Twenty-five years ago, Agnès Viale left the Côte d’Azur, Old Nice where her father and uncle, Lucien and Emile Viale ran the bakery A la bella Fornarina, place Saint-François, to settle in New York.
Today, she runs a research lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer, one of the most reputable centers in the United States. On the front line in the fight against Covid-19, she gives news from her adopted city and takes stock of her research.
What is the situation today in New York?
New York is at a standstill with more than 3,500 dead [le bilan est depuis passé à 5.800 victimes, Ndlr], and predictions point to a peak towards [aujourd’hui dimanche]. The only time I find my city is at 7 p.m., when a lot of people go to the window for the #ClapBecauseWeCare movement [similaire aux applaudissements à 20 heures en France, Ndlr]. You really feel a united city.
What does your research usually consist of?
I work in the genomic platform, in the DNA sequencing of all research samples. The first goal of our research program, initiated in 2014, is to improve the diagnosis of cancerous tumors to provide additional knowledge, in order to help doctors choose the best therapeutic route for their patients.
And today, compared to Covid-19?
My laboratory was requisitioned to set up screening for all of our employees, approximately 18,000 people. In ten days, with the whole team, I had to set up the screening system, train the teams, develop the infrastructure to analyze a large volume of samples, and automate as much as possible to speed up the process. We are also working on developing a test for the presence of anti-Covid-19 antibodies to determine if someone has already been infected with the virus without having been confirmed. The idea is to identify in the population the people who are already immunized and who can thus return to their professional occupations. It is a test that aims to be marketed for use around the world. Is there solidarity between researchers around the world, or rather competition? Lots of solidarity. But the problem is that we run out of everything, and delivery times are sometimes long.
How do you analyze Donald Trump’s attitude?
I do not know where to start. When you have a president who doesn’t believe in data [les données objectives et chiffrées, Ndlr], in fact, when you have a president who believes himself to be above everything, above the law, and even above the disease… this is where we are: disaster! Many deaths could have been avoided if drastic measures had been taken in a timely manner. Its incompetence will kill thousands of Americans and will plunge us into a dizzying economic crisis.
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