To access all features of this site, you must enable Javascript. Here are the instructions for enabling Javascript in your web browser.
The François Jacob Institute of Biology brings together five departments and three services
The last two years in scientific news
The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined how important intense preclinical research is to the development and validation of therapeutics. In this context, a WHO-mandated group of experts, including Roger le Grand and Pauline Maisonnasse from IDMIT (CEA-Jacob), have published an article in Nature that presents existing COVID-19 animal models and explores their pertinence for studying the pathology and identifying paths toward novel treatments for it.
An international study involving IDMIT's (CEA-Jacob) Roger Le Grand and other researchers from more than 80 countries concluded that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine likely provide no clinical benefits in the treatment of COVID-19.
In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Genoscope (CEA-Jacob) showed that a same bacterium can degrade chlordecone differently according to the conditions in which it was cultured. Furthermore, one of the newly-identified transformation products was detected in chlordecone-contaminated mangroves in the French West Indies.
A study performed by an IDMIT team (CEA-Jacob) has resulted in an in vitro approach for predicting the in vivo efficacy of antibodies used for the prevention of HIV-1 transmission. The work identified antibodies capable of efficaciously blocking intercellular viral transmission in infected semen.
Researchers from SRHI (CEA-Jacob) have demonstrated a correlation between VEGF expression and the HLA-G/IL4 immune checkpoint in the most common form of kidney cancer. Their study, published in BMC Cancer, opens new horizons for the deployment of novel therapeutic protocols.
Researchers at MIRCen (CEA-Jacob) combined spectroscopy and metabolic imaging to identify novel biomarkers for Huntington's disease. Their approach enables the monitoring of disease course and may prove useful for exploring other neurodegenerative diseases or testing future treatments.
A NeuroSpin team, in collaboration with researchers from SHFJ and MIRCen (CEA-Jacob), is identifying a predictive indicator of the potentially deleterious effect of devices using ultrasound to deliver drugs to the brain.
A new preclinical study piloted by IDMIT and employing experimental infection models for SARS-CoV-2 found no therapeutic antiviral efficacy for hydroxychloroquine. The team behind the study tested the compound both alone and in combination with azithromycin, and as a prophylactic and in early and late infection. Their results have been published on Nature.
Top page
CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.