The European Commission is legally required to provide criteria identifying Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), a process that has been blocked for almost three years, allegedly because of a lack of scientific consensus and because an impact assessment study was deemed necessary. Now, a group of 7 independent researchers from universities and research institutions from Europe and the United States* show how little controversy there is around the definition of...
In the last two years, nearly 2 million people have been infected with the Zika virus in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the end of 2015, REACTing and members of the Aviesan alliance immediately became involved, particularly Inserm, Institut Pasteur, the Institute for Development Research (IRD), the French Blood Transfusion Service and the associated university hospitals. Initial contact was made with Brazilian researchers from Fiocruz in November 2015....
An international team, including researchers in France at Inserm, CNRS and the University of Strasbourg, brought together at IGBMC[1] is lifting the veil on the molecular mechanisms causing heart dysfunctions in myotonic dystrophy, a genetic disease affecting one person in 8,000. This new study, published this week in Nature Communications, could contribute to discovering a treatment.
Treatments available for glioblastoma—malignant brain tumors—have little effect. An international collaboration[1] led by the Laboratoire Neurosciences Paris-Seine (CNRS/ INSERM/UPMC)[2] tested active ingredients from existing medications and eventually identified one compound of interest, prazosin, on these tumors. Not only did it seem to be effective in this type of cancer, but it also acted on a signaling pathway that is common with other cancers. These promising findings are available online...
A patient paralysed in his hands and legs is able to use his hand through a device able to restore communication between the brain and muscles, bypassing the spinal cord. According to the French Press Association, a chip containing 96 electrodes, implanted in the patient's brain, transmits the quadriplegic man's thoughts to a computer that decodes them and sends commands to a sleeve that stimulates the muscles in the...
A study by researchers from Inserm, the Paris Public Hospitals (Bichat Hospital, AP-HP), Aix-Marseille University, and the National Reference Centre for Arboviruses confirms that the ZIKA virus can be transmitted sexually. Their analyses have shown 100% genetic correlation between the form of the virus present in a man who contracted the virus in Brazil and that of a woman who had never travelled in the epidemic area, but who...
Haemophilia is a hereditary disease characterised by bleeding due to a deficiency of coagulation factors. Haemophilia A is the most widespread form, affecting one in every 5,000 boys born.
Heart failure affects over one million people in France. Although the blood system is the first to have been explored for the purpose of improving heart function, a study by Inserm has revealed the potential of a secondary system that had previously received scant attention. The researchers[1] analysed the heart lymphatic system in an animal model. They showed that this system was highly impaired following a myocardial infarction. Using...
Cyril Schiever, Chairman of the Board of MSDAVENIR, Professor Yves Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Inserm and Pascale Augé, President of the Executive Board of Inserm Transfert, today signed a strategic framework agreement to support French medical research.This event took place under the patronage and in the presence of Marisol Touraine, French Minister for Social Affairs and Health, and Thierry Mandon, Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research.
A team coordinated by Prof. Emmanuel Flamand-Roze from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, AP-HP, has tested, at the clinical investigation centre of the Brain and Spine Institute (Inserm /CNRS/UPMC) , the efficacy of zonisamide, a drug currently used to treat certain forms of epilepsy, in 23 patients with a rare disease of the nervous system, myoclonus-dystonia. The promising results from this trial, which was funded by AP-HP (the Paris Public Hospitals), are...