©Inserm

Inserm Research Director Alain Eychène is taking the helm at the French National Cancer Institute’s Research and Innovation division. In this new role, he will also head the Aviesan Multi-Organization Institute (ITMO) for cancer[1] and will manage Inserm’s Cancer institute.

Inserm Research Director Alain Eychène is the team leader for the “Signaling & Cancer Progression” research team at the Institut Curie. The major advances made by his laboratory include identifying and describing the BRAF gene, which mutates frequently in several types of human cancer, and discovering the significance of this oncogene’s role in melanoma progression.

From 2008 to 2012, Alain Eychène belonged to France’s National Committee for Scientific Research (CoNRS) and, from 2009 to 2012, was a member of the Scientific Commission at the Institut Curie’s research center. As Deputy Director of Science at the CNRS Biological Sciences Institute, he was responsible for oncological research and was a deputy director at ITMO Cancer until 2018. In his new position as head of the research and innovation division at the French National Cancer Institute, he is also taking over the management of AVIESAN’s ITMO Cancer.

“Research is one of the cornerstones in the fight against cancer. As the ten-year anti-cancer strategy to be prepared and implemented by the Institute is emerging, Alain Eychène and his teams will have to confront a number of challenges to further our understanding of the mechanisms of cancer development, particularly in pediatric patients and those with poor prognoses. Pooling the efforts of French National Cancer Institute researchers and Inserm researchers is a better way to rise to these challenges.” Prof. Norbert Ifrah, president of the French National Cancer Institute.

“Inserm is very excited about Alain Eychène’s new position. To fully assess the extent of the complexity of cancer pathologies, and to figure out how to confront the multitude of scientific challenges that arise in the cancer field, it is crucial to maintain a superior level of fundamental scientific research. Alain Eychène will guide ITMO Cancer along this path.” Dr. Gilles Bloch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Inserm. President of the Aviesan alliance.

“The presidents of the French National Cancer Institute and Inserm are placing their trust in a biologist with a background in fundamental research, which is a strong message from both institutions to all researchers involved in the battle against cancer in France. I will attempt to build upon the experience of my predecessors in AVIESAN’s ITMO Cancer to take this research forward and bring its results to patients as quickly as possible.” Alain Eychène, head of Research and Innovation at the French National Cancer Institute and head of the AVIESAN multi-organization institute for cancer.

[1] The purpose of the Multi-Organization Institute for Cancer (ITMO Cancer) at AVIESAN (national alliance for life and health sciences) is to unite the research teams studying cancerous pathologies, thereby bringing scientific advances to people suffering from cancer, ensuring the excellence and competitive nature of research in France, and improving coordination among researchers by encouraging interdisciplinary discussion.

Sans titre, tirage 60x50cm ©Diane Hymans, 2019 La recherche de l’art #8

Inserm is reaching out to a new audience among the general public this summer by taking part in two events that bring together art and science in a mutually enriching way: the 8th Recherche de l’art (Art of Research) exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles, in partnership with the École nationale supérieure de la photographie, and the 10th edition of the binôme program at the Avignon Festival, led by the Les sens des mots theater company.

Inserm is inviting the general public to come and discover a different side to medical research at two arts events in which it is taking part: La recherche de l’art #8 and the 10th edition of the binôme program.

These partnerships look at biomedical research through the lenses of photography and theater, transforming it into artistic material and offering a new vision of science that is accessible to all. To mark these summer events, spread over July and August some of the photographic work on display will also be showcased through the Inserm Instagram account.

 La recherche de l’art #8

Since 2011, a partnership between Inserm and the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP) has brought medical research together with photography. Recent ENSP graduates complete a 3 to 4-week photographic residency in an Inserm laboratory, turning it into a center of photographic investigation in which art is used to discover science and present it in a different way. Their work will be shown at the Rencontres d’Arles, culminating in the exhibition La recherche de l’art #8 and in a publication.

