Karine Clément is a professor of nutrition in the Department of Nutrition at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and Sorbonne University in Paris.
She is Director of the NutriOmics Joint Unit at Sorbonne University, Inserm, and President of the Association for the Study and Research of Obesity (AFERO).
Professor Karine Clément has studied the genetic aspects of human obesity. She contributed to the identification of monogenic forms of obesity (due to mutations in the leptin receptor, POMC, or MC4R) and several genetic risk factors in common obesity.
She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, USA, where she developed expertise in genetic profiling approaches applied to complex diseases (1999-2001). In 2001, she began leading a "Future" team at INSERM for the characterization of genetic changes in tissues, such as adipose tissue, in relation to environmental disturbances. In particular, her group 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 the treatment, research, and training in the field of cardiometabolic diseases, which she directed from 2011 to 2016.
Professor Karine Clément is now director of the INSERM/Sorbonne University research unit, whose team explores organ pathologies (adipose tissue, intestine, liver) and interorgan interactions, with a particular 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 on numerous national and international scientific committees in the field of obesity and metabolism, and contributes to several European networks in genetics and functional genomics (Diogenes, Hepadip, ADAPT, FLIP). She coordinated the European MetaCardis project and coordinates the EIC-Pathfinder "NUTRIMMUNE" project.
In 2025, she was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.