The twin objective of this new collaboration between the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and CentraleSupélec is to train engineers that are better integrated into research laboratories, and biologists that are more involved in technological innovation. The two establishments hope to enhance their communal actions through innovation and entrepreneurial spirit; the creation of new businesses will be another aspect of the programme being established.

From 2015, scientific collaborations will be established between Inserm and CentraleSupélec, based on scientific priorities identified jointly by the two establishments. To initiate this partnership, Inserm and CentraleSupélec hope to become involved in the following themes:

– modelling, mathematics, databases and imaging

– microscopy and nanotechnology for biology

Signature of the framework agreement between Professor Yves Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Inserm, and Hervé Biausser, Director of École CentraleSupélec, at Inserm headquarters in Paris on 21 September 2015. ©Inserm/Heidinger, Jean-Marie

Projects based on these priority themes will be identified by the researchers in both establishments, in order to deploy their complementary assets and advance knowledge in areas of major challenge such as cancer or neuroscience. These projects will give rise to exploratory subjects offered to students during the course of their studies. Thus engineering students will be closer to innovation in a core area of human progress, alongside researchers internationally recognised for their expertise in health-related technologies. The educational component will be complemented by a dual programme in which student trainees will be hosted in Inserm laboratories, and Inserm staff will be offered training modules by CentraleSupélec, particularly in the area of entrepreneurship and business creation via the Centrale Entrepreneur stream.

For Yves Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Inserm, this signing is a reflection of a dynamic and multidisciplinary research landscape in France.

“I am convinced that engineers must be attracted to and trained in biology and medicine, just as biologists and physicians must become more involved in technological innovation. Today, life sciences research could not be imagined without the contributions that come from areas such as physics, mathematics and technology. I am therefore proud of this collaboration with CentraleSupélec, which promises a bright future for French life sciences research.”

Throughout the school year, 38 junior and senior secondary school students have been hosted each month in 9 neuroscience laboratories specialising in addiction studies. The aim: to change the views of the young “Novice Researchers” on the hidden face of drugs (alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, etc.) and addiction, and to educate them about research methods and research careers. From 1 June next, the Novice Researchers will present their research at 5 conferences organised in Marseille (1 June), Amiens (2 June), Paris (3 June), Bordeaux (4 June) and Poitiers (9 June).

The MAAD (Mechanisms of Addiction to Alcohol and Drugs) programme, launched by Inserm with the support of MILDECA (French Government Interministerial Mission for Combating Drugs and Addictive Behaviours), is based on a “scientific education” style approach, intended to increase the knowledge of young people on these substances by introducing them to the scientific method.

Nine research laboratories[1] specialising in addiction physiopathology hosted, on one Wednesday each month, two “binomes,” pairs comprising one final year junior secondary school student and one second year senior secondary school student. Mentored by a senior researcher, the adolescents conducted a research project, performed experiments and interpreted data.
The conferences organised in the different research centres involved will enable these young Novice Researchers to share their results. The audience will be made up of their classmates, parents, teachers, etc.

[1] The 9 participating laboratories are as follows: Amiens: Inserm ERI 24, Prof. Mickaël Naassila; Bordeaux: Inserm U862 Neurosciences Magendie, Véronique Deroche; CNRS UMR 5287, Martine Cador / Stéphanie Caillé-Garnier; Marseille: Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology (INMED), Olivier Manzoni; UMR 7289 CNRS Cognitive Neurobiology Laboratory, Christelle Baunez; Paris: Inserm UMR 894, Laurence Lanfumey, Nicolas Ramoz; Inserm UMR-S 839 Institut du Fer à Moulin, Denis Hervé, Marika Nosten-Bertrand, Manuel Mameli; CNRS UMR 7102, Philippe Faure; Poitiers: Inserm U1084 Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences Laboratory, Marcello Solinas.

Following regional heats and a Masterclass at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, the ten finalists in the FameLab competition will display their oratory skills at Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie on Friday 22 May, at 6:30 pm.

Each candidate will have three minutes on stage to explain a scientific concept. Using the aids of their choice, they must convince the jury of their ability to communicate their research work while remaining accessible to non-specialists.

Florence Porcel, presenter, actress and author, will compere the event, with the support of professionals working in science, communication and the media:

Claudie Haigneré, Advisor to the Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), and former Chairperson of Universcience,

Cécile Lestienne, Managing Editor of Pour la Science magazine,

Roland Lehoucq, Astrophysicist, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

The public may vote for its favourite candidate. The winner, chosen by the jury, will have the opportunity to participate in the International Grand Final, held on 4 June in Cheltenham, United Kingdom.

The FameLab France finalists

They are PhD students, research assistants, assistant engineers and students, and come from all over France to share their passion for science.

Their subjects of study relate to a variety of areas in scientific research: physics, chemistry, biology and even history. At the final, the candidates will speak to you about saving animal species, the hydrophobia of water lilies, psychiatric disorders, and even mediaeval money.

They participate in FameLab to:

• Take on the challenge of the 3 Cs: content, clarity, charisma
• Make their research work known.

