Although the standard ASTM D559 has been defined to evaluate the impact of water ingress and egress on a given soil, the current ASTM approach does not consider the soil saturation level, the temperature implemented does not represent the real situation, and the consideration of Relative Humidity (RH) and physicochemical interaction between soil and water is ignored. In this context, the proposed automated simulator brings a novel approach to monitoring the water ingression and egression phenomena continuously by considering the soil saturation level. The temperature and RH which impact such phenomena are incorporated to represent the field condition. The physicochemical interaction between each specimen and water can be analyzed simultaneously. Thus, the proposed device can evaluate the impact of the wetting and drying cycles on compacted soil in an environment that closely represents the field situation.
The development of efficient water filtration systems is an important challenge for environmental engineering. Activated carbon is widely used for the adsorption of organic pollutants, such as pesticides, pharmaceutical by-products and volatile organic compounds. However, it is only a separation step and the regeneration processes of the adsorption material currently present some important drawbacks. A new electrochemical process for in-situ regeneration of activated carbon has been developed. Both adsorption and regeneration steps are performed in the same reactor. The objective of electrochemical regeneration is to recover the adsorption capacity of the adsorption material and to degrade organic pollutants. The technology was initially developed using activated carbon fibers, a breakthrough material allowing faster adsorption of organic pollutants. The technology is also applied for the regeneration of conventional activated carbon grains.
Spacetime-constrained oblivious transfer (SCOT) is a cryptographic task extending one-out-of-m oblivious transfer (OT) by guaranteeing security from quantum physics and relativistic signalling constraints.
Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) are produced from HEK293T cells that highly express NFAT3 transcription factor that inhibits cancer cell motility and are loaded with a combination of miRNAs inhibiting tumor growth and cell motility. In vitro evaluation revealed that these EVs significantly (80%) decrease invasive capacity of triple negative breast (MDA-MB-231, SUM-59PT) and pancreatic (BXPC3, MIA-PACA-2) cancer cell lines. These results were confirmed in vivo in a triple negative breast cancer mouse model.
Current methods for monitoring the health status of power semiconductor components, in real time, in operating electronic equipment, are very complex and therefore expensive to implement. Thanks to the discovery of a new unique temperature-independent aging indicator it has now become very simple and economical to diagnose the state of health of these components. The result is a drastic reduction in the cost of maintenance that opens the way to new fields of application previously unthinkable.
Reducing the environmental footprint of building materials is a major challenge in the construction industry. This innovative process makes it possible to reinforce a wide range of excavated soils by making them suitable for raw earth construction. Compressed earth blocks possessing enhanced mechanical properties and water resistance are fabricated with addition of biopolymers. These clay materials, 100% geo-based and bio-based, are an ideal solution for building the city of tomorrow.
About 25% of primary human breast cancers are due to the deregulated expression of ErbB2/HER2. HER2-targeted therapies have improved patient survival, but both de novo and acquired resistance remain a challenge, as only 25% of treated patients respond to the current therapies. Equivocal HER2 status also remains an issue as it affects subsequent clinical management. Following the analysis of the expression level of more than 800 miRNA in several human breast cancer cells and patient biopsies with various HER2+ status, the team has identified novel miRNA biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of HER2+ cancers. This allows for further stratification of patients and offers new therapeutic strategies based on the modulation of some of these miRNA. The team has the expertise and know-how required to measure miRNA and HER2 expression levels in biological samples as well as to assess HER2 activation status, downstream signaling and functional effects on cell proliferation and survival in breast cancer.
About 25% of primary human breast cancers are due to the deregulated expression of HER2 which is also found in many cancer types. HER2-targeted therapies have improved patients’ survival but both de novo and acquired resistance remain a challenge, as only 25% of the patients respond to the actual therapies. The team identified some miRNA including hsa miR-200b-3p and hsa-miR-429 from miR-200 family that are upregulated in HER2+ breast cancer cells and tumour samples. Their high level of expression is of bad prognosis for HER2+ breast cancer patients. Some of these miRNAs are also essential for HER2 expression and/or function. This allows to further stratify HER2+ breast cancer patients to offer a personalized treatment based on the modulation of miR-200b or miR-429. The team developed an optimized and vectorized anti-miRNA allowing specific inactivation of miR-429. Efficacy has been demonstrated in vitro in HER2+ cancer models of breast, gastric, ovarian and pancreatic origin as well as in a HER2+ breast cancer cell in ovo xenograft model.
