For several years, Institut Curie and Google have been combining their expertise to advance research and treatments to fight cancer. On the occasion of the AI Action Summit, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, formalized a new partnership during his visit to the Institute. This collaboration aims to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer as well as certain gynecological cancers, including uterine cancer.
Addressing the Urgency of the Challenge
Affecting millions of women worldwide, breast and gynecological cancers represent a major public health issue. In 2022, over 2 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer, and more than 61,000 new cases are diagnosed in France each year. The partnership will particularly focus on triple-negative breast cancer, a complex and rare cancer (about 15% of breast cancers) characterized by a high risk of relapse and a high metastatic potential.
Although less common than breast cancer, gynecological cancers affect 17,000 women in France each year, resulting in the death of 7,000. Cervical cancer is among the most widespread, with approximately 3,000 new cases annually in France and 1,100 deaths. However, this cancer, linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV), could be prevented through HPV vaccination and enhanced screening campaigns that would allow for the treatment of precancerous lesions.
Given these alarming figures, it is imperative to intensify research and develop new approaches to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of these diseases.
Applying AI to Research: The Partnership between Google and the Women's Cancer Institute
Sundar Pichai was received at Institut Curie by Professor Anne Vincent-Salomon, pathologist and director of the IHU (Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire) Women's Cancers Institute. Co-founded in 2023 by Institut Curie, PSL University, and Inserm, this institute brings together the cutting-edge expertise of researchers, clinicians, mathematicians, bioinformaticians, sociologists, and economists.
This groundbreaking project in providing medical and psychological support to women aims to better understand, prevent, detect, and cure female cancers, particularly in at-risk patients. It also aims to better train professionals on the specific challenges of these cancers.
The partnership with Google is fully integrated into this program. Its research-focused component will rely on the data trove of Institut Curie, the result of the progressive digitization of 25 years of cancer patient care.
AI will be used to analyze data from digitized pathology slides, medical imaging exams, and molecular analyses. This will allow the identification of new biomarkers to predict patients' responses to treatments, especially for those whose tumors resist current treatments.
Informing to Save Lives
Beyond research, the partnership with Google also includes a prevention and awareness component. YouTube Health is partnering with Institut Curie to disseminate reliable and accessible scientific content to the general public to combat misinformation, raise awareness of risk factors, and increase screening and follow-up rates.
Financial Support for Postdoctoral Researchers
Alongside the research partnership with the Women's Cancer Institute, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, has granted over $2 million in funding to PSL University to support research conducted by postdoctoral fellows at PSL University using AI to improve outcomes for breast cancer and other female cancers.
The initiative will also allow PSL University and Google Research teams to share their knowledge and promote scientific advancement more broadly.
Postdoctoral fellows will benefit from experiences and case studies shared by Google researchers under the direction of Joëlle Barral, Senior Research Director at Google DeepMind, and Cédric Denis-Rémis, Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development at PSL University.