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The François Jacob Institute of Biology brings together five departments and three services
The last two years in scientific news
In a study published in DNA Repair, an IRCM (CEA-Jacob) team has elucidated mechanisms through which neural stem and progenitor cells maintain genome integrity more efficaciously than other cell types. The team's work contributes to a better understanding of the high-fidelity transmission of genetic information so crucial to brain development.
As part of an international study published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, a team from LMN (MIRCen/CEA-Jacob) discovered an unexpected mechanism involving chaperone proteins in Tau disassembly.
In a study on the HIV-specific immune response in semen, published in Frontiers in Immunology, researchers from IDMIT (CEA-Jacob) have shed light on a complex interaction between immunity and inflammation in modulating semen infectivity and the risk of HIV transmission.
A team from the Genomics Metabolics laboratory (Genoscope / CEA-Jacob) has developed a bioinformatics analysis method for environmental genomics data and applied it to those of plankton resulting from the Tara Oceans expeditions. The method reconstructs transcriptomes of eukaryotes from environmental sequencing data, thus enabling access to the genetic organization of these organisms, even those that have not yet been described, to study their functional potential. Also, with the method, interspecies associations can be identified across samples taken in different oceanic provinces. The novel approach is a door to the environmental context and biological functions of numerous species of ecological interest. The team's work was published in Genome Research.
A study on preclinical imaging involving several national research organisms (Inserm, CNRS, CEA, Universities) has produced MRI relaxometry maps for healthy rat brains. The impetus for that work is to be found in the France Life Imaging (FLI) initiative and its continuing momentum manifests today as the Small Animal Imaging Network (SAIN), which unites about ten French imaging facilities. The study, published in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, demonstrates the feasibility of large-scale, multicenter, MRI studies in the preclinical setting.
In a study published in Acta Neuropathologica Communications, researchers from LEE (CNRGH/CEA-Jacob) and the LRSN (Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg University Hospital, Copenhagen) joined forces to characterize DNA methylation profiles in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA). The team brought to light epigenetic aspects that suggest an active neuro-immune response in patients with MSA. Their work contributes to a better understanding of the diseases and opens new horizons for therapeutic strategies.
Researchers from SRHI in partnership with the MICS lab (CentraleSupélec, Paris-Saclay University) have identified new immune checkpoints as potential targets in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. The team's results, obtained by pairing statistics and biological analyses, have been published in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy.
The platform MicroScope was launched in 2002 by LABGeM (Genoscope) to provide the international microbiology community with bioinformatics tools for the analysis and exploration of prokaryote genomes. The platform's innovations were recently highlighted in a special edition of Nucleic Acids Research on databases. The journal's readers can discover MicroScope's recent developments for the functional annotation of genes, the characterization of genomic islands, and the analysis of pan-genomes.
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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.