Jean-Louis Touraine is a professor of medicine in the department of organ transplantation and immunology at Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, and is a part-time practitioner at Édouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon.[1] He has also served as president of France Transplant since 1995 and the Centre of Studies of Immunodeficiency and its Relation to Cancer (CEDIC). From 1986 to 1990, Touraine was president of the Inserm Scientific Consultative Council of Rhône-Alpes, and from 1986 to 1992, he additionally served as president of the High Medical Council of Social Security in the Ministry of Social Affairs. He wrote the book Hors de la bulle about the treatment of children born with severe immunodeficiency.
During the 1970s, Touraine conducted most of his research on immunodeficiency. He participated in the first ever bone marrow and fetal thymus transplants. Touraine had a particular interest in immunodeficiency in newborn children.[4]
AIDS research
After having created a mouse with a human immune system, Touraine used it to test several gene therapies for HIV/AIDS.[5] The research director of Edouard Herriot Hospital, on the advice of the company Mydetics, attempted to patent these therapies, which combined two genes with a "vector" gene from cells.[6] This project was conducted through a company registered in the tax haven of Bermuda. Due to research difficulties and a lack of response to questions from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the patent was ultimately never made.[7]
Cancer research
Starting in the 2000s with the founding of CEDIC, Touraine researched cancer while pursuing his political career at the same time. In 2004, CEDIC received 120 000 shares in Mydetics.[8]
Political career
Touraine was a member of the Socialist Party (PS) until 2017. He was elected to the municipal council of Lyon in 1989 and served on the council of the Urban Community of Lyon from 1989 to 2014. Touraine was also mayor of the 8th arrondissement of Lyon from 1995 to 2001. Vice-president of the Urban Community of Lyon from 1995 onwards, he served under Gérard Collomb as the first deputy mayor of Lyon from 2001 to 2014 and was charged with the transport, public tranquility and decentralization portfolios. As vice-president of the Lyon Metropolis, he was responsible for urban transport and road infrastructure until 2008. Touraine was additionally elected to the General Council of Rhône, serving from 2004 to 2007.
In September 2017, Touraine proposed a bill supporting assisted dying, arguing that patients with untreatable medical conditions should be permitted to choose "active medical assistance in dying."[12][13] He received the support of 156 members of the National Assembly on 28 February 2018, who wrote an article in Le Monde calling for legislation that would "give sick, dying patients the freedom to do what they wish with their bodies."[14] Touraine also became president of a National Assembly study group on assisted dying.[15]
In the summer of 2018, Touraine was appointed rapporteur of a fact-finding mission on the reform of bioethics laws, which was presided over by Xavier Breton of The Republicans (LR).[16] He submitted his final report to the National Assembly in January 2019, which recommended the legalization of medically assisted reproduction for lesbian couples and celibate women and argued that "there is no right of children to have a father, no matter the situation."[17][18] Touraine was further named rapporteur on articles 1 and 2 of a bill on bioethics, in which capacity he defended several amendments that opposed his government, particularly those on post-mortem and transgender access to medically assisted reproduction.[19]
In 2020, Touraine joined En Commun (EC), a group within LREM led by Barbara Pompili.[20] In 2021, he was appointed co-rapporteur of a fact-finding mission on medicine, along with Audrey Dufeu-Schubert.[21] Their report was presented in June before the commission of social affairs of the National Assembly and proposed reforms to the pharmaceutical sector's governance, research, financing, industrial policy and price-fixing policies.[22]