Quentin Vincent, epidemiologist and member of the Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases at the Imagine Institute, Paris, will represent Inserm during this final.

The Bettencourt Schueller Foundation reveals the varied and far-reaching list of the winners of its scientific prizes, which, with a total value of €1.9 million, are awarded for high-level biomedical research.

The projects of the top prizewinners are characterised by original themes, enthusiasm, and risk-taking applied to human health and a wide variety of disciplines in biomedical research.

“In research, one needs passion, creativity, work, time… and a little luck,” says Professor Hugues de Thé, the new Chairman of the Foundation’s Scientific Board. As evidenced by the personalities and work of this year’s six top prizewinners, who are involved in the following disciplines:

• Neurosciences:
  • shedding light on the workings of memory, right down to neuron level, in order to find out what makes the behaviour of every individual unique;
  • exploring the functioning of the brain in vivo, by selective activation of neurons using light;
  • exploring the mechanisms of Huntington’s disease in the depths of neurons.

• Immunology and Microbiology
  • characterising giant viruses in order to revisit the foundations of virology;
  • drawing the genealogical tree of the cells of the immune system.

• Cell biology:
  • determining the destination of stem cells by modulating their environment.

The 20 prizewinners on this list were honoured at two separate ceremonies.

On 7 April 2015 at the Institut de France, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, President of the Foundation, awarded the Coups d’Élan Prizes for French Research, in the presence of the Foundation’s two partners, namely Inserm (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), along with eminent representatives from the French scientific community. They were awarded to four prominent public research laboratories, and are aimed at optimising infrastructures and working conditions for researchers, i.e. remodelling, renovation, acquisition of equipment, etc. They also enable laboratories to acquire operational support.

© Christophe Petit Tesson / CAPA Pictures

Front row, left to right: Valentina Emiliani, Neurophotonic Laboratory, Centre Universitaire des Saints Pères, CNRS / Paris Descartes University, prizewinner; Catherine Jessus, Director, Institute of Biological Sciences (INSB), CNRS; Frédéric Saudou, Grenoble Institute of Neuroscience (GIN), Inserm / Université Joseph Fourier / Grenoble University Hospital, prizewinner;Chantal Abergel, Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory (IGS), Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology (IMM), CNRS / Aix-Marseille University; Yves Lévy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Inserm.

Back row, left to right: Olivier Brault, Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation; Hugues de Thé, Chairman of the Scientific Board of the Foundation; Manuel Théry, University Institute of Haematology (IUH), Saint Louis Hospital, Inserm / CEA, prizewinner.

To date, 50 French laboratories and over 500 researchers have already been awarded the Coups d’Élan Prize for French Research, with an individual value of €250,000.

On 8 April 2015, the Foundation’s other prizes were awarded at a ceremony at the home of Liliane Bettencourt, Honorary President of the Foundation:

Scott Waddell, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Oxford, received the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences. The ATIP-Avenir Programme grant was awarded to Leïla Perié (Physical Chemistry Curie Unit, CNRS / UPMC / Institut Curie) who, having returned to France, will establish her research team at Institut Curie, Paris. The Prizes for Young Researchers were awarded to 14 young researchers in science and/or medicine to enable them to carry out post-doctoral research in the best laboratories abroad.

Front row, left to right: Prof. Nicole Le Douarin, member of the Foundation’s Scientific Board, Fred Etoc, prizewinner, Prof. Alain Pompidou, member of the Scientific Board, Prof. Hugues de Thé, Chairman of the Scientific Board, Prof. Emiliana Borrelli, member of the Scientific Board, Scott Waddell, winner of the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences, Olivier Brault, Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, President of the Foundation, Jean-Pierre Meyers, Vice-President of the Foundation, Liliane Bettencourt, Honorary President of the Foundation, Nicolas Meyers, member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation.

Back row, left to right: Mandy Muller, Grégory Franck, Hervé Turlier, Paul Monnier, Edouard Hannezo, Denis Jallet, Jean-Rémi King, Paul Blanche, Fanny Langlet, Maël Lebreton, Séverine Martini, Sébastien Paque, winners of the Prize for Young Researchers; Dr Marcel Méchali, Prof. Alain-Jacques Valleron, Prof. Cédric Blanpain, member of the Foundation’s Scientific Board; Armand de Boissière, Secretary General of the Foundation.

To celebrate this occasion, a colloquium, “30 Ans Déjà” (30 Years Already) has been organised by Inserm and the publisher EDK/EDP/Sciences on the theme “How do we read, why do we write, how do we handle and how will we handle biomedical advances conceived in French in médecine/sciences?”

médecine/sciences (m/s) journal today

Inserm, which owns the title, is continuing the mission entrusted to médecine/sciences at its inception, and clearly summarised in its title: a continuous flow between “sciences” as knowledge production, and “medicine,” as a source of knowledge in itself; m/s is an academic journal for the communication of academic knowledge and learning, unlike any other and probably with no equivalent in Europe. In its political and international francophone dimension, it occupies a position at the heart of modern science and medicine, with an increasingly marked social awareness.