For the eighth year of the program, Inserm welcomed 4 artists in residence: Hélène Bellenger (in Tours, Unit 1253 Imaging and Brain), Quentin Carrierre (in Dijon, Unit 1093 Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity), Diane Hymans (in Nice, Unit 1091, Valrose Institute of Biology), and Pauline Rousseau (in Paris, Unit 970, Center for Cardiovascular Research at the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital). Their work will be exhibited from July 1 to August 25 in the new ENSP building.

Throughout the exhibition, the general public will also be able to discover some of the work via the Inserm Instagram account.

Art of Research #8 exhibition

July 1, 2019 to August 25, 2019

Free entry daily from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at ENSP

Boulevard Victor Hugo 13 200 Arles

Opening event with the artists in attendance: July 2, 2019 at 5 p.m. Discover the work on the @Inserm Instagram account

For more information: https://www.ensp-arles.fr/inserm2019

binôme: 10th edition as part of the “In” program at the Avignon Festival

This year sees theater company Les sens des mots presenting its 10th series of binôme performances as part of the “In” program at the Avignon Festival. Inserm has partnered with binôme from the beginning, helping to develop new visions of science by bringing together the worlds of research and contemporary theater.

binôme consists of a series of performances developed from a meeting and discussion between a researcher and a dramatist. Each meeting results in a piece of theater that is loosely inspired by the encounter, in which the researcher and his or her work becomes the dramatist’s subject. The performance combines:

• a screening of extracts from the filmed meeting between the dramatist and the scientist;
• a reading of the play by members of the Les sens des mots theater company;
• the filmed reaction of the scientist as he or she sees the play for the first time;
• a public discussion with the dramatist, scientist, and artistic team.

This year, Inserm and binôme are inviting the general public to discover Élise louche!, a play by dramatist Hédi Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre based on his meeting with Alain Chédotal, Inserm research director in developmental neurobiology at the Institut de la Vision (Inserm unit 968/CNRS/Sorbonne Université).

The first performance will be held in Avignon on July 15.

Monday July 15 – 5.30 p.m.: Élise louche! Avignon Université – Les Jardins de l’Université 74 rue Louis Pasteur

View the full program of binôme performances at the Avignon Festival and book tickets at: https://www.lessensdesmots.eu

Les sens des mots press contact: Valérie Mastrangelo

+33 (0)6 58 11 24 80

ue.stomsedsnessel@olegnartsam.eirelav

© Francois Guenet / Inserm

Appointed by the French Council of Ministers on November 26, 2018, Gilles Bloch took up his post as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Inserm on January 2, 2019.

A graduate of the École Polytechnique, doctor, and researcher specializing in medical imaging, Gilles Bloch spent a large part of his career at the French Atomic Energy Commission before taking on major roles within research policy, including heading up the French National Research Agency upon its creation, and then being appointed Head of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Since 2015, he has chaired Université Paris-Saclay.

“I’m honored and delighted to chair such a major scientific establishment as Inserm. While driving the strategic continuity of my predecessors’ achievements, I wish to further the Institute’s work in serving its research mission and benefiting health across the board”. Gilles Bloch, Chairman and CEO of Inserm.

Illustration: ©Flore Avram

This year’s Inserm Prize ceremony will take place on Tuesday December 11, 2018, at the Collège de France in celebration of nine researchers and engineers whose achievements have helped raise the level of scientific excellence at the Institute, in the service of science for health. “By honoring its talents, Inserm wishes to showcase the diversity and richness of the biomedical research professions, and the creativity and passion of the women and men who drive them on a daily basis”, states Claire Giry, Inserm Director General and acting President. The 2018 Inserm Grand Prize will go to Alain Tedgui for his research on identifying the role of the immune system in atherosclerosis. Two clinical trials directly resulting from his research are currently ongoing.

Alain Tedgui, Inserm Grand Prize

Following a grounding in applied mathematics, Inserm Research Director Alain Tedgui developed a passion for atherosclerosis, one of the primary causes of cardiovascular disease, very early on in his career. Since then, he has gone on to reveal the inflammatory and immune aspects of this cardiovascular condition caused by an accumulation of cholesterol in the arterial walls, and which can lead to myocardial infarction. But is it not actually an auto-immune disease? Tedgui, who leads the Paris-Cardiovascular Research Center at the Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou in Paris, has devoted his entire career to this subject, shattering a few medical and scientific dogmas along the way!

