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Document de presse | 2011.01.02
Hepatitis C : in 2011, a predictive marker for response to therapy
Scientists at Inserm and Institut Pasteur have performed biomarker discovery on patients being treated for chronic hepatitis C infection. Their work, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that the plasma levels of the protein IP-10 predict, prior to treatment initiation, the efficacy of treatment with pegylated-interferon and ribavirin. Based on these results, the...
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Document de presse | 2010.11.16
Stem cells and genetic programming : lessons from fundamental research
Scientists at the Institute Pasteur and CNRS have identified key regulatory factors controlling one of the critical developmental processes occurring during embryo development : X-inactivation, which ensures the silencing of the genes carried by one of the two X chromosomes present in all cells of female mammals. These regulatory factors are also implicated in maintaining the capacity...
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Document de presse | 2010.10.04
Malaria: a theory disproved – the parasite can develop and persist in the skin
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur have demonstrated in rodents that, contrary to long-held belief, the malaria parasite is able to develop and produce infectious forms not only in the liver but also in the skin. This discovery proves that the skin is not merely a transitional site for the parasites on their way to the liver, but a site where the parasites can actually develop and even persist...
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Document de presse | 2010.01.18
The life and death of neurons: how a virus can control everything
Researchers at the Institut Pasteur and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have just discovered that the rabies virus expresses in one of its proteins a key region which enables the human neurons that it infects to survive, and this is an essential condition for the virus to spread in the organism. By identifying the mechanisms which regulate whether the neuron survives or...
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Document de presse | 2009.06.10
A major breakthrough in understanding the virulence of the Listeria bacterium in humans
A study carried out by Institut Pasteur researchers in cooperation with Inserm and INRA reveals how Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterium responsible for listeriosis, changes the activity of its entire genome to shift from an inoffensive to a pathogenic state. New types of gene products (RNAs) have been discovered. This research, which appeared in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature...
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Document de presse | 2009.05.26
The Institut Pasteur and the U.S. CDC sign a Memorandum of Understanding to promote global public health
The Institut Pasteur and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the occasion of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO), in Geneva, last week. The agreement unites the efforts of these two organizations – both leaders in the field of global public health – by creating a framework for shared and lasting actions to...
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Document de presse | 2009.05.21
Antibiotic multiresistance: why bacteria are so effective
In an article published in Science, teams from the Institut Pasteur and the University of Limoges, associated with the CNRS and Inserm, decipher for the first time the molecular mechanism that enables bacteria to acquire multiresistance to antibiotics, and that even allows them to adapt this resistance to their environment. This discovery highlights the difficulties that will have to be tackled...
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Document de presse | 2009.04.07
HIV/AIDS and developing countries: bathroom scales to improve monitoring of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy?
In developing countries, where access to laboratory tests remains limited, could use of a criterion as simple as weight gain improve the management of HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy? This is what has been suggested by a research published in the AIDS journal and conducted by researchers from the Institut Pasteur in partnership with Médecins Sans Frontières. Now that access...
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Document de presse | 2009.03.04
Discovery of a new antibiotic resistance strategy
Thanks to their high capacity for adaptation, bacteria progressively learn how to resist antibiotic treatments. French scientists from Inserm, Paris Descartes University, INRA, Pasteur Institute, and the CNRS have recently shown that one of their strategies consists in the diversion of fatty acids present in human blood for their own growth. These studies are published in the review Nature on 5...
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Document de presse | 2009.02.25
Ovarian insufficiency: a genetic cause identified
Researchers from the Institut Pasteur have identified genetic mutations responsible for cases of ovarian insufficiency, a term that covers various disorders affecting female fertility, from the absence of ovaries to ovarian dysfunction. This discovery, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, opens up new avenues for diagnosis and genetic counseling. Press release Paris,...