Pr. Karine Clément

Professor of nutrition at the Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital and at Sorbonne University in Paris.

EXPERIENCE

Professor Karine Clément is a Professor (PUPH) of Nutrition in the Nutrition Department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and at Sorbonne University in Paris. She is Director of the Sorbonne University, Inserm, NutriOmics Joint Unit and President of the Association for the Study and Research of Obesity (AFERO)

Professor Karine Clément has been involved in the genetic aspects of human obesity. She has contributed to the identification of monogenic forms of obesity (due to mutations in the Leptin receptor, POMC or MC4R) and to several genetic risk factors in common obesity. Today, new therapies are being offered to patients suffering from genetic obesity in rare disease centers offering a comprehensive approach to the disease.

She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University, USA, where she acquired expertise in genetic profiling approaches applied to complex diseases (1999-2001). In 2001, she began to lead a “Future” team at INSERM around the characterization of genetic changes in tissues, such as fatty tissue) in relation to environmental disturbances. In particular, his group has demonstrated the importance of inflammation and fibrosis in adipose tissue in humans. In 2011, she created the IHU ICAN (Institute of Cardiometabolism and Nutrition) dedicated to care, research and training in the fields of cardio-metabolic diseases, which she directed from 2011 to 2016.

Professor Karine Clément is now the director of the INSERM/Sorbonne University research unit, whose team explores organ pathologies (adipose tissue, intestine, liver) and dialogues between organs with a focus on the contributions of the gut microbiome to human obesity.

She has published more than 500 articles, reports and conferences in her field. She is a member and invited expert for numerous national and international scientific committees in the fields of obesity and metabolism, and contributes to several European networks of genetics and functional genomics (Diogenes, Hepadip, ADAPT, FLIP). She coordinated the European MetaCardis project and coordinates the EIC-Pathfinder project “NUTRIMMUNE”. She was appointed in 2025 to the Royal Academy of Medicine in Belgium.