IUBMB Lecture will be delivered by Professor François-Xavier Maquart (Unité de Recherche "Matrice Extracellulaire et Dynamique Cellulaire" (MEDyC), UMR CNRS/URCA NO 7369, Faculté de Médecine de Reims, France) under the title "Matrikines as important players in matrix pathobiology".

François-Xavier Maquart, 65, MD, PhD, is professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Faculty of Medicine of Reims, France and was the dean of this Faculty from 1997 to 2007. He was the general secretary then president of the French Society of Matrix Biology (1989-1998) and President of the French Collegium of  Medical Biochemistry Professors (2003-2009). Since 1997, he is director of the Central Laboratory of Biochemistry of the Reims University Hospital and, since 1995, Director of a Research Unit associated with the CNRS. Since 2008, he also heads a Federative Research Institute which currently groups together 27 research teams. He is a member of the French National Academy of Medicine.

The research activities of François-Xavier Maquart have been focused on the study of cell-extracellular matrix interactions under normal and pathological conditions,  particularly tumor invasion and wound healing. He created and developed the concept of "matrikines", peptides derived from the partial degradation of extracellular matrix macromolecules, capable of regulating numerous cellular activities. He characterized several matrikines either activating healing or inhibiting tumor progression, some of which have already been the subject of industrial valorisation. He is co-author of 220 publications indexed in the Web of Science.