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Roxana Khazen is one of the 10 prize winners selected by the ARC Foundation at the end of December 2023 in a new call for projects.

Promoting the integration of the most promising cancer researchers into research organisations (EPST) in France. This is the aim of the “Passerelle” call for projects launched in 2023 by the ARC Foundation for Cancer Research.

For this first edition, the association’s Board of Directors has decided to support 10 prize-winners for a total of €1m. Among them are two women from Toulouse: Roxana Khazen and Ikrame Lazar, who will each receive €100,000. This will enable them to continue their research for a year in their respective research centres and to apply for the EPST (Établissement Public à Caractère Scientifique et Technologique) competitions in the hope of becoming permanent researchers.

Roxana Khazen has been interested since her doctoral thesis in the effector cells of the immune response against cancers. Currently based at the Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie in the DynAct team, her research project is part of a major current challenge in cancer research, namely “finding ways of remobilising patients’ immune systems against their cancer, using cutting-edge technologies such as RNA sequencing”.

Ultimately, this work could help to devise therapeutic strategies based on a better collective ability of these immune cells to eliminate cancer cells more effectively. Already supported in the past by the ARC Foundation, these various contributions have enabled this immunology enthusiast “to discover new mechanisms and targets for immunotherapy”. As a result, she firmly believes in the relevance of this new Passerelle funding “in the fight against cancer”.