Laureates of the prematuration grants 2021

Discover the funded projects

• Abdou Rachid Thiam and Vincent Faugeras (ENS) - Disassamble the cell | One of the critical questions of cell biology is how cells respond to dynamic collections of external stimuli. Such a question is challenging because of the cell complexity due to multiple pathways involving many of its organellar subunits. Therefore, many evolving techniques are devoted to studying intracellular architectures better, focusing on organelles’ behavior, positioning, communication, etc. How about disassembling such an organization for better studying and understanding cell functions. In a nondestructive manner, ExOrg will develop a unique  approach to zoom on each cell subunits to study better and understand their tasks. ExOrg will be able to provide entire organelles recovered from the cell. Such an achievement will be groundbreaking in academics and industries as the organelles will be functional, obtained with no biological constraints, made on-demand for applied research and pharmaceutics’ development.

• Michael Atlan (ESPCI) - Ultrafast real-time holographic imaging for ophthalmology | We are developing an ophthalmologic holographic imaging tool for the non-invasive measurement of structural and hemodynamic parameters of the choroid, retina, conjunctiva and iris, including quantitative estimation of blood perfusion rate and resistivity arterial hemodynamics. The biggest current technological obstacle of this approach is the difficulty of carrying out measurements in real time. We will provide a robust and versatile solution by realizing image rendering in real time by propagation of the angular spectrum from 256 to 512 pixel interferograms in streaming, at the rate of 20,000 to 50,000 images per second, in order to carry out demonstrations of Doppler imaging and 3D holographic coherent optical tomography in vivo in humans. This tool will be compared to the state of the art for the grading of the severity and the therapeutic monitoring of ophthalmological pathologies in the context of clinical studies.

• Philippe Benaroch (Institut Curie) - Stimulating anti-tumor immunity via genetic engineering of myeloid cells | Solid cancers are shaped by a complex tumor microenvironment (TME) that critically impacts their growth and metastatic potential, as well as their response to therapies. Myeloid cells shape the TME and are major players in immune resistance and/or evasion mechanisms. Taking advantage of their plasticity and numerous functional properties, we aim to use myeloid cells as anti-tumor therapeutic agents following their genetic engineering. This should stimulate the anti-tumor response and counteract the immunosuppressive activity of myeloid cells in the TME. Myeloid cells have a great capacity to phagocytose dead and even living cells, including tumor cells. This acitivity is coupled to their antigen presentation function which can stimulate the adaptive immune response. By combining state-of-the-art technologies in molecular biology and cell biology with in vivo experimental approaches, we plan to reinforce our preliminary data and develop optimized myeloid cells as anti-cancer adoptive cell therapy.