Scientific highlights ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jules Hoffmann, Gold Medal and Nobel prize! The end of 2011 saw the biologist, Jules Hoffmann, win two prizes for his work. And not just any prizes! He was awarded, in close succession, the 2011 CNRS Gold Medal and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with two other laureates. It is for his work on the innate immunity of the Drosophila or fruit fly that Hoffmann, who joined CNRS in the 1960s, goes down in French and world science history. ‘The CNRS Gold Medal means a lot to me,’ Hoffmann explains. ‘I left my native Luxembourg to do research in France and today’s recognition by CNRS is a great honor and a real joy.’ By attempting to answer a simple question (why do insects show such good resistance to microbes and fungi?), Hoffmann and his co-workers at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Strasbourg succeeded in deciphering the mechanisms of the Drosophila’s immune system, from detecting the infection to producing antimicrobial substances. In such immune cascades, a receptor called Toll has particularly attracted attention because of its role in activating immune defences. Work carried out on mammals following the research in Strasbourg rapidly showed that humans have a recognition and signalling system similar to that of the Drosophila, and in particular a counterpart to Toll. What’s more, this so-called innate immunity is the alarm signal that triggers the adaptive immune system specific to mammals, with its dedicated cells, the lymphocytes. 2011 winners of CNRS medals (Innovation, Silver and Bronze) and Crystal prize on: www.cnrs.fr/fr/recherche/prix.htm. Japan: researchers monitor CNRS researchers reap awards the effects of the earthquake Anne-Marie Lagrange, of the Institute of Planetary Science and Astrophysics in Grenoble Following the earthquake that struck Japan on 11 March is the laureate of the 2011 Irène Joliot-Curie ‘Woman Scientist of the Year’ award. 2011, CNRS researchers took quick action to study this Lagrange, who also won the 2004 CNRS Bronze Medal, was responsible for the first seismic event. A comprehensive report on the subject, direct image of a planet in the disk around the young star Beta Pictoris, and was also drawn up and updated by six laboratories, was posted on the the lead scientist for the first adaptive optics system on the Very Large Telescope in CNRS website. The scientists subsequently monitored the Chile. Meanwhile, the Institut de France’s 2011 Grand Prix Scientifique de la Fondation radioactivity resulting from the accidents at the Fukushima Louis D. was handed to Geneviève Almouzni, Director of the Nuclear Dynamics and nuclear power plant. One team set up a forecasting system Genome Plasticity Unit and winner of the 2000 CNRS Silver Medal, and to Philip Avner, for the dispersal of radioactive elements at sea, while Director of the Mouse Molecular Genetics Unit. The two geneticists won the accolade another closely monitored radioactive fallout in France with for their research into epigenetic inheritance, in other words the influence of the the help of the PRISNA platform, which can measure very external environment on genetic inheritance and genome plasticity. Finally, Professor low levels of radioactivity. Michel Lazdunski, of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Pharmacology, received the 2011 Ernst-Jung Gold Medal for Medicine. A CNRS Gold Medal laureate in 2000, Lazdunski collected the prize for his research into ion channels, which ranges from understanding the mechanisms of anti- hypertensives, antidiabetics and gaseous anesthetics to the Google and CNRS support computer mechanisms of sensory perception. science research The US company Google and CNRS have entered into a partnership, unique in France, aimed at supporting research in computer science. Teams from five labs specializing in optimization will receive funding of around €325,000 from Google, while CNRS will offer two PhD grants over three years and will provide a technology transfer engineer to promote joint projects. ------------------------------------- CNRS’s second ‘Nature’ CNRS was ranked second out of 50 institutions worldwide for the number of papers published in the scientific journal ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. CNRS was represented in 182 research papers.Nature Publishing Index, according to the British weekly’s siteNature It comes second only to America’s Harvard University, while Germany’s Max Planck Institute takes third place. 6 A year at CNRS 2011
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