Guy Ourisson Research Campus to rise on former Sanofi site
Following its acquisition of the former Sanofi site in Strasbourg, French CRO NovAliX, specialising in drug research and development, has announced plans to develop the site as a therapeutic innovation campus, including a centre for cryo-electron microscopy.
The 1.5 hectare (3.7 acre) site, including a 8,000 m2 (86,000 ft2) building designed to the highest standards for pharmaceutical research, will place NovAliX activities alongside prestigious research institutes such as the Laboratory of Supramolecular Chemistry (Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires – ISIS) founded by Jean-Marie Lehn, a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry.
The site will be known as the Guy Ourisson Research Campus, in homage to the scientist originally behind the Strasbourg site and will be shared by a number of users:
NovAliX, with its main headquarters and scientifi c centre for providing research services
The Biophysics Institute for Biomedical Research (Institut de
Biophysique pour la Recherche Biomédicale – IBRB), a centre co-founded with an academic group, which focuses on medical innovation arising from advances in cryo-electron microscopy
The Biotech Factory, comprised of laboratories dedicated to therapeutic innovation used by several biotechnology companies
“Our main goal was to fi nd a buyer who could maintain very high standards of quality biomedical research. NovAliX ticked every box on our list,” said Jacques Volckmann, Head of R&D France at Sanofi . “I’m delighted to see NovAliX further develop its activity in Strasbourg following this purchase and to see it become a key player in the local ecosystem with its international ambition. Sanofi will also benefi t from the expertise of NovAliX’s teams – with a partnership announced at the end of 2021, through which we are currently working together to develop new DNA-encoded libraries.”
“By acquiring this site, NovAliX gets the chance to accelerate its
development, make use of new biological and pharmacological capacity and therefore strengthen its position as a CRO and become a vital and valuable partner, contributing to the success of its clients’ therapeutic research programs,” said Stephan Jenn, President and co-founder of NovAliX. “This transaction also represents an opportunity for the company founders to bring our vision of the future of research to life. This campus serves as a manifesto, it promises a new way of organising discovery research and offers a one-stop location, bringing stakeholders together in order to foster the emergence and success of therapeutic innovation.”
The Biophysics Institute for Biomedical Research is a project that brings NovAliX together with a world-renowned academic group. It
is not only a technological platform offering cryo-electron
microscopy at the highest level, but also a location dedicated to creating new therapeutic options and technologies. Just as medical imaging has contributed hugely to progress in clinical research, NovAliX strongly believes that cryo-electron microscopy, which it has been able to offer since 2016, has the same potential to push forward future therapeutic research.
“It is important for NovAliX to build a campus that will support the creation of a network within the therapeutic innovation ecosystem,” explained Denis Zeyer, CEO of NovAliX. “Once we arrive on site, we will be embarking on this new adventure and welcoming an initial group of companies to the campus, including Alysophil, Ksilink, Reach Separations and Urania Therapeutics, with others to follow. By setting up this site — which we like to call the Biotech Factory — focused specifi cally on innovation and entrepreneurship, and locating it within Biovalley France competitivity cluster at the heart of the Upper Rhine region, it provides much more than access to offi ce space and well-equipped laboratories. It also creates an immersive experience, with other onsite stakeholders having a wealth of scientifi c, industrial and entrepreneurial expertise to share.”
The construction program, led by Guillaume Delemazure from DeA architects, will commence in 2022 and transform the site at the campus; it will be appropriately kitted out for all the activity due to take place.
Partners: Banque des Territoires, groupe Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (Patrick François, Alexandre Schnell and Amaury de Malartic)
Financial establishments: Caisse d’Épargne Grand Est Europe
(Mireille Maury, Sébastien Pierre and Gleb Vorobyev), Banque Populaire Alsace Lorraine Champagne (Thierry Kormann and Gaëlle Tassery) and La Banque Postale (Paul-Henri Wallut).
Legal and counseling: Bird & Bird (Emmanuelle Porte, Virginie Estéoule and Benjamin Lichtle), Orion (Pascal Schmitt).