Nanomedicine and biotherapeutics are progressively replacing traditional small drug therapeutics. Lipidic nanoparticles for covid vaccines is one of the most recent and succesful example. The field success is strongly related to analytical techniques such as SEC chromatography and size analysis. AF4 flow separation is an attractive alternative to SEC to separate a wider range of nanoparticles. Yet, the experimental complexity and resources it requires limit its current capacities. Thanks to our expertise in thermoplastic, we can miniaturize it, intensifying its performances and overcoming its current limitations.
Corroborating evidence supports that intestinal dysbiosis is key to the development of a variety of metabolic, inflammatory, and autoimmune disorders, such as obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer. Dysbiosis is characterized by an imbalance in bacterial composition, changes in bacterial metabolic activities and/or changes in bacterial distribution within the gut. Our technology consists of using a therapeutically active compound (CO-RM) that interacts with the gut microbiota by delivering controlled amount of carbon monoxide (CO) in vivo, as this endogenous gas is known to exert anti-inflammatory actions and modulate energetic metabolism. We report that gut dysbiosis induced by obesity in mice fed a high fat diet is prevented by oral administration of CO-RM leading to a reduced body weight gain, improved glucose metabolism and increased insulin resistance. The impaired gut dysbiosis in obese mice is exemplified by a marked decrease in the abundance of beneficial bacteria, such as Akkermansia muciniphila, and the ability of CO-RM to restore the impaired microbiota composition (see Figure). Our data provide strong evidence on the efficacy of CO-RM in the treatment of obesity by reprogramming the gut microbiota to a healthy phenotype, indicating that CO might be equally effective against other dysbiosis-associated diseases.
Les revêtements autonettoyants ou réflectifs (textiles, peintures, verres, bétons…) à base de TiO2 sont déjà connus mais le problème majeur reste la taille nanométrique des particules d’oxyde de titane jugée dangereuse pour les
êtres vivants. Dans les procédés existants, ces nanocristaux d’oxyde de titane, une fois synthétisés ou achetés, sont importés à l’intérieur ou sur la surface des revêtements. Le risque de dissémination dans l’environnement est donc réel puisque ces particules peuvent se décrocher aisément, de par le lien très faible entre revêtement et matériaux. Notre innovation permet quant à elle d’éviter cette problématique en rendant le lien entre support et TiO2 très fort en développant directement les cristaux à l’intérieur ou sur la surface d’un support sans risque de se décrocher et se disséminer dans l’environnement.
Red blood cell (RBC) allo-immunization is the immune response of an individual to foreign RBC antigens not present on the surface of their own cells. An efficient detection of alloantibodies is of major interest to manage transfusions in regularly transfused patients, or for the pregnancy follow-up in the context of haemolytic disease of the foetus and new-born (HDFN). However, The Rh blood group system is one of the most polymorphic and immunogenic system, defined by least 54 Rh antigens, some of which being very rare in the population. To date, available commercial test cell reagents, composed of red cell panels expressing different Rh phenotypes, are able to encompass only few of these Rh specificities. Researchers have developed a cell-free system for the production of RH proteins, allowing to obtain large quantities of these proteins in their native state. The method, validated on RhD and RhD-RhAG antigens, relies on the use of in-house assembled nanodiscs, able to incorporate membrane proteins, preserving not only the solubility but also the conformation of newly synthetized membrane proteins. This is to date the first method allowing to generate in vitro Rh antigens with a correct conformation and, thus, ready to be tested by several antibodies, thereby representing a new approach for diagnostic in hematology laboratories investigations.
Prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under five; each year, approximately 15 million babies are born prematurely all over the world. Prematurity exposes the child and the mother to an increased risk of morbidity and death when the caregivers are not trained in specific care. The research team has developed 2 innovative training modules for training in obstetrical emergencies. The first module is a uterine cervix module created to simulate different configurations of cervical effacement. This automated training tool will allow the simulation of emergency or daily clinical situations related to pregnancy, in particular the threat of premature delivery. The second module is a 3D printed “uterine body”. The training module reproduces different scenarios to treat hemorrhages during childbirth (suture, intrauterine tamponade balloon) in order to improve professional practices and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.
Multi-image fusion is a good solution for performing super-resolution and denoising images, especially for low-cost image capture systems. However, in embedded systems such as satellites, drones or smartphones, the lightweight embedded processing can be problematic. The innovative process optimizes the distribution of the computational load between the light-embedded processing device and the remote processing solution with a more powerful server. It can also considerably reduce the quantity of data to be transmitted or increase the quality of the result obtained for an equal quantity of data transmitted.
