basis underlying the biology of cancer. There, Raphaël Rodriguez discovered the key role of metals in the regulation of the plasticity of cancer and immune cells. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite by Jean-Marie Lehn on behalf of the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron. </br></br> He has received several awards and prizes for his scientific contributions, including the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Prize, the Klaus Grohe Prize, the Lacassagne Prize (Collègue de France) and the Grand Prix Charles Defforey (Institut de France). </br></br> In 2018, he crossed from Corbonod (France) to Saint-Louis (Senegal) following the route of Mermoz and Saint-Exupéry with his brother on board a Shark ultra-light aircraft. In 2009, he completed the Nice Ironman (13h31) in support of women in Zimbabwe under the aegis of Amnesty International. In his youth, he was a volunteer fireman. 
==Scientific contribution==
Together with Profs. Balasurbramanian and Jackson, he demonstrated through the intervention of smal molecules (e.g. pyridostation) that DNA G-quadruplex structures form in the gene body and contribute to genomic instability. Later, Raphaël Rodriguez ans Stephen Jackson identified the acetytransferase NAT10 as a regulator of cellular ageing. They develop and inhibitor, remodeline, which reverses these defects. </br></br> Rodriguez's more recent endeavors revealed that iron and copper orchestrate epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer cellls and discovered that targeting lysosomal iron with small molecules can induce or inhibit ferroptosis. This work led him to discover a general cellular metal uptake mechanism mediated by the membrane glycoprotein CD44 and its legand, the metal carrier hyaluronan. Raphaël Rodriguez claims that his most important scientific contribution is the discovery of a copper signaling axis that regulates cell plasticity in the context of cancer and immunity. 
==Awards and honours==
* 2022 : 50px Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite
* 2022 : Prix Klaus Grohe
* 2019 : Prix Lacassagne
* 2019 : Grand Prix Charles Defforey
* 2019 : Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award
* 2017 : Raphaël Rodriguez intègre la promotion 2017 du programme « Young Leaders » franco-britannique
* 2017 : Prix du Cercle K2 en cancérologie.
* 2015 : Prix Pierre Fabre pour l'innovation thérapeutique
* 2006 : Prix de thèse Fournier de la Société chimique de Francehttp://www.societechimiquedefrance.fr/Laureats-896.html.
==Selected publications==
* Persister cancer cells: iron addiction and vulnerability to ferroptosis. R. Rodriguez, S. L. Schreiber, M. Conrad. Mol. Cell 82, 728-740 (2022)
* CD44 regulates epigenetic plasticity by mediating iron endocytosis. S. Müller, F. Sindikubwabo, T. Cañeque, A. Lafon, A. Versini, C. Ginestier, E. Charafe-Jauffret, B. Lombard, D. Loew, T.-D. Wu, A. Durand, C. Vallot, S. Baulande, N. Servant, R. Rodriguez. Nature Chem. 12, 929-938 (2020)
* C. Leroy, A. David, V. Acevedo, A. Ryo, C. Ginestier, D. Birnbaum, E. Charafe-Jauffret, P. Codogno, M. Mehrpour, R. Rodriguez. Nature Chem. 9, 1025-1033 (2017)
Category:1978 births
Category:People from Avignon
Category:French people
Category:French scientists