Ana Soto

Team : Centre Cavaillès

Affiliation : 

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Chaire Blaise Pascal attribuée à Ana Soto en 2013-2014 au centre Cavaillès: Addressing biological organization in the post-genomic era

Biologists acknowledge a crisis in their midst. Technological improvements have generated an avalanche of data but biologists neither have the theoretical bases nor an adequate language to make sense of them, particularly when trying to explain the generation of shapes. This project aims at defining new biological observables and an appropriate language to describe them; our analysis has already revealed conceptual differences between “complexity” and “organization” that we intend to quantify. These goals will be pursued through exchanges among theoreticians and experimental biologists; this interaction would mutually enrich their disciplines while creating the means to overcome the impasse.

Voir le site de la Chaire internationale Blaise Pascal :

Lines of research

Biologiste, elle a été l’une des pionnières à approcher le cancer comme un problème de développement en postulant, avec le Professeur Carlos SONNENSCHEIN (Tufts University School of Medicine), la théorie du champ d’organisation tissulaire de la carcinogenèse (La société des cellules, Syllepse, 2006).
En collaboration avec Giuseppe Longo mes recherches mèneront, au Centre Cavaillès, une réflexion sur quelques principes de base requis pour contribuer à construire une théorie des organismes.
La découverte du premier œstrogène dans les produits plastiques, nous ont amené à mettre en évidence le rôle de perturbateurs endocriniens de nombreuses molécules d’usage courant dans les produits industriels et aussi à saisir l’impact de ces molécules sur la carcinogénèse. Mes études s’inscrivent dans le cadre plus général de l’étude de l’organisme, en relation étroite avec les principes de l’évolution darwinienne, cadre nouveau basé sur l’équilibre entre normal et pathologique.

Scientific production in the team

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Scientific production

Ouvrages

  • Soto, A.M., Sonnenschein, C. and Colborn, T. Guest Editor, Special Issue: Endocrine Disruption and Reproductive Effects in Wildlife and Humans. In: Comments on Toxicology, edited by A. Wallace Hayes, Overseas Publishers Association, Amsterdam, 1996, 5(4-5): 315-506.
  • Sonnenschein C et Soto AM (2006). La société des cellules. Nouvelle approche du cancer (Editions Syllepse. Collection Matériologiques). Traduction de The society of cells, cancer and control of cell proliferation, back to the drawing board (1999) (Bios Scientific Publishers, Oxford UK)
  • Soto AM, Sonnenschein C, Maini PK, Noble D (editors): Systems biology and cancer, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 106:2, pp 337-339, 2011
  • Soto AM, Sonnenschein C. Why Systems Biology and Cancer? Seminars in Cancer Biology, 21 : 3, pp 147-214, 2011

Liste des articles

  • Soto, A.M., Sonnenschein, C., and Miquel, P.A. On physicalism and downward causation in developmental and cancer biology. Acta Biotheoretica, 2008, 56:257-74
  • Vandenberg, L.N., Maffini, M.V., Sonnenschein, C., Rubin, B.S., and Soto, A.M. Bisphenol-A and the great divide: a review of controversies in the field of endocrine disruption. Endocr Rev, 2009, 30:75-95.
  • Soto, A.M., Rubin, B.S., and Sonnenschein, C. Interpreting endocrine disruption from an integrative biology perspective. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2009, 304:3-7.
  • Diamanti-Kandarakis, E., Bourguignon, J.P., Giudice, L.C., Hauser, R., Prins, G.S., Soto, A.M., Zoeller, R.T., and Gore, A.C. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals: an Endocrine Society scientific statement. Endocr Rev. 2009, 30:293-342.
  • Soto, A.M., and Sonnenschein, C. Environmental causes of cancer: endocrine disruptors as carcinogens. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 2010; 6:363-370.
  • Soto, A.M., and Sonnenschein, C. The tissue organization field theory of cancer: A testable replacement for the somatic mutation theory. Bioessays, 2011, 33:332-340.
  • Saetzler, K., Sonnenschein, C., and Soto, A.M. Systems biology beyond networks: generating order from disorder through self-organization. Semin.Cancer Biol. 2011; 21: 165-74
  • Longo, G., Miquel, P.-A., Sonnenschein, C., and Soto, A.M. Is Information a proper observable for biological organization? Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2012 109:108-14.
  • Soto, A.M., and Sonnenschein, C. The tissue organization field theory of cancer: A testable replacement for the somatic mutation theory. Bioessays, 2011, 33:332-340.
  • Sonnenschein, C., and Soto, A.M. Why Systems Biology and Cancer? Semin.Cancer Biol. 2011; 21: 147-9.

 Chapitres d’ouvrages

  • Soto, A.M., Rubin, B.S. and Sonnenschein, C. Endocrine Disruption and the Female. In: Handbook of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, edited by Andrea Gore; Humana Press, 2007.
  • Maffini, M.V. Sonnenschein, C. and Soto, A.M. Breast. In: Environmental Impacts on Reproductive Health and Fertility; Woodruff, T. J., Janssen, S. J., Guillette, L. J., Jr., Giudice, L. C., Eds.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2010; Chapter 3.
  • Sonnenschein, C. and Soto, A.M. Cancer Genes: The vestigial remains of a fallen theory In: Genetic Explanation: Sense or Nonsense, Ed: Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber 2012, Harvard Univ Press: Cambridge