Le tribunal correctionnel de Senlis a condamné, le 2 novembre 2020, pour diffamation publique envers l’Institut Pasteur, l’auteur d’une vidéo mensongère postée le 17 mars 2020, prétendant que l’Institut Pasteur aurait inventé la Covid-19. Les propos de l’auteur, faux et sans fondement, basés sur une interprétation erronée d’un brevet déposé en 2004 ont entrainé des réactions vives et massives à l’encontre de l’Institut Pasteur.

The Institut Pasteur's outstanding collection of bacterial strains has played a key role in research at the University of California. The collection was used in a study exploring how the modification of group A streptogramins, a class of antibiotics discovered and isolated in France in the 1960s, can restore their efficacy by enabling them to overcome the resistance mechanisms employed by the bacteria they are intended to destroy.

Between September 2018 and March 2019, a cholera epidemic took place in Zimbabwe, causing 10 000 cases and 69 deaths. The Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) took part to the study of a strain of Vibrio cholerae (Vibrio cholerae O1) responsible for this epidemic. This study was made with scientists from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases of South Africa and the Zimbabwe Health Ministry.

Thanks to the collection of cholera vibrio strains from the National Reference Centre for Vibrio and Cholera (hosted by the Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris) and in collaboration with scientists from the Cantacuzino Institute (Bucharest, Romania) and the Public Health Agency of Canada, a retrospective analysis of the latest cholera epidemics in Europe, related to the current seventh pandemic, has been carried out by studying the genome of 172 strains isolated from European patients.

Comment notre cerveau forme-t-il et utilise-t-il des souvenirs distincts d’événements se ressemblant ? Des chercheurs de l’Institut Pasteur (Paris) ont associé des techniques d’imagerie et d’enregistrement du comportement pour mesurer l’activité des neurones dans l’hippocampe de souris. Ils ont ainsi observé que la région d’entrée de l’hippocampe décelait les moindres changements d’environnement familier / inconnu, et que la région de sortie, elle, pondérait ensuite ces informations pour guider les décisions comportementales.

Le National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appartenant aux National Institutes of Health (NIH) - ces institutions gouvernementales des États-Unis qui s'occupent de la recherche médicale et biomédicale -, a accordé 11 subventions pour mettre en place des centres de recherche sur les maladies infectieuses émergentes - Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) -, dont un centre de coordination et le Pasteur International Center for Research on Emerging Infectious Diseases (PICREID), dirigé par Anav

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded 11 grants to establish the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID), including a coordinating center. One of those centers, and the sole center coordinated by a non-American organization, is the Pasteur International Center for Research on Emerging Infectious Diseases (PICREID), headed by Anavaj Sakuntabhai at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

How do we form and use distinct memories of resembling events? Scientists at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) have combined imaging and behavioral recording techniques to measure the activity of neurons in the hippocampus of mice. According to their observations, the input region of the hippocampus detects small changes between familiar and novel environments, while the output region then weights this information to guide behavioral decisions. This finding illustrates how the brain keeps the delicate balance between creating new memories and recalling existing ones.

Institut Pasteur's expertise in infectious diseases has made it one of the major players in research against Covid-19. For the 2020 Pasteurdon (the Institut Pasteur’s public fundraising campaign), a podcast in French has been recorded. Two Pasteurian researchers, Sylvie van der Werf and Arnaud Fontanet, talk about this pandemic and the Institut Pasteur's actions to fight the virus. They also explain how infectious diseases work and the factors behind the emergence of new diseases.

Antimicrobial resistance could become the leading cause of death in the world, with 10 million deaths in 2050, if nothing is done to prevent it. Today, 400,000 people die each year because of antibiotic resistance. The Institut Pasteur has made the study of bacterial resistance and the fight against resistant bacteria one of its priorities. On the occasion of Pasteurdon 2020 (the Institut Pasteur’s public fundraising campaign), Mathieu Vidard interviews two Pasteurian researchers, Paola Arimondo and Philippe Glaser, who both coordinate this line of research.