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Fundamental Research Division
The DRF at the CEA assemble approximately 6,000 scientists since January 2016.
Researchers at the CEA-Irig have elucidated the activation cascade of one of the four Bacillus thuringiensis toxins that specifically target mosquito larvae, in order to prevent them from becoming vectors of devastating diseases.
After an injury, many tissues often develop fibrosis[1], which can be disabling. An international team involving researchers from CEA-Jacob has now identified a key player in the fibrosis development: macrophages [2]. These observations pave the way for targeted treatments.
For the first time, a Franco-German team led by the CEA-Irfu has used numerical simulations to reproduce the origins of the most intense magnetic fields in the Universe. They are able to demonstrate how rapidly rotating massive stars become magnetars at the end of their lives, rather than conventional neutron stars.
A new electrode material for supercapacitors has been developed by the Iramis and its partners: composed of carbon nanotube “mats” aligned on aluminum foil, it should significantly increase the amount of stored electrical power. This is an essential result for their industrialization by the startup company NawaTechnologies.
CEA researchers and their partners have synthesized and characterized tungsten particles similar to those to be produced by the Iter fusion reactor and have identified their cyto-genotoxic properties in lung models.
The Captot heavy metal sensor, developed by the Iramis-LSI over the last ten years, could be used to detect traces of uranium in water. This would be a simple, rapid field solution to monitor the environment, for example during the cleanup and dismantling of nuclear facilities.
In their work entitled Fastgenomics, the Dijon Bourgogne University Hospital, Inserm and the CEA's National Center of Human Genomics Research (CNRGH) studied a rapid high-throughput genome sequencing process in 30 hospitalized newborns. The team was able to reduce the time needed for this process from an average of 18 months to only a month and a half at most (38 to 49 days), thus enabling rapid diagnoses for two-thirds of the patients.
Cern turned to the expertise of the DSBT to create a heat exchanger for the HL-LHC collider. This exchanger represents a technical feat in terms of compactness and performance, leading the CERN to commission the DSBT to carry out optimization, industrialization and cold tests with a view to installing exchangers in the superconducting magnets and then in the LHC tunnel by 2022.
For the first time, a team of researchers was able to measure and accurately identify daughter nuclei produced by the fission of uranium-239 fission. This was made possible by the unique combination of GANIL equipment and beams. It is published in the Physical Review Letter*.
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CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.