Professor Norbert Ifrah has been Chairman of the French national cancer Institute since June 2016. 

He spent most of his career at the University Hospital in Angers, where he was Head of the Blood Diseases Department, then successively Head of a Medical Division, Vice-President in charge of research, and then President of the Medical Commission for two terms (2007-2015). A member of an Inserm and CNRS research unit, he headed a national research network on acute adult leukemia for fifteen years, and is the author of almost 300 international publications, mainly in the field of hematological malignancies. In 2014, he created a University Hospital Federation dedicated to leukemias (GOAL).

 Together with Professor Olivier Rascol of Toulouse, he was a prizewinner in 2012 of the first call for the National “Future Investment Programs ” (FCRIN project).

Norbert Ifrah has held a number of positions in learned societies and on boards of directors, including Chairman of the 47th section of the National Council of Universities, of the National Research Coordination Committee, of FHF Cancer and of the College of French Hematologists. He has represented the French Hospital Federation on the Board of INCa since 2008. 

He chaired the Governing Board of the International Agency for Research on Cancer from 2022 to 2025.