Dr Pierre Val is an expert in the generation and analysis of genetically engineered mouse models to understand the role of signalling pathways in adrenal homeostasis and disease. He

earned a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Physiology summa cum laude from Clermont University in 2003. During this training, he worked on the molecular mechanisms that controlled transcriptional response to hormones in a tissue-specific manner. After graduating, he moved to The Institute of Cancer Research in London for his post-doctoral training from 2003 to 2007. There, he discovered some of the molecular mechanisms involved in the specification of the adrenal cortex primordium during embryonic development. He was the recruited as a full-time researcher for CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in 2007 and was promoted as Research Director and Principal Investigator in 2016. His projects, conducted at the Genetics Reproduction and Development Institute in Clermont-Ferrand, FRANCE, aim at understanding the role of signalling pathways in development and differentiation of the adrenal cortex and how their deregulation is associated with adrenal diseases. In this context, his team has identified the role of WNT/beta-catenin signalling, PKA and epigenetic pathways in the functional zonation of the adrenal cortex. They further showed that deregulation of these pathways played key roles in both benign and malignant tumourigenesis. More recently Dr Val’s team has focused their attention to the role of macrophages in the progression of adrenal cortex carcinomas and demonstrated that these phagocytes were involved in the strong sex bias of this cancer. Dr Val received the bronze medal from CNRS and the young investigator award from ENS@T in 2012. He is a member of the scientific committees of IFCAH and the French Ligue Contre le Cancer.