The journal, in hard copy and electronic versions, has always been produced in France.^[1]
médecine/sciences is open access 1 year after publication. For the first year of publication, access to articles is restricted to subscribers, mainly scientists via their research organisations (Inserm, CNRS [French National Centre for Scientific Research], EFS [French National Blood Service], etc.) or their universities (Laval, Sherbrooke, Liège, etc.).
A database of the m/s archives, produced by Inserm on the iPubli website, offers open access to the journal’s archives, other than the current year, for which issues can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Steady growth has been observed in the number of visits to the website and the number of article downloads during the last three years. In 2014, visits to the website were as follows: 11,700 unique users per month (45% of visits from France, followed by the United States and China); and 120,000 article downloads in PDF format per year. Analysis of connection sources suggests that half of visits are from France and half from the rest of the world.

A brief history of a resounding success

In the very early 1980s, programmes of action launched by the French and Quebec governments led to the creation of médecine/sciences (m/s), an international French-language journal reviewing biomedical research.
Professor Jean Hamburger, a pioneer and dedicated supporter of the project, surrounded by a team of young researchers and clinician researchers (Xavier Bertagna, Laurent Degos, Serge Erlinger, Jean-Pierre Grünfeld, Axel Kahn, Claude Matuchansky), would specify its content.
Four sections: an editorial, review articles making up the body of the journal, science news, and original research notes.
Research and higher education institutions would also join the effort for the “Promotion of French, a language of science, and dissemination of scientific and technical culture,” one of the 7 motivational programmes of the Framework Act for Technological Research and Development in France.
An international memorandum of understanding between the French and Quebec governments was signed in May 1984.
In March 1985, m/s was launched in France by Hubert Curien, French Minister of Research and Technology, and in Quebec by Bernard Landry, Quebec Minister of International Relations.
The memorandum would be regularly renewed until February 2006. At this time, the m/s title became the property of Inserm.

[1] Under a public service delegation contract (DSP) between Inserm and a private publisher, successively Flammarion Médecine, John Libbey, Masson, EDK since 2002 and EDK/EDP Sciences since 2012.

Inserm, with the help of its subsidiary Inserm Transfert, continues to rise in the 2014 rankings of French patent applicants issued by the European Patent Office (EPO). Inserm is placed 6^th in France (among applicants in all organisations and sectors combined), 4^th in Europe for the “Biotechnology” sector and 5^th in Europe for the “Pharmaceuticals” sector[1].

Again, according to the 2014 rankings of the European Patent Office, 227 patent applications were filed in Inserm’s name, strengthening its position compared with previous years as the leading academic organisation for biomedical research in Europe. On the French scale, Inserm has moved up five places compared with the EPO 2012 rankings (11^th place in 2012, 6^th this year).

“This ranking reflects a strategy of innovative research, the protection of which is one of the key elements favouring its transfer to industry for the benefit of patients and society,” claims Yves Lévy, CEO of Inserm.

At present, Inserm has a patent portfolio of 1,279 patent families (+102% since 2006). Inserm Transfert, which is in charge of Inserm’s intellectual property strategy, and of the management and commercialisation of the portfolio, wrote and submitted over 50% of patent applications in 2014, and licensed 26.5% of the portfolio to industrial partners in France and around the world (large health industry groups, intermediate, small and medium enterprises and start-up companies).

“Inserm’s highly diversified portfolio, which covers the major disease categories, with applications in diagnostics and therapeutic development, constitutes a pool of opportunities for industrial partners at the early stages of innovation. This substantially explains Inserm’s current position in the EPO rankings,” comments Pascale Augé, CEO of Inserm Transfert.

Valérie Mazeau-Woynar succeeds Claire Giry at the head of Inserm’s Department of Partnerships and External Relations (DPRE). In this role, she will contribute to the implementation of Inserm’s institutional partnerships at regional, national, European and international level, at the behest of Directorate General, and in coordination with the Thematic Institutes.

With her multidisciplinary background in medicine, biomedical research and public health policy, acquired in France and the United States, Valérie Mazeau-Woynar was previously Director of Recommendations and Quality of Expertise at the French National Cancer Institute (INCa). She coordinated the preparation of the 2014-2019 Cancer Control Plan, which defines France’s national strategy for action on cancer. Valérie Mazeau-Woynar has also authored or supervised over 60 reports published by that Institute between 2008 and 2014: national recommendations for specialist teams, guides for general practitioners, patient guides and scientific reports.

With extensive experience in institutional relations with central government and the health and research agencies, learned societies, patient associations and foundations, Valérie Mazeau-Woynar will now put her ability to analyse medical, scientific and strategic situations at the service of Inserm’s Department of Partnerships and External Relations.

“Given my strong commitment to helping improve population health, I am pleased and honoured to be joining Inserm, and using my skills in research that will make it possible to better prevent illnesses and improve the care of tomorrow’s patients.”
Valérie Mazeau-Woynar

In the course of her duties, she will contribute to promoting a site policy, developing institutional cooperation at regional, national, European and international level, and defining Inserm’s strategy with the Directorate General.