On the occasion of his visit to Washington D.C., in the context of French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit, Antoine Petit, President and CEO of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) signed on April 25th 2018, together with Forrest Maltzman, George Washington (GW) University Provost, the agreement for the creation of a Joint Laboratory EpiDaPo: Epigenetics Data Politics. Its research activities will begin on July 1st 2018 on GW campus. Until then, this Joint laboratory is located on University of California at Los Angeles’ campus, where it was created in 2014.
The research carried out by this laboratory – co-headed by Eric Vilain, Chair at GW Department of Genomics and Precision Medicine, Director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Childrens’ hospital research, and Michel Dubois, Sociologist and CNRS Senior Research Fellow - is at the intersection of Genetics, Environment, Big Data and Society. Through its interdisciplinary approach to the challenges associated with the "genomic" and "post-genomic" approaches of life, EpiDaPo aims not only to bring together various academic communities (life sciences, environmental sciences, human and social sciences, bioinformatics, etc.) but also to contribute to the public debate and to participate in informed decision-making, particularly in the field of public health policies.