“Agile and innovative”, a Geneva foundation fights against cancer
Oncologist Pierre-Yves Dietrich explains the progress made against cancer thanks to this foundation. A concert will allow this Wednesday to collect donations.
Professor Pierre-Yves Dietrich, former head of oncology at HUG, is the president of the scientific council of the Henri Dubois-Ferrière Dinu Lipatti Foundation. LAURENT GUIRAUD/Tamedia
Laurent Guiraud
The Alhambra will host a special concert this Wednesday evening. Eugène Chaplin, surrounded by two pianists, will recount the music of his father Charlie Chaplin. Proceeds from the evening will fund cancer research, via the Henri Dubois-Ferrière Dinu Lipatti Foundation. In particular a project led by the Dr Federico Simonetta, researcher at HUG and UNIGE, who aims to exploit the natural properties of lymphocytes to kill cancer cells. Research conducted with Stanford University. Professor Pierre-Yves Dietrich, Chairman of the Foundation’s Scientific Council, explains.
Can you recall the purpose of this foundation?
It was born in memory of the friendship that united the pianist Dinu Lipatti, suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and his doctor Henri Dubois-Ferrière. For more than fifty years, she has raised funds for leukemia research with the help of music. It is his common thread.
What were his main achievements?
Initially, it played an important role in the development of bone marrow transplantation. In addition, each year it supports research projects in Geneva and in the Lake Geneva region. I see three stages since 2010. First of all the creation of a clinical research unit within the HUG. This strong support has made it possible to build a team which is today integrated and financed by the HUG, of international reputation and which offers the population access to innovative treatments.
The second step was the meeting, from 2017, of all the researchers active in cancer research within the Center for Translational Research in Onco-Haematology of the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine. This made it possible to fund three professorial chairs. Made up of 50 researchers at the start, it now has 300. And the snowball effect has played: the ISREC foundation has offered two other chairs to the Faculty of Medicine.
And the third step?
For three years, the foundation has contributed to the development of cell therapies of the future. CAR T cells are lymphocytes (or white blood cells) genetically modified to make them more efficient; they work like magnets capable of recognizing and killing tumor cells. The foundation supported the first stages of the clinical development of these therapies within the HUG. But we are in its infancy, much like chemotherapy in the 1950s.
Federico Simonetta’s project prepares new generations of lymphocyte drugs with very broad therapeutic potential, from hematological tumors to balance tumors. Thanks to its agility and innovative vision, the foundation manages to promote ambitious projects which, over the decades, have made a difference.
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