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HISTORY
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The campus, situated on 22 acres in the heart of Paris, includes the Faculty Paris-Descartes-site Necker and the hospital Necker (adults) and Enfants Malades (children). This university hospital campus has become one of the major centers of clinical and academic research in France.
Necker and Enfants Malades Hospitals
Founded in 1778 by Madame Necker, wife of a Minister during the reign of Louis XVI, the Necker Hospital is devoted to adult medicine and surgery. In the 19th century, René Laennec invented the stethoscope here and generalised the rules of auscultation. Guyon turned the hospital into a center for the teaching of urology. In 1952, Jean Hamburger performed the world’s first kidney transplant.
Created in 1802, the Enfants Malades Hospital was the world’s first hospital dedicated to Pediatrics. Almost 50 years ago, Maurice Lamy, Jean Frézal and Pierre Maroteaux established a genetic disease orientation by collecting a large number of cohorts of well-characterized and inventoried genetic diseases.
Necker and Enfants Malades became one hospital group under a single direction in 1921. This hospital group now has 700 beds, 450 in pediatrics and 250 in adult pathology. It is above all a top level university hospital, a national and international reference in its specialities.
Faculty of Medicine Paris-Descartes
Created in 2004 by fusion from three faculties (Broussais Hôtel-Dieu, Cochin Port-Royal and Necker Enfants-Malades) the Faculty has 8000 medical students with 800 faculty members and more than 1500 searchers from 72 independent laboratories of the INSERM, the CNRS and the University actively performing research and training scientists and medical doctors on the campus.
Marine ROUX, pièce 13, Rez-de-Chaussée du bâtiment administratif
(marine.roux@parisdescartes.fr ; 01 40 61 54 00)
Institut Fédératif de Recherche Necker-Enfants Malades (IRNEM, IFR 94)
The main themes of the site emerged from the clinical specialties of the hospital group and remain closely linked to them: Immunology, Human Genetics, Cell Biology (especially Endocrinology and Oncology), and Infectiology-Microbiology. The integration of academic research and clinical services, particularly, the development of kidney transplants and bone marrow grafts, the constitution, the follow-up and the precise phenotyping of the numerous cohorts of auto-immune diseases and above all the cohorts of families with genetic diseases have contributed greatly to the advances made by the research teams on the site in the area of the localisation, cloning, sequencing, description of mutations, understanding of mechanisms and therapeutic approaches to genetic handicaps in children, to the life-threatening immunodeficiency diseases and to the auto-immune diseases.
. Immunology
Immunology has been traditionally a strong research area on this campus. The laboratories have developed around the specialties of the two hospitals: auto-immune diseases, immunodeficiency diseases and transplants. The clinical problems encountered have generated basic research on the differentiation of the immune system, the mechanism of tolerance, etc. to further understand and better diagnose the pathologies and to use them as models to analyse the physiology of the immune system. Experimental and clinical immunotherapy represent a major activity of our university hospital : use of monoclonal antibodies in the prevention and treatment of the rejection of organ and bone marrow grafts, as well as in auto-immune diseases, cell therapy associated with allografts of hematopoietic stem cells and, finally, gene therapy in life-threatening hereditary immunodeficiency diseases.
. Human Genetics
Research activities in Human Genetics have developed because of the exceptional quality and quantity of cohorts of patients with genetic diseases which have led to the characterisation of the genetic and molecular basis of more than 40 diseases. Research has contributed to improvements in the definition of prognostics of these diseases and, above all, to the development of new diagnostic tools and new therapies. The university hospital has gained national recognition as a center of pre-implantation diagnosis and prenatal diagnosis.
. Cell Biology (Endocrinology and Oncology)
The research area of Cell Biology includes work on the regulation of the cell cycle, molecular mechanisms involved in cell signalling pathways, regulation of transport systems in epithelia and evolution of life forms in their environment. Facilities on the campus permit the analysis of the transcriptome and protéome in studies of functional genomics and post-genomic research. The creation of animal models (transgenic and knock-out mice) allow analysis of phenotypes and the development of studies of physiopathologies.
Studies on the cell cycle and on modifications in protein expression are applied to research on the process of carcinogenesis and on the effects of genetic and environmental factors on tumorigenesis. The area of hepatocarcinogenesis linked to chronic infections due to hepatitis virus B and C is another example of the integration of basic research and clinical applications on our site.
. Infectiology-Microbiology
This research area is closely connected to the Microbiology department of the hospital. One of the examples is research on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial virulence, in particular, mechanisms permitting the crossing of the digestive tract or blood-brain barriers. At the cellular level, studies are also focused on the mechanisms of interactions between bacteria and cells facilitating bacterial adhesion and intracellular parasitism. Numerous advances have been made in the understanding of the role of stress proteins and adhesins in the mechanisms of bacterial invasion of the central nervous system. An innovative subject in the field of infectiology is research to elucidate the genetic pre-disposition to infections, an approach which attempts to explain the observed genetic inequality to infections. Numerous epidemiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic applications have resulted from research in infectiology and microbiology on our site.
For historical reasons, two institutes were established at the time of the creation of these federated structures in January 1994. One institute was made up of the research teams of the INSERM, CNRS and the University and the hospital services and departments in pediatrics, the Institut Fédératif de Recherche des Enfants Malades (IFREM, IFR 09) under the direction of Professor Jean Rey and then his successor Professor Raphaël Rappaport. The second was comprised of laboratories working on adult pathologies, l’Institut Fédératif de Recherche Necker (IFRN, IFR 16) first under the direction of Professor Jean-François Bach and later Professor Bruno Varet. Clearly, the themes of the two IFRs were mostly transversal and overlapping.
Progressively, the two IFRs were connected de facto by the organisation of weekly seminars for each large theme and an annual seminar and by the establishment of core facilites which accompanied and encouraged the fusion of the two IFRs. In January 2000, the unified IFR Necker-Enfants Malades, IRNEM, was officially created under the direction of Professor Paul Kelly and the vice-director Professor Alain Fischer.
Composition and activities
IRNEM is composed of 16 laboratories of the Inserm, CNRS and the University, plus 9 main clinical centers. A Management Committee, composed of the directors and team leaders of all the laboratories and clinical departments of IRNEM, develops the policy and strategy of IRNEM. An Executive Board works with the Director and Vice-Directors ; it makes proposals and are in charge of policy implementation.
Nine facilities form the technical core of IRNEM including a library opened in 2000 (the Jean Hamburger-Pierre Royer Library) servicing both the medical and scientific communities. Other facilities include a large animal facility, confocal and multiphoton microscopes, cell sorters and flow cytometers. A four-member administrative team works with the directors to manage the institute.
IRNEM organized scientific seminars (transformed in thematic ones) with top-level invited speakers from outside and inside the institute. To stimulate communication between laboratories of IRNEM, junior and senior scientists are encouraged to attend the annual IRNEM seminar held outside Paris (the 18th edition took place on Octobre 21-22th 2011).
Approximately 890 people work within the structure of IRNEM, 450 of which are permanent scientists and professors. The campus is nationally and internationally renowned for the excellent quality of basic and clinical research published in high impact factor journals (900 in the year 2011). Situated in an academic environment, the IRNEM laboratories continually train almost 260 PhD students and post-docs.