news 2017

Giacomo Cavalli's team at the Institute of Human Genetics (University of Montpellier / CNRS), in collaboration with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), 1 has demonstrated the existence of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance 2 (TEI) among Drosophila fruit flies. By temporarily modifying the function of Polycomb Group (PcG) proteins'which play an essential role in development'the researchers obtained fruit fly lines having the same DNA sequence but different eye colors.

Researchers from the CNRS have discovered that mandrills use their sense of smell to avoid contamination by intestinal protozoans through contact with infected members of their group. Their work, published in Science Advances on 7 april 2017, shows that parasites shape the social behavior of these primates, leading them to develop a strategy of parasite avoidance through smell.

The French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), in collaboration wi

A team of researchers in France, led by Dr. Ana Buj-Bello (Genethon/Inserm) and teams at the University of Washington and Harvard Medical School in the United States, achieved a new step towards the treatment of myotubular myopathy by gene therapy. The researchers demonstrated the efficacy of administration of a therapeutic vector by a single intravenous injection and identified the dose that restores long-term muscular strength in a large animal model of the disease.

Researchers from the CNRS, Thales, and the Universities of Bordeaux, Paris-Sud, and Evry have created an artificial synapse capable of learning autonomously. They were also able to model the device, which is essential for developing more complex circuits. The research was published on 3 April 2017. One of the goals of biomimetics is to take inspiration from the functioning of the brain in order to design increasingly intelligent machines.

The ability to detect X-rays on a tiny scale paves the way for high-precision medical imaging and therapies. Such detection capabilities have been achieved by researchers from the CNRS, the University of Franche-Comté (UFC), and Aix-Marseille University (AMU), who attached an X-ray sensor to the end of an optical fiber.

As it grows, a plant produces stems and roots, organs that develop according to different patterns. Researchers from the French Inra, UPMC and ENS have shown, in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana , that roots can be transformed into shoots, and vice versa, in a conversion phenomenon involving stem cells.

Paris, March 21st, 2017 - Stimunity, Institut Curie and Inserm are pleased to announce that the company has signed an exclusive worldwide license agreement on two key patents that cover Stimunity's core technology VLP-cGAMP to develop new drugs in immuno-oncology. All started with a fundamental discovery made by the laboratory Innate Immunity at Institut Curie, leads by Dr. Nicolas Manel, Senior Researcher at Inserm and co-founder of Stimunity.

Using animal models, INRA researchers and their collaborators 1 have been studying the interactions between the bacterial microbiota and a common food contaminant: the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON). They found that the presence of DON enhances the genotoxic effects of certain bacteria. More specifically, it increases the damage caused to the DNA of intestinal cells, contributing to the appearance of cancerous cells.

Researchers at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Inra) and their partners have done animal studies on the consequences of having a certain group of microbiota bacteria and a common food contaminant, deoxynivalenol (DON), present in the gut simultaneously. They show that the presence of this mycotoxin enhances the genotoxicity of the bacteria, i.e. it increases the number of DNA strand breaks in intestinal cells, a phenomenon that can lead to the emergence of malignant cells.

A team coordinated by Alain Chédotal, Inserm research director at the Institut de la Vision (Inserm/UPMC/CNRS) and Paolo Giacobini at the Jean Pierre Aubert research centre (Inserm/Lille University) have just made a series of new observations of the anatomy of human embryos from 6 to 14 weeks old. A feat made possible by combining two recent techniques in immunomarking and 3D microscopy and a technique making the tissues transparent.

Gender discrimination can be found in the most unexpected fields. An international team, involving Demian Battaglia, a CNRS researcher at the Institut de neurosciences des systèmes, as well as researchers from Yale and the Max Planck Institute (Germany), has just demonstrated that women are underrepresented in the peer review of scientific publications.

Rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, nanomachines provide mechanical work on the smallest of scales.

How does our brain learn from our mistakes' Does it prefer good news to bad news' These are the questions answered by a team of researchers led by Stefano Palminteri (Inserm-ENS), laureate of the ATIP-Avenir programme, from the Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives . The results will be published in Nature Human Behaviour .

Matteo Serino, Inserm Research Fellow at the Digestive Health Research Institute (IRSD, an Inserm/University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier/National Veterinary College of Toulouse/Inra joint research unit), and his collaborators show that alteration of the intestinal microbiota, whether nutritional or genetic in origin, may have beneficial effects on liver metabolism.

French researchers have identified a marker that makes it possible to differentiate “dormant” HIV-infected cells from healthy cells. This discovery will make it possible to isolate and analyze reservoir cells which, by silently hosting the virus, are responsible for its persistence even among patients receiving antiviral treatment, whose viral load is undetectable.

French researchers have identified a marker that makes it possible to differentiate 'dormant' HIV-infected cells from healthy cells. This discovery will make it possible to isolate and analyze reservoir cells which, by silently hosting the virus, are responsible for its persistence even among patients receiving antiviral treatment, whose viral load is undetectable.

Researchers at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Inra) and Inserm have discovered a new family of bacterial enzymes that can produce hitherto unidentified peptides with antibiotic activity. Published , this work holds promise for the synthesis of molecules of pharmaceutical interest and the design of new antibiotics.

A new study conducted by Inserm researchers at Irset (Institute of Research in Environmental and Occupational Health) shows that ibuprofen is liable to cause disruptions in the hormone system in the human foetal testis, with possible implications for the development of the male urogenital tract. This drug suppresses the production of various testicular hormones, including testosterone, which controls the primary and secondary sex characteristics and the descent of the testes.

Not sleeping enough or going to bed too late leads to a reduction in the volume of grey matter in the brains of adolescents. These conclusions were obtained by researchers at Inserm Unit 1000, 'Neuroimaging and Psychiatry' (Inserm/Paris-Descartes University/Paris Sud University), who studied the brain and sleep habits of 177 14-year-old students.