Sylvie Ricard-Blum

Sylvie Ricard-Blum earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the University Lyon 1 in 1986, studying collagens IX and XI. She subsequently spent a decade at the Pasteur Institute in Lyon investigating collagen cross-linking in fibrosis, before joining the Institute of Structural Biology in Grenoble, where she focused on extracellular matrix (ECM) assembly and function, particularly the collagen XVIII-derived matricryptin endostatin. In 2004, she became Professor of Biochemistry at the University Lyon 1, where she also coordinated the Master’s program in Biochemistry and directed the Interdisciplinary Sciences–Health Doctoral School. Since 2025, she has been Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Lyon.

A leading figure in matrix biology, she has served as Secretary and President of the French Society for Matrix Biology and President of the International Society for Matrix Biology (ISMB), receiving the ISMB Distinguished Investigator Award in 2025. She is Editor of Matrix Biology and Matrix Biology Plus, and serves on the steering committee of the HUPO Proteomics Standards Initiative.

Her research integrates biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, and systems biology to elucidate ECM structure–interaction–function relationships in health and disease. Her team pioneered ECM protein and glycosaminoglycan arrays, identified hundreds of ECM interactions, reconstructed numerous ECM interactomes, and developed MatrixDB, a widely used database of extracellular matrix interactions.