Pierre Golstein, Special Prize

Exceptionally this year, Inserm has decided to award a Special Prize to highlight a major discovery made at Inserm upstream of the research being awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The recipient is Pierre Golstein at the Center of Immunology Marseille-Luminy, for having been the first to identify protein CTLA-4, which is now the target of some cancer immunotherapy strategies.

Elisabetta Dejana, International Prize

Inserm also wishes to reward the careers of foreign researchers – careers which tie in with the Institute’s long-standing tradition of international cooperation. This year’s International Prize goes to Elisabetta Dejana, a vascular wall specialist who has had a particularly rich European career so far, spanning Italy, France and Sweden. Experiences which she uses to champion career equality between men and women.

Antoine Triller, Prize of Honor

Since 2004, the Prize of Honor acknowledges the career of an eminent scientific figure. This year it goes to Antoine Triller who has devoted his to understanding the cellular and molecular bases of neural communication. He has played a major role in furthering neuroscientific research, most notably through the creation of the Biology Institute of the École Normale Supérieure in which he has always sought to foster the independence and dynamism of the teams.

Robert Barouki, Opecst-Inserm Prize

Since 2013, Inserm has wished to reward efforts to promote research and its ability to be truly in dialogue with societal expectations and citizens’ health questions. This is why the Institute, in partnership with the French Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Options (Opecst) has created the Opecst-Inserm Prize. Its recipient this year is Robert Barouki, who has always wished, in addition to his research on the exposome, to inform public health decisions.

Nathalie Vergnolle and Ana-Maria Lennon-Duménil, Research Prize

The Research Prize honors researchers, lecturer-researchers and clinician-researchers whose work has particularly marked the fields of fundamental research, clinical and therapeutic research, and public health research. Nathalie Vergnolle has worked on the gradual creation of the Digestive Health Research Institute which she currently leads in Toulouse – a specialist structure whose multidisciplinary approach is unique in France. Ana-Maria Lennon-Duménil is a pioneer in the understanding of immune system activation with the prospect of making advances in cancer immunotherapy.

Ahmed Abbas and Nelly Pirot, Innovation Prize

Engineers, technicians and administrative staff also play valuable roles in research: the Innovation Prize is dedicated to them. Ahmed Abbas, responsible for the management of radioactive medicines at the Cyceron platform in Caen, has helped further the development of these products in collaboration with researchers. Nelly Pirot, in charge of the Experimental Histology Network platform of the Institute of Cancer Research of Montpellier, steers the entire technical process. She contributes to reducing the use of animals for research purposes, a primary concern at Inserm.

Gilles Bloch has been appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) by the Council of Ministers. Gilles Bloch becomes Inserm’s ninth CEO since the Institute was created in 1964. He will assume his post on January 2, 2019.

A graduate of the École Polytechnique, doctor, and researcher specializing in medical imaging, Gilles Bloch spent a large part of his career at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) before taking on major roles within research policy, including heading up the French National Research Agency upon its creation, and then being appointed Head of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

Gilles Bloch joined the Frédéric Joliot Hospital Unit in Orsay in 1990 to conduct research into nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University in the United States, and then from 1997 onward held various management positions at the CEA before being appointed Deputy Director of its Life Sciences Division in 2001.

In 2002 he joined the Ministry of Research as an advisor for life sciences, health, and bioethics, then as assistant director. He was entrusted with leading the newly created French National Research Agency (ANR) before becoming Head of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2006. In 2009, he was appointed Director of Life Sciences at the CEA.

Since 2015, he has chaired the Université Paris-Saclay group of universities and institutions.

These founding partners of what is now the seventh center of excellence to receive the coveted University Hospital Institute (IHU) label are embarking on an exceptional project to address the challenges of vision disorders. Centered around the Vision Institute directed by Prof. José-Alain Sahel, the project combines fundamental and clinical research of excellence to improve the knowledge and treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and degenerative disease of genetic origin. The focus of the IHU is not just to understand these diseases but to restore vision.

