Imperial and France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have launched a new International Research Laboratory to accelerate breakthroughs in metabolic health and disease.
The CNRS–Imperial International Research Laboratory in Multiscale Metabolism ‘Antoine Lavoisier’ will use cutting-edge approaches including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and multi‑scale biology to better understand how metabolism works in people and in large populations to improve health outcomes for people affected by cancer, diabetes, cardiometabolic diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
Our collaboration with France's CNRS will create new opportunities to share talent, knowledge and resources - accelerating discovery, driving health-tech innovations and delivering meaningful societal impact. Professor Hugh Brady President of Imperial
The lab is named after the French Chemist Antoine Lavoisier whose work kickstarted the field of metabolism and calorimetry.
Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College London, said: “Understanding metabolism is crucial to addressing some of the biggest health challenges of our time - from obesity and diabetes to cancer and neurodegenerative diseases - and our new joint laboratory will put the UK and France at the forefront of this critical area of research. By bringing together world-leading expertise and cutting-edge technologies, including AI and machine learning, we will deepen our understanding of these complex conditions for the benefit of all. Our collaboration with France's CNRS will create new opportunities to share talent, knowledge and resources - accelerating discovery, driving health-tech innovations and delivering meaningful societal impact.”
The lab builds on the success of collaborations with the CNRS and the University of Lille, creating a long-term platform to advance research into some of the world’s most pressing health challenges.
The lab was officially launched at a reception at the British Embassy in Paris, at a side event to the UK-France Joint Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation.
The lab is Imperial’s third International Research Laboratory with CNRS – and follows the launch of the joint engineering laboratory, the Ayrton-Bleriot Engineering Lab (ABEL), by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron last year, and the mathematics laboratory ‘Abraham de Moivre’, launched in 2018.
Tackling a growing global health challenge
Metabolic variation and dysfunction play a central role in a wide range of diseases associated with ageing, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
By 2030, an estimated one billion people worldwide are expected to be living with obesity, with diabetes projected to affect 1.3 billion people by 2050. Around 65 per cent of these individuals are expected to die from cardiovascular or renal diseases, while also facing increased risks of stroke, dementia and several cancers.
The laboratory is expected to play a major role in driving health‑tech innovation across the UK and France, with strong potential for translating discoveries into new diagnostic tools, therapies and digital health solutions.
The researchers will combine clinical data, advanced analytics and experimental biology to map how metabolic processes vary between individuals and change over time, opening new routes to personalised medicine and early intervention.
By combining expertise in AI, machine learning and biomedical science, researchers aim to:
- Predict disease risk earlier and track how conditions develop over time
- Develop more personalised treatments tailored to each person’s biology
- Explore how gut bacteria and whole‑body systems affect health and disease
- Support healthcare systems with smarter, data‑driven decision tools
Professor Mark Thursz, Co-Director of the IRL, from Imperial’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, said: “Metabolism plays an important role in many of the diseases people face today. This laboratory will help us understand these conditions more clearly by combining leading research with real-world patient data. By bringing these insights together, we aim to find new ways to prevent disease and develop more effective treatments that are tailored to individual patients.”
Strengthening a strategic UK–France partnership
The new IRL forms part of the broader CNRS–Imperial International Research Centre for Transformational Science and Technology, designed to foster long-term cooperation, researcher mobility and joint innovation. It is the CNRS’s only IRC in the UK and has become a major bridge for UK and French science communities spanning joint laboratories and networks in maths, frontier engineering disciplines, physics, biochemistry and systems biology.
Professor Sandrine Heutz, Co-Director of the Imperial-CNRS International Research Centre, said: “This new laboratory marks an exciting expansion of the Imperial-CNRS partnership. It reflects both the strength of our collaboration to date and our shared ambition to tackle major global health challenges through interdisciplinary research and innovation.”
Imperial is one of France's closest UK scientific collaborators and publishes around 1,400 research papers with partners in France every year. In 2024, France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research Sylvie Retailleau visited Imperial to signal the growing scientific ties between the UK and France.