- 2022
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Press releases - 21.03.2022
COVID-19: “Reactive” Vaccination, Effective in Case of High Viral Circulation?
A new modeling study by researchers from Inserm and Sorbonne Université at the Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health shows that a “reactive” vaccination strategy targeting homes, schools and workplaces where cases are detected could have beneficial effects, reducing the number of COVID-19 cases in certain epidemic situations.
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Press releases - 16.03.2022
Discovery of an immune escape mechanism promoting Listeria infection of the central nervous system
Scientists have discovered a mechanism that enables cells infected with Listeria monocytogenes to escape immune responses. This mechanism provides infected cells circulating in the blood with a higher probability of adhering to and infecting cells of cerebral vessels, thereby enabling bacteria to cross the blood-brain barrier and infect the brain.
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Press releases - 16.03.2022
Child Malnutrition: New Strategy Treats More Children at Lower Cost
In a new study, researchers from Inserm and Université de Bordeaux at the Bordeaux Population Health Research Center, in collaboration with the Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and the NGO ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action), have developed and tested a new strategy to simplify and optimize the treatment of malnutrition in order to help a larger number of children.
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Press releases - 14.03.2022
MICA: A New Immune Response Gene That Predicts Kidney Transplant Failure
Researchers report that the MICA gene is a new histocompatibility gene, in that it helps to better explain and predict the success or failure of a kidney transplant. Their findings have been published in Nature Medicine.
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Press releases - 10.03.2022
Exposure to Air Pollution Linked to Increased Risk of Poor Cognitive Performance
Researchers from Inserm, Université de Rennes 1 and the EHESP School of Public Health at Irset wished to identify the impact on cognitive performance of three pollutants linked to road traffic (fine particles of less than 2.5 microns in diameter, nitrogen dioxide and black carbon). They compared the results of cognitive tests performed by a large sample of people according to their level of exposure to these different pollutants. The results of the study suggest a link between exposure to higher levels of pollutants and lower levels of cognitive performance, a link which differs depending on the pollutants.
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Press releases - 01.03.2022
Significant Increase in Infant Mortality in France
The infant mortality rate (IMR) is a key indicator of population health. Researchers analyzed civil registry data from the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) from 2001 to 2019. They identified a significant increase in the IMR since 2012, thereby setting France apart from other high-income countries.
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Press releases - 24.02.2022
Discovery of an innate immunological memory in the intestine
Researchers 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.
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Press releases - 24.02.2022
Better Understanding the Role of a White Blood Cell Type in SARS-CoV-2 Immune Response
Researchers describe how basophils respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection. They show that exposure to the virus activates them, leading to the production of certain cytokines and helping to reduce inflammation and promote the secretion of antibodies.
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Press releases - 21.02.2022
Transplantation chemotherapy eliminates regenerative capacity of brain’s innate immune cells
Annually over 50,000 bone marrow transplantations occur worldwide as a therapy for multiple cancerous and non-cancerous diseases. Yet, how this procedure gives rise to bone marrow-derived cells that engraft the brain, despite being absent in the normal brain, remains unknown. Scientists discovered how the host’s microglia, the brain’s innate immune cells, are replaced by bone marrow-derived macrophages. The key discovery was that transplantation chemotherapy eliminated the microglia’s regenerative capacity, gradually causing the engraftment of macrophages to replace microglia, providing a potential mechanism for future cell-based therapies to treat central nervous system diseases.
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Press releases - 17.02.2022
Defeating leukaemia cells by depriving them of energy
A Swiss-French team that includes UNIGE scientists has discovered how to trigger apoptosis in leukaemia cells by disrupting their energy maintenance mechanism.