Architecture fi rm and consultants: DeA (Guillaume Delemazure). More information online:
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Novel Markers of Aggressive Prostate Cancer Discovery
A joint study by teams from MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna, has identifi ed novel cancer markers in patients with aggressive prostate cancer that indicate poorer survival and can therefore be used in future to help assess risk. The research, led by Robert Wiebringhaus and supervised by Lukas Kenner [1] from MedUni Vienna’s Department of Pathology and the Department of Laboratory Animal Pathology at Vetmeduni, built on previous research led by Kenner in 2015 which, using a mouse model, recognised that the protein STAT3 has a surprising tumour- suppressing role in prostate cancer.
It was shown at that time that patients with low levels of STAT3 in cancer cells experience signifi cantly worse disease progression than patients with high levels. A follow-up investigation showed that there was a higher metabolic rate in prostate cancer tissue as against healthy prostate tissue. This provides the tumour with extra energy to grow and metastasise.
In the latest investigation [2] by PhD student Robert Wiebringhaus and molecular biologist Brigitte Hantusch prostate cancer tissue was separated from healthy tissue using a laser microscope and the proteome, the totality of the proteins present, was then analysed using mass spectrometry (proteomics analysis). This facilitated the analysis of thousands of different peptides and proteins. There was found to be a higher concentration of proteins of the intracellular mitochondrial respiratory chain in the more aggressive cancer tissue.
Two proteins of interest, -NDUFS1 and ATP50- emerged from patient samples following proteomics analysis; using immunohistochemical staining and data analysis, these two proteins were shown to be associated with a lower probability of survival in more aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
MedUni Vienna (Credit: MedUni Vienna)
Mitochondria, which being organelles have structurally delimited cell areas with a specifi c biological function, are also referred to as the ‘powerhouses of the cells’. In a machinery consisting of enzyme complexes, the so-called respiratory chain or ‘oxidative phosphorylation’ produces energy-rich degradation products via the breakdown of sugar and, in a fi nal step, these generate the universal energy carrier adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This is an important regulator of cellular energy-producing processes. Those cells with a particularly high energy requirement, such as cancer cells, can cover this demand via oxidative phosphorylation.
Further analyses of the transcriptome, which comprises all genes that are transcribed in the cell at a certain point in time, also showed a rectifi ed shift in the concentration of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid). This means that there is a direct correlation between the genetic transcripts and the proteins produced. The current study by Wiebringhaus et al. represents an important step in establishing a link between NDUFS, ATP5O and cancer aggressiveness. The two proteins could therefore serve as additional immunohistochemical markers for aggressive prostate tumours and, at the same time, as new targets for cancer treatment.
1. Lukas Kenner is a member of the Executive Board of the Comprehensive Cancer Center of MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna
2. The Study was published in ‘Cancers’ More information online:
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RMS Virtual EBSD 2022
To be held in a virtual format the EBSD 2022 meeting will be live on Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 April 2022 at 13:00 BST/08:00 EDT/14:00 CEST/05:00 PDT.
This format has been selected to encourage participation from the global electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) community and to support engagement from a wide range of participants, as well as refl ecting on the on-going challenges related to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The two ‘half-day‘ meeting will encourage sharing the latest developments and applications of EBSD-related microscopy methods. In this virtual format, we will also encourage clusters of researchers to independently register for the meeting, but where reasonable to host cluster-viewing at their host institution (more details about this format will be provided during registration).
Scientifi c Organisers
Dr Ben Britton, University of British Columbia, Canada/Imperial College London, UK
Professor João Quinta da Fonseca, University of Manchester Katharina Marquardt, Imperial College London
Invited Speakers
Dr Raúl Bolmaro, National University of Rosario, Argentina (UNR) and National Council of Research (CONICET), Argentina - Hidden morphology in bio-mineralized tissues and structures by EBSD analysis
Dr Marie Charpagne, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
USA - New insights on microstructure-properties relationship using correlative 3D EBSD measurements
Professor Maggie Cusack, Munster Technological University, Ireland Understanding biominerals, as easy as EBSD
Dr Lionel Germain, LEM3 CNRS, Université de Lorraine, France Advanced EBSD and Machine Learning to identify phase transformation products in Steels
Registration will shortly be open and the fees for the two day meeting will be: £20 for students, £40 for RMS members and £65 for non- members.
More information online:
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