Current lab members:

• Eric RÖTTINGER, DR2 CNRS
• Aldine AMIEL, IR2 INSERM (70%)
• Renaud REBILLARD, TCS CNRS (20%)
• Aurore VULLIEN, PhD student
• Rita ANDREONI, PhD student
• Kai HOFMAENNER, PhD student
• Mickael WURTZ, PhD student
• Marine DANIEL, IE CDD CNRS

Lab Alumni:

Certain marine animals such as cnidarians (sea anemones, corals and “jellyfish) possess so-called whole body regenerative capacities, as they can reform fully functional organisms from most isolated body parts or even dissociated cells. Another interesting property of symbiotic cnidarians is their ability to resists and adapt to high environmental stress, such as expositions to intracellular ROS, at levels known to be devastating for mammalian cells by enhancing the aging process. Importantly, this extreme regenerative potential, the impressive ROS resistance and plasticity to adapt to drastic environmental variations are accompanied by an extended lifespan / immortality in a large set of these marine animals. 

We take advantage of these interesting and intriguing biological features of cnidarians to decipher their underlying cellular, molecular, biochemical and genetic mechanisms. Our multidisciplinary and integrative research developed with local, national and international academic collaborators aims to obtain a novel view of cnidarian regeneration, stress response and extreme longevity. Ultimately, our research will participate in improving our understanding of how these marine invertebrates prevent aging and age-related diseases, discoveries that will subsequently be transferred to vertebrate/human related research within the IRCAN and our network of collaborators with the long-term goal of creating novel opportunities for regenerative medicine and aging research.

Our principal research aims focusing on complementary anthozoan cnidarian research models, particularly the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis are:

A) Characterize the tissular, cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying whole body regeneration.

B) Understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for the high environmental stress resistance.

C) Determine how cnidarians prevent aging and aging-related diseases.

Resources developed by the team are available as soon as possible through freely accessible and intuitive online repositories (e.g. nvertx.kahikai.org). In addition to our research, members of the team are intensely involved in fostering interdisciplinary research (e.g. IFR MARRES) and teaching activities at the University Nice Sophia Antipolis and Université Côte d’Azur / University Cote d’Azur (e.g. MSc MARRES, Life Science School) as well as outreach activities (workshops, conferences, photo exhibitions) in tight interaction with the non-profit organization Kahi Kai (www.kahikai.org) in order to promote the importance of marine organisms for fundamental as well as applied aging research.

Research Teams

IRCAN has a diverse research teams, tackling a wide range and resolution of topics in ageing and cancer.