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Document de presse | 2018.12.20
AIDS – an approach for targeting HIV reservoirs
Current HIV treatments need to be taken for life by those infected as antiretroviral therapy is unable to eliminate viral reservoirs lurking in immune cells. Institut Pasteur scientists have identified the characteristics of CD4 T lymphocytes that are preferentially infected by the virus – it is their metabolic (or energy-producing) activity1 that enables the virus to multiply. Thanks to...
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News | 2018.12.18
The medical entomology course at the Institut Pasteur celebrates its 30th anniversary
Entomology, the study of insects, is a long-standing tradition at the Institut Pasteur. Institut Pasteur scientist Alphonse Laveran was the first to describe the malaria agent, Plasmodium, in 1880, while working in Constantine, Algeria. His work on protozoa earned him the Nobel Prize in 1907. In 1898, Paul-Louis Simond demonstrated that the bacterium responsible for plague, the Yersinia pestis...
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Document de presse | 2018.12.21
A novel antibiotic resistance mechanism
Bacteria make use of a number of natural resistance strategies to overcome antibiotics. And it seems that this bacterial toolbox may be much more varied than previously thought. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with Inserm, INRA, the CNRS and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have recently revealed an entirely unknown resistance mechanism in Listeria monocytogenes...
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News | 2018.11.22
Autism: a virtual avatar to make precision medicine
Machine-learning, a method derived from artificial intelligence, is used at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) to study and understand the heterogeneity of autistic patients. It makes it possible to identify those among them who are the most similar in their profiles, to better take care of them - in the end - in line with their own profile.Guillaume Dumas, researcher in the Human Genetics and...
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Document de presse | 2019.01.03
Cholera outbreak in Yemen elucidated using genomics
The seventh cholera pandemic has been affecting world regions since 1961. In successive waves, Vibrio cholerae bacteria have been accompanying humans in their travels and migrations, sometimes triggering devastating outbreaks, as is currently the case in Yemen. But what migratory pathways do these bacteria generally adopt? Can we monitor, or even anticipate, cholera outbreaks at global level? In...
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Fiche maladie | 2019.01.07
Cervical cancer and papillomavirus
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer in women worldwide. Almost all cases can be attributed to chronic infection with viruses belonging to the papillomavirus family. Globally, approximately 600,000 new cases and more than 300,000 deaths are recorded every year. Cervical cancer can be prevented with regular screening.
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News | 2019.01.22
Effect of the seasons on pneumococcal infections
Pneumococcal infections are still a global public health problem. Though striking, the seasonality of these infections remains a mystery for science. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur have finally unraveled the mechanisms behind the discontinuity of these infections.The pneumococcus bacterium is responsible for severe infections (pneumonia and meningitis) and frequent deaths (almost three...
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News | 2019.01.28
A new biochemical pathway implicated in the proliferation of cancer cells
Mitochondria are organelles that provide most of the energy necessary for the cell. This energy is provided in “tokens” of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a molecule that is required in most chemical reactions and that is essential for all biological processes, such as locomotion, cell division, and transfer of material across membranes. Cancer cells also require energy to proliferate, and for...
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News | 2019.01.28
How human pathogens may emerge from the environment
Legionella pneumophila is an opportunistic human pathogen that is increasingly recognized as an important cause of both community and nosocomially acquired pneumonia (Legionnaires’ disease or legionellosis) worldwide. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur tried to understand how a harmless environmental bacterium can become a feared human pathogen.This human disease represents up to 5% of...
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Report | 2019.01.28
Yellow fever, the story of a re-emerging virus
With outbreaks in Angola in 2015 and Brazil in 2016, and cases detected in French Guiana in 2017 and even recently in Asia, where the virus had never previously been witnessed, yellow fever – a sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease – has once again become a global public health problem. After major outbreaks between the 17th and 19th centuries, it never disappeared and has continued to be rife...
