Olivier Feron

Olivier Feron is a pharmacologist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding lactate metabolism in tumor microenvironments and the metabolic symbiosis between cancer cells and stromal cells. His laboratory characterized how hypoxic tumor cells secrete lactate via monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs) that oxygenated cancer cells can consume as a fuel source, establishing the concept of the reverse Warburg effect and metabolic coupling between tumor regions. Feron has identified MCT1 and MCT4 inhibitors as potential therapeutic targets to disrupt lactate-based fuel sharing in tumors and has investigated how acidity shapes immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment.