Laurent Schwartz ( born on 6 October 1958 in Strasbourg, France) is a French oncologist and scientist.

Laurent Schwartz is a distant relative of his homonym the mathematician Laurent Schwartz

Laurent Schwartz

Laurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...

. He was educated in Strasbourg where he received his medical degree in 1983. He then trained as an oncologist at Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

 (Massachusetts General Hospital).

Upon his return to France, Schwartz devoted himself to oncology

Oncology

Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer...

 within the Paris public hospital system. Schwartz was among the firsts to claim that the very basic hypothesis had to be thoroughly reviewed in order to end the stalemate in the “war on cancer”.

In order to change paradigm, he joined force with a large network of scientists, outsiders to the cancer field. Schwartz decided to center his quest on effective cancer treatment with mathematicians, physicists biologists at the École Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

 near Paris. The main idea was that biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 was to be simplified for it to be right. In order to pursue his research, he cofounded Isthma a data analysis company in 2003 and Biorebus in 2004.

Major achievements

Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis , is the biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape...

 is a consequence of physical forces. The vascular network formation is a consequence of the percolation of the blood flow (with Vincent Fleury).

Cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 stellar shape is a direct consequence of loss cell polarity (with Vincent Fleury).

Cancer is a metabolic disease (with Maurice Israel).This has led to the discovery of a combination of well established drugs which stop tumor

Tumor

A tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...

 growth in mice

Tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 toxicity is a direct consequence of CO2 poisonning .

Inflammation

Inflammation

Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process...

 and hyperosmotic pressure are synonymous

The cellular volume and the electrical charges are intertwined ( with Clair Poignard and Frederic Campion).