Visual impairment is one of the top fears of our fellow citizens and affects several million people in France (including over one million for AMD). The impact on education, employment, autonomy, cognitive functions and the emotional health of those affected is considerable. The human burden is incalculable, with the cost to society running into the tens of billions.

The major funding accompanying this new status will considerably intensify the momentum of diagnostic and therapeutic progress driven by the IHU teams and their partners. Their activities involve studying the mechanisms of visual perception from retina to cortex, and especially brain plasticity in a visual restoration context, characterizing aging and the pathological processes of the visual system to prevent vision loss, and finally developing and validating novel therapeutic approaches in regenerative and prosthetic medicine. This IHU is building on the many years of investment, by the founders having supported the Seeing and Hearing Foundation in the framework of the Labex LIFESENSES (Laboratory of Excellence) of the “Seeing and Hearing” Carnot Institute, by the Clinical Investigation Center and by the Inserm-CNRS-SU Joint Research Unit led by José-Alain Sahel.

The Vision Institute has enjoyed a number of successes in enterprise creation and in its industry partnerships. The IHU will have an additional leverage effect on the innovations generated directly by this new project and is at the heart of a large international partnership network with, among others, the University of Pittsburgh and Japan, with which it will work in synergy. The IHU will operate on the basis of flexible governance by public stakeholders and with the involvement of partners – particularly patient associations.

Project champion José-Alain Sahel thanks “the teams at the Vision Institute and Quinze-Vingts National Ophthalmology Hospital, as well as the public partners and stakeholders, associations and industry players which have made it possible, thanks to this State support, to embark on a new era of transformation serving patients and society”.

Director Jean-François Segovia and Medical Committee Chairman Christophe Baudouin declare: “Quinze-Vingts National Ophthalmology Hospital, the world’s oldest institution in the fight against blindness, together with its institutional partners, will be able to step up the innovation strategy conducted on the campus by the clinical teams and by the Vision Institute. The successes accomplished are also the measure of what separates us from our ultimate ideal: an end to blindness. There is no doubt that this IHU will be a potent accelerator of innovation, education and treatment”.

Jean Chambaz, for Sorbonne Université, declares: “This new success will enable the Vision Institute to pursue its integrated approach to vision, mobilizing numerous Sorbonne Université disciplines around a major public health issue. The IHU will enable it to extend its action via a personalized medicine network, bringing together patients and a broad network of healthcare players and structures”.

Yves Lévy, for Inserm, declares: “This success crowns the very lengthy investment of Inserm in an original research domain with a strong societal impact. We owe this success to the excellence of the fundamental and clinical research teams, and to the dynamism and ambition of project champion José-Alain Sahel at the service of patients, to whom I wish to extend my warmest congratulations.”

Inserm/Aviesan, the French Society for Rheumatology, the French Arthritis Foundation and 17 partner associations will come together for the 5th Together Against Rheumatism day on October 12, 2018, under the high patronage of President Emmanuel Macron.

Its objective is twofold: fulfill the need for communication between patients, doctors and researchers and create a buzz around the need to support rheumatism and musculoskeletal disease research in France.

The event will take the form of two webinars for which you can register free online:

www.ensemblecontrelesrhumatismes.org

There will be two themes: the morning session (11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.) will look at gene-environment interactions using the example of pre-rheumatoid arthritis, and the afternoon session (2 – 3:30 p.m.) will be devoted to the new cell and tissue therapies for rheumatism.

Each conference will be divided into three parts in order to promote dialog between patients and research professionals. A clinician/researcher will begin by describing the current research situation and give their clinical viewpoint. Then, representatives of the group of partner associations will put forward the questions and expectations of patients. The final part of the session will take the form of a discussion involving the various speakers, with the possibility for the webinar participants to ask questions.

©Amelie Blanc, Robin Lopvet, Alexandre Kong A Siou

Inserm has long played a proactive role in scientific outreach in order to share science and biomedical research advances with the general public. And this summer 2018 will be no exception, with its host of events in which art and science will meet, in which our researchers will participate in La recherche de l’art #7 in Arles, Binôme in Avignon, and the Science in The City festival in Toulouse. The diary of Inserm’s scientific and cultural events, which include a photography exhibition, play, and visual performances, is presented below.

