5 min read
The research cycle
Since 1887, the Institut Pasteur has been guided by its profoundly human-centered ambition of turning science into real-world solutions for the benefit of everyone's health. Every breakthrough, whether it be on vaccines, treatments or diagnostic tests, is the product of a long, often invisible but essential process: the research cycle. This is a continuum that starts with an understanding of the living world and ultimately leads to life-changing innovations, sometimes decades later.
There is no pure science and applied science, only science and its applications, bound together as the fruit of the tree that bears it.
The Institut Pasteur: from science to healthcare since 1887
The research cycle revolves around three key complementary stages, each feeding into and stimulating the other.
Projects developed at the Institut Pasteur cover this entire virtuous cycle, from preliminary discoveries to clinical trials and finally the supply of vaccines or treatments.
Three types of research, one objective: keeping you healthy
- Basic research: exploration aimed at understanding the living world
Basic research forms the bedrock of any medical breakthrough. It involves exploring and experimenting to understand the fundamental mechanisms of the living world without necessarily seeking to apply this knowledge immediately.
Our teams investigate infectious agents, cell function, immune response, and interactions between microbes and the human body. Though its results are unpredictable, this exploratory research leads to the greatest medical revolutions.
- Translational research: when science meets medicine
Translational research acts as a bridge between basic research, aimed at understanding mechanisms, and clinical research, in which novel treatments and diagnostics are tested on patients to assess their efficacy and tolerability.
Translational research entails constant dialog between scientists and clinicians to enable knowledge transfer.
This knowledge sharing goes both ways: from basic research to applications for patients, and from observations on patients to basic research. The primary objective is to understand how a medical breakthrough can become a tool for diagnosing, preventing or treating a disease.
Without this transfer stage, many breakthroughs would remain unfulfilled promises.
- Clinical research: rigorous assessment of medical treatments
Once therapeutic avenues have been identified and laboratory-approved, the baton is passed on to clinical research. This encompasses preclinical studies, which represent the first phase of assessment for a drug candidate, and also scientific studies conducted directly on humans within a strictly regulated framework. It marks the final step before a drug, medical device or novel therapeutic strategy is made available, ensuring the efficacy and safety of innovations before they reach patients.
At the Institut Pasteur, clinical research is conducted with partner hospitals including those in the Paris Public Hospital Network (AP-HP), as is the case at the Cochin CIC, as well as with the Institut reConnect and the Robert Debré Child Brain Institute (IHU-ICE). Clinical trials are also conducted through multi-partner projects involving both clinicians and industry partners, or scientific consortia in the case of some ongoing vaccine projects such as those involving novel vaccines under development.
A continuum of research aimed at protecting human health
At the Institut Pasteur, links between basic research, biomedical innovation, medicine and public health are central to our scientific model. Scientists, clinicians and innovation experts join forces so that each medical breakthrough can one day deliver the most widespread benefits.
Underpinning this commitment is a structured ecosystem including a department in charge of detecting and promoting innovations, an Innovation Accelerator developing the most promising projects, and partnerships with industry aimed at turning discoveries into medical solutions capable of large-scale rollout.
A model serving the common good
Innovation at the Institut Pasteur is rooted both in scientific excellence and a stringent ethical requirement to develop solutions that are both useful and as widely accessible as possible.
Partnerships with industry are subject to strict requirements ensuring that products derived from our research benefit the people who need them most, including those in low-income countries. This involves adapting financial licensing terms to the target population and country, with some licenses free for use in low-income countries. The Institut Pasteur adheres to the standards of the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) principles.
Your support: fundamental to this cycle
Without you, our research would stop.
Each discovery represents years of work, hypotheses made then disproved, and experiments restarted, often without any immediate visible results. Basic research that could potentially lead to a future treatment needs unrestricted, long-term support.
Your donations allow the Institut Pasteur to keep this research cycle dynamic, ambitious and independent – from discoveries in the laboratory to the patients who need them the most.
We need you!
From research to impact: a look back at three iconic examples
These three fields of basic, translational and clinical research lead to genuine breakthroughs, some of which have already changed the course of medical history.
- Messenger RNA and COVID-19 vaccines
In the 1960s, scientists at the Institut Pasteur discovered messenger RNA while working on gene expression and regulation. No application was foreseen for this fundamental discovery. Decades later, this knowledge enabled the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in less than a year, marking a turning point in the global pandemic.
- Hereditary hearing loss and gene therapy
Basic research conducted at the Institut Pasteur enabled numerous genes involved in hereditary hearing loss to be identified and an improved understanding of hearing mechanisms to be gained. This work, which started out as purely basic research, has now led to the concrete outcome of clinical trials aimed at restoring hearing in children with congenital deafness.
- CRISPR-Cas9 and the treatment of genetic disorders
While seeking to understand how bacteria defend themselves against viruses, scientists laid the foundations of CRISPR-Cas9, one of the most powerful genome editing tools developed to date. This technology offers tangible therapeutic avenues for treating genetic diseases such as sickle cell disease. Research in this area is ongoing at the Institut Pasteur to identify novel biomolecular tools with the potential to transform the future of medicine.
Solutions under development
Dozens of projects are currently under development to create products and technologies in various fields:
- Vaccinology:
- vaccine candidates for chikungunya, malaria, Lassa fever, plague and Shigella;
- innovative vaccine technologies enabling a faster response to future outbreaks.
- Therapies:
- monoclonal antibodies against hepatitis and SARS-CoV-2;
- cancer immunotherapies;
- novel therapies for rare diseases including mitochondrial diseases.
- Diagnostics:
- HPV RNA-Seq: an innovative molecular assay for early detection of precancerous lesions of the cervix;
- PREGASIGN: an early stomach cancer detection test using biomarkers.
Key points: the research cycle at the Institut Pasteur
- 1 Basic research explores living world mechanisms without any immediate aim to develop applications, though without it none of the rest would be possible.
- 2 Translational research provides a link between the laboratory and clinic, translating scientific discoveries into tangible medical development avenues.
- 3 Clinical research assesses the efficacy and safety of novel therapies by testing them on patients within a strictly regulated framework.
Together, these three stages form a virtuous and continuous cycle with one objective: improving human health.