CIML

The Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) was founded in 1976 and has been described by AERES, an independent evaluation agency, as "without doubt one of the best immunology centers of excellence in Europe". The CIML addresses all areas of contemporary immunology; it is located in Marseille in the South of France.

The institute has 17 research teams, with 250 staff including 185 scientists, students, and post-docs from 24 countries. It offers Masters and PhD programs.

The CIML has 90 academic collaborations and 21 industrial partners in France, Europe, and worldwide, and has formed several spin-offs, including: Innate Pharma, Ipsogen (Quiagen), and Immunotech (Beckman-Coulter).

The institute has published over 400 scientific publications in the last 5 years, including 145 in journals with an impact factor ≥ 10.

It is located on a science campus that is home to more than 1,500 researchers and 10,000 students, and 15 biotech companies.

Early work at CIML was centered on T cells. The study of their antigen receptors lead to the discovery of chromosomal inversion during the formation of the T cell receptor (TCR). Researchers at the CIML also published the first nucleotide sequence of a gene encoding a human (MHC) gene and described how the TCR recognizes its MHC ligand. The functions of these T cells were also investigated, leading in particular to the identification of Granzyme A and GZMB (then called CTLA-1 and CTLA-3) and the demonstration of their playing a role in the perforin-granzyme-based mechanism of T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and to the discovery of the second, Fas ligand/Fas receptor based pathway of cytotoxicity. Other biologically important regulatory molecules identified at the CIML include interleukins such as interleukin-17 (as CTLA-8) and cell surface molecules, such as CTLA-4 regulating T cells. Subsequently, research at the CIML expanded to other cells of the immune system, including B cells, dendritic cells and natural killer cells, as well as other models systems, such as C. elegans. CIML researchers identified the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif (ITIM)-containing KARAP/DAP12 that is important for NK cell function and characterized the key function of the killer activated receptor NKp46. Other recent advances include the discovery of early precursors of B-cell follicular lymphoma in apparently healthy individuals, and of dendritic cell aggresome-like induced structures (DALIS) in dendritic cells, thought to play an important role in regulating antigen presentation, as well as the discovery of MafB/M-CSF circuits in hematopoietic stem cell commitment, and macrophages.

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