Assessing DNA integrity is a crucial step to characterize the quality of biological samples prior to in-depth genomic analysis, especially applicable in reproductive medicine, prenatal diagnosis and cancer research. Although many methods have been proposed for the assessment of DNA integrity (by electrophoresis, quantitative PCR and, more recently, microfluidic-based procedures), there is still a need to apply more sensitive and precise methods. The invention relates to a method for determining the level of integrity of DNA molecules in a sample containing DNA by multiplexing Digital PCR, which involves amplifying DNA fragments from the sample with amplification primers designed to produce different and predetermined sizes of overlapping amplicons of the same DNA target region, and oligonucleotide probes which can produce detectable and differential signals upon hybridization. Proof of concepts in two main applications have been carried out to date on human clinical samples (small cohort studies):
- By evaluating the ability of the developed clinical trial to discriminate plasma DNA samples from healthy subjects (n=25) and cancer patients (colorectal cancer (n=23), gastric cancer (n=22), pancreatic cancer (n=11))
- By evaluating the quality of DNA after storage in different blood collection tubes
Lung injury is not homogeneous because lesions are frequently distributed in the posterior regions. This exposes the lungs to inhomogeneous ventilation under mechanical ventilation with risk of overdistension of the anterior and
cyclic opening-closing of the posterior regions. These two phenomena can aggravate lung damage and lead to excess mortality. Today, no technical solution allows the homogenization of the pulmonary aeration except the prone position. The research team develops «STRAPVENT», a device whose objective is to apply a titrated compression on the compliant anterior chest wall of the thorax. This device allows a more homogeneous distribution of ventilation, protecting the anterior areas from overdistension and favoring the redistribution of ventilation towards the posterior regions. Dramatic improvement in the airways mechanics has been reported in patients with ARDS.
60% of patients admitted to intensive care are ventilated by mechanical ventilation to ensure stability and survival. These patients suffer from lesions induced by various pathologies. Lesions located in the alveoli are not evenly distributed, especially in the less compliant posterior lobes. Today, no technical solution allows a re-homogenization of this ventilation. The research team develops «VacuoVent», a device in the form of a bespoke rigid or semi-rigid thoracic shell allowing the application of an extra-thoracic negative pressure on the thoracic wall in front of the damaged lung. This device allows a more homogeneous distribution of ventilation, and is currently being evaluated on cadavers. Next step: the clinical POC.
While surgery is the main line of treatment for most solid tumors, incomplete tumor resection frequently occurs and represents an additional risk for relapse. The main challenge for surgeons is then to distinguish the surgical boundary between the lesion and the surrounding healthy tissues in an accurate manner. The research team has developed a new specific imaging agent emitting in the tissue transparency zone and targeting E-selectin, a well-known inflammation marker frequently overexpressed in several solid cancers. The imaging agent is capable to specifically detect colorectal tumor in vivo in a mouse xenograft model. This new agent can be used with portable optical imaging systems in the operating room to delineate tumor areas in order to assist surgeons in real time during resection.
A new biomass conversion process producing biofuels at low temperature. Titanium dioxide crystal clusters are combined with green wastes in water creating a photo catalyst-feedstock pair. The total degradation of the green wastes occurs during exposure to visible light irradiation through TiO2 photo catalysis. After this step, the products are collected and the recovered aqueous TiO2 is combined with new green wastes to form a new feedstock pair, ready for the photocatalytic degradation step. This efficient circular process is a totally solvent-free process.
Fungal diseases are highly relevant to human health and agriculture.
In Humans, Candidiasis, Aspergillosis or Cryptococcosis mostly affect immunocompromised patients and cause death penalties of ~1.7 million deaths per year. In plants, fungal diseases cause around 10-30% loss in crops representing a risk for food availability. While anti-fungal treatments remain unsatisfactory to date due to species diversity and adaptation mechanisms, we need new tools to assess the efficiency of newly developed drugs. Cell wall thickness is critical for the survival and development of fungal cells.
The team has developed a new method based on light microscopy and image analysis pipelines to monitor Cell Wall thickness in live cells and in large populations of living cells, thereby allowing to quickly and accurately define the thickness of the cell wall. This method can be used in fundamental and applied research, and is compatible with screening strategies to allow the identification of new agents capable of altering the cell wall.
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