Press releases

To fight the virus that causes influenza, one of the avenues being explored by scientists is the development of drugs capable of destabilising its genome, made up of eight RNA molecules. A first article published in 2023 proposed an initial model for the encapsidation of the influenza virus genome. In a new publication published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research on 16 December 2024, the same scientists have now obtained a high-resolution structure of the Influenza nucleoprotein in an (…)

A Titan Krios transmission electron microscope, funded by the french program ’Investissement d’Avenir 3’ and specially designed for cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) in biology, was inaugurated on Friday November 8, 2024. Hosted by ESRF, it is made available to the French and European scientific community and operated by the IBS and the ISBG. Thanks to its exceptional performance, the Titan Krios G4, represents a major technological advance for structural biology research. It will enable (…)

SpikImm, a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to the development of monoclonal antibodies to prevent viral infections in immunocompromised patients, announced the signature with SATT Conectus of an exclusive collaboration and license option agreement for potent monoclonal antibodies targeting the BK virus. These monoclonal antibodies were developed through the project HuMABK led by Pr. Pascal POIGNARD, Head of the "Antibodies and Infectious Diseases" research team at the (…)

What mechanisms are behind the appearance of flowers? To answer this question, a 25-year-old enigma has just been solved: The role of the UFO protein in this formation process. While its nature suggested that it destroys its partners, this protein is in fact an aid to the birth of a flower when it is coupled to the LEAFY protein. This was revealed by researchers from several Grenoble institutes* in a new study published in Nature Plants. Scientists already knew that LEAFY, by binding to (…)

Prodrugs have little or no pharmacological activity and require modifications to become active. Most prodrugs contain a chemical group that is removed or modified by the body’s enzymes to lead to the active drug, although a few can be intentionally activated by radiation, electrical stimuli or ultrasounds. However, to date, prodrugs capable of self-activation without enzymes or human intervention remain unknown. Researchers from the IBS (Protein Dynamics and Flexibility Group) in (…)

IBS Scientists (M&P and CAID groups, in collaboration with the IBS electron microscopy platform) have confirmed in PLOS Pathogens that the Covid virus can use immune cells to increase its transmission to other cells. They also showed that it is possible to inhibit this new mode of virus transmission by using glycomimetics, previously developed at IBS. This work is the result of an international collaboration with Spanish (Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Madrid) and Italian (…)

The functioning of the enzyme FAP, useful for producing biofuels and for green chemistry, has been decrypted. This result mobilized an international consortium of scientists, including researchers from the IBS/DYNAMOP and IBS/SYN groups. The discovery was published in Science on April 09, 2021. Press release

Using a combination of quantitative single-cell structural and chemical imaging techniques, a collaboration of researchers from LPCV, IBS, Helmholtz Center, ESRF and other universities, show that the structural organization, physiology, and trophic status of the algal symbionts (the haptophyte Phaeocystis) significantly change within their acantharian hosts compared to their free-living phase in culture. This result, published in Current Biology, shed light on the functioning of this (…)

By closely studying CCR5, one of the entry points of HIV into cells, researchers from Inserm, the Institut Pasteur, the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, the CNRS and IBS, demonstrate that its morphology determines the propensity of the virus to infect the body. This work supported by the ANRS and published in the Plos Pathogens journal is a new step towards understanding the role of CCR5 in HIV infection and as a target for blocking the entry of the virus into cells. Press (…)