Inserm Newsroom - Press room of the French national institute of health and medical research

Sunday 14 February 2016: Heart Day

  These diseases are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease (stroke), peripheral arterial disease, heart failure, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathy. Heart Day, initiated by Alliance du Cœur and held on 14 February every year, the symbolic date of St. […]

New phase of the Elfe study : an original study on learning in nursery school children !

In spring 2016, a new phase in the Elfe Child Cohort Study will take place in French nursery schools, with participation by middle-year teaching staff. Its objective: to collect information on early learning by children of approximately 5 years of age. It will hence be possible to analyse the manner in which children enter the various areas of learning provided by nursery schools, taking living conditions, family structures, and the child’s health and development into account.

This “School” component of the Elfe study calls for participation by teachers via playful exercises in the areas of reading and numbers, prepared by the researchers.

New phase of the Elfe study : an original study on learning in nursery school children !

The place of the School survey in monitoring the Elfe child cohort Elfe is the first French study devoted to monitoring children from birth to adult age, which addresses the many aspects of their development and socialisation from the social sciences, health and environment perspective. When it was launched at national level in 2011, over […]

Breast cancer—what part do behavioural factors play?

Researchers at Unit 1018 “Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health” (Inserm/Paris-Sud University) at Gustave Roussy have focused on the proportion of breast cancers attributable to various risk factors. The analysis, conducted among 67,634 women in the French E3N cohort, shows that postmenopausal breast cancers are more often attributable to “behavioural” factors, such as an unhealthy diet, excess weight and alcohol consumption than “non-behavioural” factors. These data suggest that by preventing these behaviour patterns, the number of breast cancers during menopause would decrease.
The article detailing these findings is published in the International Journal of Cancer, 04 February 2016.

Alzheimer’s disease: a new immunotherapy approach?

A study conducted on mice by researchers at Inserm and UPMC (Pierre and Marie Curie University) offers a new type of immunotherapy approach for treating Alzheimer’s disease. This involves amplifying a specific population of T lymphocytes that regulate immune and neuroinflammatory mechanisms that develop during the disease.

These results are published in the journal Brain.

Listeria: hypervirulent strains with cerebral and placental tropism

Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm, CNRS and Paris Descartes – Sorbonne Paris Cité University recently published a large-scale study in Nature Genetics based on almost 7,000 strains of Listeria monocytogenes — the bacterium responsible for human listeriosis, a severe foodborne infection. Through the integrative analysis of epidemiological, clinical and microbiological data, the researchers have revealed the highly diverse pathogenicity of isolates belonging to this bacterial species.

Comparative genomics led them to discover new virulence factors, which were demonstrated experimentally as involved in cerebral and fetal-placental listeriosis. In addition, this research points to the importance of using new reference strains, which are representative of the hypervirulent lineages identified here, for experimental research on Listeria monocytogenes pathogenesis.

Thursday 4 February 2016: World Cancer Day

  This international campaign is a reminder of the seriousness of cancer, a major cause of death worldwide, leading to 8.2 million deaths in 2012.[1] According to WHO, the annual number of new cases is expected to rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million in the next two decades. Inserm researchers devote themselves […]

Erectile dysfunction following treatment for prostate cancer: promising results from the first transplants of stem cells into the penis

12 patients suffering from severe erectile dysfunction following prostate cancer received a transplant of stem cells into the penis. After six months, significant improvements in the quality of sexual intercourse, erection, penile rigidity and quality of orgasm were reported by the patients, according to a study by Inserm. This clinical trial was conducted under the direction of Professor René Yiou at the Department of Urology, Henri Mondor University Hospital, Paris Public Hospitals (AP-HP), Créteil.

These results are published in the journal European Urology.

The launch of a European Alliance dedicated to accelerating new concepts in HIV Vaccine research

The European Commission has granted over 22 million Euros to the European HIV Vaccine Alliance (EHVA) to develop a multidisciplinary platform to evaluate novel preventive and therapeutic vaccines.

Treating depressive symptoms from their roots

A wide range of compounds is on the market to ameliorate depressive symptoms, however their efficiency is achieved only after long periods of treatment and not in 100% of patients. Inserm researchers identified early cellular changes in the brain for the emergence of depressive symptoms, and a novel promising drug target. These results are published […]