Portraits of UM

A professor at the Max Mousseron Institute of Biomolecules at the University of Montpellier, chemist Jean-Yves Winum designs and synthesizes enzyme inhibitors for carbonic anhydrases, an interesting target for cancer treatments and against various pathogens. His career has been recognized with the Michel Delalande Prize from the French National Academy of Pharmacy.

Paul-Émile Paradan, a mathematics researcher at the Alexander Grothendieck Institute at the University of Montpellier, has been awarded the Alexandre Joannidès Prize by the French Academy of Sciences. The prize recognizes his years of solitary research at the intersection of Atiyah-Singer index theory, representation theory, and symplectic geometry.  

Thanks to the MAK'IT program (Montpellier Advanced Knowledge Institute on Transitions), Silvia Giordani is weaving collaborations with several UM laboratories around her nanomaterials research. The Dublin City University professor is taking advantage of this to extend the biomedical applications of her carbon nano-onions to fields other than medicine, particulary energy.

Catherine Alix-Panabières is one of the world's leading experts on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and liquid biopsies. The originator of the term, the professor of oncology at the University of Montpellier and director of the Rare Human Circulating Cells and Liquid Biopsy Laboratory (LCCRH) has initiated numerous research projects on cancer biomarkers present in the blood, with therapeutic prospects to boot.

On August 1, 2024, astronomer Agnès Lèbre took over as director of the Montpellier Environmental Research Observatory (OREME). This role is a natural fit for the first UM researcher to include observation services among her duties since 1996.

At the forefront of digital revolutions, Edmond Baranes has been working on the economics of telecommunications services for three decades. The professor of economics at the University of Montpellier was elected dean of the Faculty of Economics in 2024.