Researcher at the laboratoire Maladies infectieuses et vecteurs: écologie, génétique, évolution et contrôle (Mivegec),1 Frédéric Thomas is co-director with Benjamin Roche (IRD) of the Centre de Recherches Ecologiques et Evolutives sur le Cancer (CREEC) in Montpellier. This evolutionary biologist studies the interaction between organisms and parasites and their consequence on species and ecosystems. He also studies human evolutionary biology, the origins of infection and the evolution of cancer. He co-authored a study2 in 2013 showing the influence of cancer on how ecosystems functioned.