Category Archives: Health technologies

In 2013, researchers from Inserm and physicians from the Strasbourg University Hospitals announced their success in developing an artificial larynx. Since the first time they began implanting this prosthesis five years ago in patients whose own larynx had been removed for health reasons, they have optimized both the implant and their surgical technique. Today, they are presenting the case of a patient who has had the implant for 18 months, a feat that has enabled him to regain his voice and sense of smell, breathe through his nose and mouth, and not have to use his tracheostomy tube.

Researchers are aiming to produce flexible and malleable substitute materials to replace defective small blood vessels. The team led by Didier Letourneur, in Inserm Unit 1148, took inspiration from the composition of algae when designing polysaccharide-based vessels.

Inserm researchers at I-Stem (Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic diseases) have developed a model reproducing in vitro the hyperpigmentation associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 from embryonic stem cells carrying the mutation responsible for this disease.