Jean-Louis Touraine is Professor of Medicine in the Department of Transplantation and Immunology at the Claude Bernard Lyon-I University and a hospital practitioner at the Édouard-Herriot Hospital in Lyon.​

He was a deputy for Rhône at the National Assembly from 2007 to 2022 (3 terms), elected PS then LREM from 2017.​​

As an MP, he held several positions at the National Assembly, including Secretary (2012 to 2017) and then Vice-Chairman (2017-2018) of the Social Affairs Committee. He was also Chairman of the End of Life (2018-2022) and Aids (2012-2017) study groups, Co-Chairman of the Cancers and National Health Causes group (2007-2012) and a member of the OPECST (2012-2017).​​

He has also been involved in a number of important parliamentary projects in the field of health, including serving as rapporteur for the special committee responsible for examining the draft law on bioethics (2019-2021) on the PMA chapter, and as co-rapporteur for the fact-finding mission on medicines (2021).​​

He has also been a member of several commissions of enquiry, including the commission tasked with identifying the factors that led to the fall in industry’s share of France’s GDP and defining the means to be implemented to relocate the industry, particularly the pharmaceutical industry (2021-2022), and the commission on equal access to healthcare for French people throughout the country and on the effectiveness of public policies implemented to combat medical desertification in rural and urban areas (2018).​​