Only just thirty years old but already very experienced in cellular biology and biochemistry techniques, Laetitia Martin provides her technical competences to the C3D Drug Discovery Center of the Synergie Lyon Cancer Foundation.

Since October 2012, Laetitia Martin has worked at the CD3 drug discovery center of the Synergie Lyon Cancer Foundation as a technician with expertise in biology and is dedicated to the research and development of candidate drugs for cancerology. Her scope of responsibility at the Léon Bérard Center is very similar to that of the previous post she held for eight years at Idealp Pharma, a service company specialized in drug discovery for the pharmaceutical industry.

“Screening molecules on the biological targets involved in genetic, neurological, infectious and cancerous diseases was part of my activity in that company”, says Laetitia Martin. “My mission was to develop a detection method making it possible to identify molecules presenting an effect on these targets. When a molecule seemed interesting, a whole series of tests was performed.  It was necessary to confirm its activity with the same test and with different tests, look for dose-effect relations, check the physicochemical parameters, etc.”.  After chemical modifications used to determine the structure-activity relation of these molecules, Laetitia Martin continued with the tests. She verified the coherence between the effect obtained and the modifications made on the molecule, then again studied all its properties, such as solubility, stability and toxicity. The objective of all these operations was to validate the hits and optimize them to obtain leads.

An integrated research environment with original interactions

These methods are now applied by Laetitia Martin solely in the framework of cancer research at the C3D drug discovery center of the Synergie Lyon Cancer Foundation. But that is not the main change in her professional work: “The environment at the interface between the private and public sectors on the same site as fundamental and clinical research is completely new for me. It means other projects, challenges and interactions”, explains this young women, holder of a BSc degree in biological engineering, an undergraduate degree (DEUG) in life sciences and a BSc degree in biochemistry from the University of Lyon 1.