Cécile Echalier: aiming for biomaterials

Cécile Echalier didn't originally set out to do research when she enrolled in a chemistry degree program at the University of Montpellier. " I was passionate about teaching, and wanted to enter the IUFM after my degree to become a school teacher ", recalls the young researcher. It was a clear-cut path, but one that was to be turned upside down by chance. At the end of their Master 1 course, chemistry students are required to take part in an internship assigned to them... by lottery. For Cécile Echalier, it was the chemistry of peptides with Gilles Subra, professor at the University of Montpellier and researcher at the Max Mousseron Institute of Biomolecules. It was an encounter that turned her away from her job as a school teacher: " For me, this experience was an opportunity to discover what research was all about, but I was still attracted to teaching, so I wanted to do both ".

A new vocation to which Gilles Subra lent an attentive ear, proposing that the young student join his team if she decided to do a thesis. The idea matured in the student's mind during her Master 2, which she spent partly at Glasgow University, where she did a 6-month internship in chemobiology.

New hybrid materials

On her return in 2013, she joined the Amino Acids, Heterocycles, Peptides and Proteins team at theMax Mousseron Biomolecules Institute for a thesis. "I chose a project that was starting from scratch, I wanted to have to do proof of concept ". At the time, the project was based on a fairly new theme: hybrid biomaterials. In collaboration with Ahmad Mehdi from theInstitut Charles Gerhardt in Montpellier, the young researcher combines the expertise in peptide chemistry and inorganic chemistry of these two laboratories to create new hybrid hydrogels.

" The idea was to apply sol-gel chemistry to the synthesis of materials used in the healthcare sector, which was quite pioneering at the time", recalls the chemist. Because the development of these biomaterials requires the use of gentle chemistry, " the processes involved have to be compatible with living cells, and we can't use toxic solvents, for example ".

It was a challenge that Cécile Echalier took up wholeheartedly during her 3-year thesis, during which she authored 5 articles as first author. "At the end of my thesis I trained 3 PhD students in the chemistry of these hybrid materials, who continued the research I had initiated ," she explains. In 2016, she was awarded a l'Oréal-UNESCO fellowship, an endowment that the chemist will use to acquire a 3D printer and thus go even further in the creation of materials.

Useful purpose

After this remarkable thesis, Cécile Echalier left for a post-doctorate in Heidelberg, Germany, where she temporarily abandoned the biomaterials theme to work on chemobiology. It's not just me having fun in my lab, it has to serve a purpose". In this European molecular biology laboratory, the researcher will develop probes to study the activation mechanism of drug candidates.

This "useful" post-doctorate was followed by a second, this time at Imperial College London, where Cécile Echalier returned to her beloved biomaterials for two and a half years, never to let them go again. On her return to France in 2021, she will take up a position at the University of Montpellier as a temporary teaching and research associate (ATER). On the teaching side, the new ATER teaches at the Faculty of Pharmacy, but also at the Sète IUT and the Faculty of Science. She enjoys teaching " to a very varied public, who are destined for research as well as engineering and technical careers ".

As far as research is concerned, the young woman is still based at IBMM. Here, she meets up with Gilles Subra and the biomaterials theme, which will be given new impetus in 2022 with the launch of Nanoremedi, a research and training program run jointly by six European universities, aimed at training PhD students in the field of peptides and nanomaterials, and which has received Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network funding.

Medical applications

In collaboration with Danièle Noël's team atIRMB and the other partners in the European consortium, the chemists aim with Nanoremedi to develop new materials for regenerative medicine. In particular, the research team is focusing on three medical applications: " the engineering of vascular grafts to replace damaged arteries, the development of stem cell-based biotherapies for bone and cartilage repair, and the development of strategies to promote implant integration and prevent bacterial contamination ", explains Cécile Echalier.

Just over a year after the project was launched, 13 doctoral students have been recruited to achieve these ambitious goals. And Cécile Echalier has just taken another step forward in her career: " On November¹, I was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Montpellier, which is an important moment, as it means I can now apply for funding as a project leader ". The chemist has already submitted an ANR Jeune chercheuse - jeune chercheur project aimed at further developing new, gentler chemistries, this time compatible with 3D printing techniques. The response is eagerly awaited for the end of 2024.