Céline Gongora

Céline Gongora is a French cancer researcher and molecular biologist known for the discovery of Interferon-stimulated gene 20 kDa protein as well as her work on drug resistance in solid tumours, particularly colorectal and prostate cancers. She is a research director at the Institut de Recherche en Cancérologie de Montpellier (IRCM), part of the University of Montpellier, where she leads the “Drug Resistance and New Cancer Treatment” team.

During her PhD in the lab of Nadir Mechti she was part of the team who discovered ISG20, an important RNA exonuclease. This structural characterisation work enabled later identification of ISG20 as a major component involved in antiviral innate immunity, involvement in cancer proliferation as well as potential therapeutic applications of ISG20 in acute-kidney injury treatment.