While Bacillus cereus is well known as a source of food infections, researchers from INRA and ANSES, working with doctors at nine French hospitals[1] including those in the Paris Public Hospital System (AP-HP), have demonstrated for the first time that this bacterium is also responsible for inter- and intra-hospital nosocomial contamination. This study, conducted in 39 patients between 2008 and 2012, also found strains of B. cereus in the hospital environment capable of causing...
The National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) of Kinshasa and Inserm have characterized the nature of the Ebola virus responsible for the 9th epidemic currently raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The strain identified is the so-called Ebola Zaire strain
In a paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine , Guy and his team Gorochov research center CIMI (Inserm / Université Sorbonne) and Immunology Department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, AP-HP, reveal that our IgA act as conductor of the intestinal microbiota. They effectively prevent intestinal colonization by the oral flora and promote the presence of certain bacteria, totally innocent of infectious standpoint, but playing a beneficial role.
One of the major challenges identified by the WHO in efforts to eradicate the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the diagnosis of chronic cases that are generally asymptomatic. Major progress is required for new diagnostic techniques that can be "decentralized", in other words accessed by populations and countries with limited resources. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and Inserm, in collaboration with the company genedrive, have developed and validated a...
A veritable sensor: a team of Inserm and CNRS researchers at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS, CNRS/Paul Sabatier University – Toulouse III) has identified a protein that is able to detect various allergens in the respiratory tract, which are responsible for asthma attacks. This study, co-led by Corinne Cayrol and Jean-Philippe Girard, was published in Nature Immunology on March 19, 2018. It offers hope for breakthroughs...
Thanks to a study conducted in pregnant women and their unborn children during the Zika epidemic in the French territories in the Americas, researchers from Inserm, Institut Pasteur and the University Hospital of Guadeloupe have been able to accurately estimate the risk of severe neurological complications in babies. They have also determined that the first trimester of pregnancy is the period which presents the highest risk. While the overall...
Researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Aix Marseille University at the Center of Immunology Marseille-Luminy (CIML) have discovered that while a tattoo may be forever, the skin cells that carry the tattoo pigment are not. These cells transmit this pigment to new cells when they die. Acting on this process could improve current laser removal techniques. This study was published on March 6, 2018 in Journal of Experimental Medicine.
A small revolution has taken place in the world of type 1 diabetes research. A study conducted by an Inserm team led by Roberto Mallone at the Cochin Institute (Inserm, CNRS, Paris Descartes University) is calling into question the role long attributed to the thymus in selecting and eliminating white blood cells associated with type 1 diabetes and reveals that we are all auto-immune. Discoveries which change our understanding...
How do bacteria manage to infect our body? What tactics do they use to slip through the cracks in our immune system? This is what the team of Thomas Henry, Inserm researcher, and his coworkers from the CNRS of Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon grouped within the International Center for Infectiology Research (CIRI) are trying to elucidate. In a paper published...
The dengue virus – like all other viruses – hijacks many of the host cell's functions to accomplish its infectious cycle. For the very first time, researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Université Paris Diderot have recently identified all of the cellular factors that interact with the virus as it replicates. By providing proof of concept that some of these molecules can be inhibited, these scientists are paving the way...