A recent study conducted by Anne Giersch and her team of researchers (Inserm Unit 1114 /University of Strasbourg) showed that some people with schizophrenia are unable to perceive and anticipate the passage of time. These results, published in the Scientific Reports journal, also reveal a link between fragile temporal prediction and minimal self disorders (self-perception, "I am here, now").
Scientists at the Institut Pasteur, CNRS and Inserm, together with a team from Switzerland*, have shown that the bacterial pathogen Legionella pneumophila (the causative agent of Legionnaires’ disease or legionellosis) has developed a specific strategy to target the host cell mitochondria, the organelles in charge of cellular bioenergetics. By changing the shape of these host organelles, L. pneumophila impairs mitochondrial respiration leading to metabolic changes in the host cell...
It’s good news. Over the last 20 years there has been a marked improvement in the survival rate of preterm infants, and rates of brain damage at the age of 2 years have halved. These are the latest results of the EPIPAGE-2 study carried out by researchers from the Inserm group EPOPé - Obstetrical, Perinatal, and Pediatric Epidemiology Team at the Center for Research in Epidemiology and Statistics, Sorbonne...
Teams from the virology, hematology-bone marrow transplant and biostatistics departments of the Saint-Louis Hospital, AP-HP, Université Paris Diderot and INSERM, in collaboration with scientists from the University of California-San Francisco (USA) discovered that a group of viruses in the intestine may trigger the onset of graft-versus-host disease. Researchers demonstrated the role of this intestinal "virome" (the population of viruses found in the intestine) in the onset of graft-versus-host disease...
The origin, development, and characteristics of two types of testicular macrophage have been described by a CNRS team at the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CNRS / INSERM / Aix-Marseille University). To elucidate the nature of these immune cells, the researchers used a novel cell tracing method. Their findings were published on August 7, 2017, in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and are of fundamental importance. They may help understand certain kinds of...
Researchers from Généthon, the AFM-Téléthon laboratory, Inserm (UMR 1089, Nantes) and the University of London (Royal Holloway) demonstrated the efficacy of an innovative gene therapy in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Indeed, after injecting microdystrophin (a “shortened” version of the dystrophin gene) via a drug vector, the researchers managed to restore muscle strength and stabilise the clinical symptoms in dogs naturally affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A first....
On July 13, 2017, the journal Lancet Neurology published the results of a gene therapy trial conducted in four children with Sanfilippo type B syndrome (also known as MPS IIIB). This trial is the achievement of a two-decade partnership with financial support of AFM-Téléthon and the cooperation of the charity "Vaincre les Maladies Lysosomales" (VML). After monitoring of the treated children for 30 months, Dr. Jean-Michel Heard, from the...
From July 23 to 26, 2017, the Ninth IAS Conference on HIV Science, of which Inserm is a partner, will be held at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. For this edition, the International AIDS Society (IAS) has teamed up with ANRS, the autonomous agency of Inserm, to coordinate and fund research on HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm, the Collège de France and Pierre & Marie Curie University have recently demonstrated that mutations in three genes responsible for Usher syndrome – a hereditary condition that affects both hearing and sight – influence not only the workings of the ear, specifically the function of sensory cells in the cochlea, but also the development of the auditory cortex. Their discovery could explain why...
The Vision Institute (Inserm, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)) via the Fondation Voir & Entendre has signed a contract with the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which could ultimately represent $ 25 million. With the help of an international consortium, researchers from Inserm, CNRS and UPMC, working within the Vision Institute, want to develop a system capable of restoring...