Inserm and National Photography School ENSP present La recherche de l’art #7

Since 2011, Inserm laboratories offer photographic residencies to young ENSP graduates. La recherche de l’art brings art and science together to offer a vision that is astonishing, unexpected and always innovative. Philippe Rostagno, Researcher at the Mediterranean Center for Molecular Medicine (Nice) hosted Alexandre Kong A Siou; Sophie Nunes Figueirado from the Brain and Spine Institute (Paris) hosted Robin Lopvet; Laurence Doumenc from the Digestive Health Research Institute (Toulouse) hosted Amélie Blanc.

Inserm and theater company les sens des mots present the new edition of binôme at the Avignon Festival

A singular encounter between an Inserm researcher and an author has given us this play, which is interpreted by three actors. The reading, by les sens des mots, will be accompanied by an original musical creation. The result – sensitive, astonishing and often funny – gives us a different look at science and those involved in it.

Inserm present at Science in the City, a general-public science festival as part of ESOF 2018 in Toulouse

• The Inserm Occitanie Pyrénées Regional Office is a partner of the La science en taille XX elles project driven by the Femmes&Sciences association and CNRS Midi-Pyrénées whose aim is to promote female scientists, deconstruct stereotypes and inspire young women to pursue scientific careers. Twelve portraits of female scientists, including Inserm Research Director Emmanuelle Rial-Sebbag, will be exhibited from July 6 – 15 in the windows of Galeries Lafayette and in partnership with the Toulouse tourist office, celebrating female scientists who, despite having marked history, are forgotten or unknown. Meetings with scientists from July 7 – 9 at the Espace des diversités et laïcités with a showing of Inserm films “Gender and health: beware of clichés!”.

• hEARt, a musical journey in the imaginary world of the heart created by composer Christophe Ruetsch, supported by Inserm with the participation of Franck Lezoualc’h, Inserm Research Director at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases.

Links:

Crédits: Inserm/ Schuch Productions

The month of May 1968 saw French society reach boiling point. No exception to this rule was the scientific community, which rose up and reinvented its world. Its members occupied the universities, went on strike in the hospitals and condemned the old ways of the research labs. We invite you to discover “Mai 68, la science s’affiche” (“May ’68, when science took a stand”, only available in French), a series of short films looking back on the events that revolutionized the academic and hospital world. A series created with the support of Inserm, in co-production with CNRS Images and Schuch Productions, in association with Universcience, and with the participation of the French National Center for Cinema and Motion Pictures (CNC).

For some students and young researchers, the month of May ’68 marked the beginning of their political dissent. The protagonists of this series, all scientists, tell us about that month through their own experiences. In the faculties of medicine, students occupied the auditoriums, challenging the elitism and conservatism of their learning.

Each episode in the series looks at an emblematic aspect of May ‘68, commentated and contextualized by academics and researchers from Inserm and CNRS who were there at the time.

“In medicine, too – no more autocrats!”  With May ‘68, it was the entire paternalist model of knowledge and social organization that came toppling down – in the research labs, hospital departments and universities.  In every direction, students and young researchers attacked the hierarchical relationships and authority that they no longer wished to accept.

“A woman’s place…” The wind of freedom brought by the movements of May ’68 was also the starting point in the fight for women’s rights. A means of attacking the gender hierarchy that prevailed even in the scientific circles and world of research.  The account of Inserm researcher Ségolène Aymé, at the time a medical student against her family’s wishes, portrays the difficulty being a woman of science back then.  This period saw the birth of the French women’s liberation movement, the MLF.

“The children we want.” While May ‘68 certainly brought about profound changes in French society, abortion was still illegal. Many doctors, such as Ségolène Aymé and Pierre Jouannet, considered it necessary to defy the law and aid women wishing to terminate their pregnancies. It took another five years to launch the Movement for the freedom of abortion and contraception (MLAC), and another eight for the adoption of Simone Veil’s law legalizing abortion.