Franck Tirode has started is molecular biologist career as a PhD student in the renowned laboratory of Jean-Marc Egly within the Institut de genetique et de Biologie moleculaire et cellulaire (Illkirch), where he studied an essential basic transcription factor called TFIIH, deciphering the role of some of its numerous subunits. During the summer of 2000, as a post-doc he moved to the Institut Curie in Paris joining the lab of Olivier Delattre. His work was then to thoroughly study an aberrant transcription factor formed by the fusion of two genes, EWSR1 and FLI1, resulting from the genomic translocation found in Ewing sarcomas. During 16 years, he then studied this type of sarcoma, identifying their mesenchymal stem cell origin, demonstrating the mechanisms of their strong induction of the IGF pathway, discovering the peculiar DNA binding sites of the chimeric protein or identifying secondary mutations leading to a more aggressive disease, becoming a specialist in the biology of Ewing sarcoma. During this period he earned a permanent INSERM research position in Olivier Delattre’s team. Within the last years he spent at the Institut Curie, he also discovered a new subtype of sarcoma resembling Ewing sarcomas, called BCOR-CCNB3 sarcomas, slightly moving his interest in other types of small blue round sarcomas. In 2015, he was appointed INSERM research director, triggering during the 2016’ summer his move from Paris to Lyon where he started a new lab in the Cancer Research Center of Lyon hosted within the Centre Leon Berard cancer center. Now leader of the “Biology of rare sarcomas” group, his main interest is to identify and study new oncogenic mechanisms in unclassified sarcomas, with a special focus on the oncogenic mechanisms deregulating chromatin remodeling processes.