news 2022

Publication of the CIRI in the journal Nature Microbiology on January 5, 2023. Communication of the Institut Pasteur on January 6, 2023. A team from the Institut Pasteur, hosted at CIRI, has developed and successfully tested on a primate model a pentavalent vaccine against the five pathogenic arenaviruses circulating in South America.

Several months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, some patients continue to have symptoms. This phenomenon, known as "post-COVID condition” or, more commonly, "long COVID”, remains poorly documented. In order to address this and improve patient care, research teams are trying to improve their understanding of the underlying biological and immunological mechanisms.

The treatment of cancer is often based on intravenous chemotherapy, which is highly demanding and requires hospitalisation. One of the possibilities considered to alleviate this protocol is subcutaneous chemotherapy. Though much simpler to implement and more comfortable for the patient, it is impossible to practice as most of the active ingredients administered are irritant and vesicant - they stagnate in the subcutaneous tissue where they cause skin necrosis due to their high toxicity.

How can we increase the efficacy of vaccines used to protect against viral respiratory diseases such as influenza and COVID-19? Scientists from Inserm, CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université at the Center of Immunology Marseille-Luminy are opening up new prospects in the field, with the triggering of memory B cells directly in the lungs looking to be a promising avenue.

Seasonal influenza is a major public health issue because it continues to remain associated with considerable mortality, particularly among people who are elderly, immunocompromised, or both. It also has a significant socioeconomic cost. With vaccination and current treatments still being of limited efficacy, research teams are trying to develop new therapeutic approaches.

Infertility is a public health problem affecting millions of couples in France. Among the possible causes, chemotherapy has been singled out as having particularly harmful effects on the fertility of both women and men. In order to better prevent and restore fertility in cancer survivors, understanding the mechanisms behind these negative effects is a priority.

A very small percentage of people with HIV-1, known as "post-treatment controllers” (PTCs), are able to control their infection after interrupting all antiretroviral therapy. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms that govern their immune response is essential in order to develop HIV-1 vaccines, novel therapeutic strategies to achieve remission, or both.

If genetics is interested in gene sequencing, epigenetics studies how genes are going to be used, or not used, by a cell. The epigenome of a cell represents the set of chemical modifications of the DNA or associated proteins that will determine the expression of the genes and thus the cell's identity.

Every year in France, 140,000 people have a stroke 1 . Around 80% are ischemic strokes or cerebral infarctions, which occur when a brain artery is obstructed by a blood clot. Studies have shown that the risk of ischemic stroke is increased by the use of antipsychotics: medications with antidopaminergic 2 properties that are commonly prescribed in psychiatry.

Although the majority of its population is fully vaccinated, the virus continues to actively circulate in France. As health restrictions are being lifted, fears of a resurgence of the epidemic and of the emergence of new more contagious variants are leading scientists to consider new strategies to continue to promote vaccination among populations that remain hesitant.

Although a kidney transplant is the only curative treatment for end-stage kidney disease, the risk of the patient's body rejecting the graft means that success is not guaranteed. To reduce this risk, physicians are now able to look at a certain number of genetic and immunological parameters in order to evaluate the histocompatibility between donor and recipient - i.e. how compatible their organs and tissues are.

Publication of the CIRI in the journal Science Translational Medicine on February 1 st , 2022. Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University focus on February 24, 2022. Transplant recipients, who receive therapeutic immunosuppression to prevent graft rejection, are characterized by high coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related mortality and defective response to vaccines.

The innate immune system plays a crucial role in regulating host-microbe interactions, and especially in providing protection against pathogens that invade the mucosa. Using an intestinal infection model, scientists from the Institut Pasteur and Inserm discovered that innate effector cells - group 3 innate lymphoid cells - act not only during the early stages of infection but can also be trained to develop an innate form of immunological memory that can protect the host during reinfection.

Although the response of various immune cells to SARS-CoV-2 infection has been relatively well studied, that of basophils (a category of white blood cells) had not been characterized yet - mainly because of their rarity in that they represent around 0.5% of the body's white blood cells. In a new study, researchers from Inserm, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, CNRS, Institut Pasteur and Efrei describe how basophils respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Selective activation of the AMPK enzyme would lead to the death of leukaemia cells (in purple in this image). Jérôme Tamburini / UNIGE High resolution pictures A Swiss-French team that includes scientists has discovered how to trigger apoptosis in leukaemia cells by disrupting their energy maintenance mechanism.

Monoclonal antibody therapy can be very effective in treating numerous illnesses, such as cancers, chronic inflammatory conditions, and infectious diseases. However, it is costly and uses molecules that are complicated to produce. Therefore, it is essential to identify new therapeutic alternatives so that as many patients as possible get the treatments they need.

Microscopic visualization of lymphocytes ( in green ) infiltrating a tumor HEV ( in red ) during combination anti-PD-1 plus anti-CTLA-4 immunotherapy. The white arrow indicates a lymphocyte that is leaving the bloodstream and entering the tumor ( Immunotherapy, a therapeutic strategy aimed at increasing the activity of the immune system in order to recognize and destroy cancer cells, has revolutionized cancer treatment over the past decade.

SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 disease attached to human respiratory epithelial cells. ©M.Rosa-Calatraval/O.Terrier/A.Pizzorno/E.Errazuriz-Cerda Almost 60% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 have lymphopenia - a lower than normal number of lymphocytes in the blood circulation.

Disharmonious overgrowth syndromes are rare genetic diseases associated with a PIK3CA gene mutation. Since 2016, a team of researchers from Inserm, Paris Public Hospitals Group (AP-HP), Université de Paris, the Disharmonious Overgrowth and Vascular Abnormalities Unit of Institut Necker-Enfants Malades and the clinical departments of Hospices Civils of Lyon has demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of alpelisib, a molecule used to fight certain cancers, in treating a group of children and adults with severe forms of these diseases.