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News | 2019.07.23
Shedding light on almost indestructible archaeal pili
Extremophiles are organisms that have evolved to thrive under extremely harsh environmental conditions. Scientists have always been mystified by how these organisms survive in such settings and especially how extracellular appendages, such as pili, remain stable. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Virginia revealed how sugars make those...
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News | 2019.07.17
The Institut Pasteur launches a Scientific Platform in the university of São Paulo Research and Innovation Center
On July 4, the Institut Pasteur, an internationally renowned center for biomedical research and a French non-profit foundation specialized in infectious diseases, has inaugurated the Pasteur-USP Scientific Platform in the University of São Paulo Research and Innovation Center (Inova USP) which is hosting 17 laboratories dedicated to innovation. This platform will focus on the study of pathogens...
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News | 2019.07.11
A fast likelihood method to reconstruct and visualize ancestral scenarios
The Institut Pasteur is at the forefront of computational biology research. Scientists in the Evolutionary Bioinformatics Unit (part of Institut Pasteur and CNRS Unit, USR 3756) recently developed the PastML program. This tool, based on decision-theory concepts, infers "ancestral scenarios" that describe the evolution of traits or characters along phylogenetic trees. The characters can be very...
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News | 2019.07.12
Wolbachia, bacteria to combat dengue
The first mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia, bacteria that prevent them from transmitting arboviruses (including dengue, Zika and chikungunya), were released on Wednesday July 10, 2019 in Nouméa, New Caledonia, as part of the World Mosquito Program,* which involves teams from the Institut Pasteur de Nouvelle-Calédonie. The aim of this program is to encourage mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia to...
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News | 2019.07.25
Aimee Wessel and Raphaël Tomasi win the i-Lab award for their MultiScreen project
On July 4, the i-Lab innovation competition unveiled the names of its 75 winners, which this year included Aimee Wessel and Raphaël Tomasi from the Physical Microfluidics and Bioengineering Unit (Institut Pasteur/École Polytechnique/CNRS). Sponsored by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and organized in partnership with Bpifrance Financement, i-Lab is France's...
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News | 2019.09.06
Whooping cough: elucidation of a critical stage in the action of the CyaA toxin
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur are investigating CyaA, one of the major toxins of Bordetella pertussis. This bacterium is responsible for whooping cough, a disease that is currently on the rise. Acylation is a biochemical reaction in which an acyl chain is added to a molecule. It was already known that the CyaA protein was acylated in Bordetella pertussis. The scientists used a combination...
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News | 2019.09.09
Depression: the key role of neuroinflammation
Depression is a complex multifactorial condition whose underlying mechanisms have still not been elucidated. Available treatments are therefore far from effective, and it is estimated that 30% of patients are resistant to conventional treatment. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with teams from Sainte-Anne Hospital, have shed light on the role of brain inflammation as a...
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News | 2019.09.11
Phagotherapy: a support for the work on bacteriophages of a Franco-American team (Institut Pasteur and Georgia Tech)
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Institut Pasteur and the Georgia Institute of Technology has received a $2.5 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study phage therapy. This project aims to deepen the fundamental knowledge and the clinical potential of bacteria-killing viruses – also called bacteriophage, or phage –, to treat antibiotic-resistant infection.Over the...
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Document de presse | 2019.09.10
Discovery of a new ribosomopathy in humans that results in a lack of testis-determination or testicular regression
Sex determination is the process whereby an organism becomes male or female. A multinational consortium, led by Institut Pasteur scientists, has made a breakthrough in understanding the genetics of sex determination in humans. They have discovered that DHX37, a gene highly conserved during evolution and until now only known for its role in ribosome biogenesis, is involved in both determining and...
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Portrait | 2019.09.17
Laure Bally-Cuif, neurogeneticist like a fish in water
Laure Bally-Cuif leads the Zebrafish Neurogenetics Unit at the Institut Pasteur. The model for her research is a little fish, mutant forms of which can remain transparent until adulthood – an important characteristic for observing the many cells involved in brain development.Laure Bally-Cuif was born in Lyon and grew up in a working-class household. At school, she was a talented student and...
