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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,...
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Document de presse | 2008.11.04
Nicotine: a receptor from the past helping to develop drugs of the future
Researchers at the Institut Pasteur and CNRS have just determined the structure of a bacterial protein similar to the human nicotine receptor, and have published this result in the journal Nature. This is an important step for the molecular modeling of substances able to interact with this receptor and which could help treatment of nicotine addiction. Nicotine is the principal substance in...
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Document de presse | 2008.10.22
A new source of neurons in the adult brain
Researchers at the Institut Pasteur and CNRS have just identified a new source of neurons in the adult brain. Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, provides proof of the brain's intrinsic capacity to self-repair. This work also opens unexpected perspectives for the development of therapies, particularly the treatment of neurodegenerative pathologies, such as Parkinson's...
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Document de presse | 2008.10.13
A new mechanism of resistance to dengue virus
It is becoming increasingly common to see individuals infected by the dengue virus who develop an ultimately fatal hemorrhagic syndrome, particularly in children during epidemics. However, in most cases, dengue remains a generally benign or even asymptomatic viral infection. One explanation for this phenomenon has just been put forward by researchers from CNRS , Institut Pasteur ,...