OncoAging (Accelerated Aging After Cancer Treatments), an ambitious research project led by Médéa Locquet

Cancer survivorship has reached an unprecedented level, with more than 53,9 million individuals worldwide, including 7,8 million breast cancer survivors. While survival rates continue to improve, epidemiological studies highlight an increased risk of long-term adverse effects associated with anticancer therapies. Addressing this growing public health issue is at the heart of the OncoAging project.

Led by Médéa Locquet, OncoAging is an innovative research project currently ongoing at NARILIS. The project aims to build a large-scale cohort of breast cancer survivors and measure the incidence of both early and late signs of treatment-induced accelerated aging. Early manifestations include clinical, biological and epigenetic alterations, as well as impaired quality of life. Later outcomes comprise cardiovascular diseases, second primary cancers, endocrine disorders, neurological and neurovascular complications, along with broader professional and societal impacts.

In a second phase, the OncoAging project will focus on identifying biomolecular and epigenetic markers capable of predicting early accelerated aging. It will also generate new hypotheses for experimental research that will help to better understand the mechanisms linking cancer treatments to aging. This work will rely on in vitro models (cells and organoids), in vivo studies, and ex vivo approaches (liquid biopsies) supported by advanced omics technologies. Ultimately, these efforts are expected to contribute to the development of novel anticancer drugs focusing on age-related endpoints.

Médéa Locquet, the leader of this promising project, holds a PhD in Public Health Sciences, Epidemiology & Health Economics from the ULiège. During her doctoral research, she developed a strong interest in radiation epidemiology, a field that studies the health effects resulting from radiation exposure. She completed a first postdoctoral fellowship at the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) from 2021 to 2022, where she investigated radiation-induced cardiotoxicity in breast cancer patients (Locquet et al., 2022). In 2023, she joined the Gustave Roussy Institute to pursue, as principal investigator, her research on cancer-treatment-induced accelerated aging in childhood cancer survivors (Locquet et al., 2026). Since 2023, she has also been an external scientific collaborator within the Public Health Aging Research & Epidemiology (PHARE) group led by Prof. Charlotte Beaudart at the UNamur.

More recently, Médéa Locquet was awarded a Research Associate position at the UNamur to develop the OncoAging project. She is supported in this research by a strong multidisciplinary network involving key collaborators from the CHU UCL Namur and the UNamur. Clinical expertise is provided by medical oncologists, radiation therapists (Dr. Vincent Remouchamps) and nuclear medicine physicians (Prof. Ken Kudura) at the CHU UCL Namur. The experimental research will benefit from complementary expertise at UNamur in radiobiology (Prof. Anne-Catherine Heuskin and Prof. Carine Michiels), cancer biology (Prof. Jean-Pierre Gillet and Prof. Marc Hennequart) and pharmacology (Prof. Jonathan Douxfils).

Thanks to its multidisciplinary and translational approach, OncoAging holds significant potential to impact public health, healthcare policy, clinical practice and pharmaceutical innovation. By identifying predictive markers and uncovering the mechanisms of accelerated aging, the project aims to deliver actionable insights for personalized treatment strategies and optimization, improved preventive care and interventions that promote healthier aging trajectories for cancer survivors.