Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Workpackage (WP) participation
Partner description
The CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Center for Scientific Research) is the largest French government-funded research organisation, with more than 32’000 employees. CNRS has developed interdisciplinary programs, in particular in life sciences.
Prof. Scherman and his group have long-standing experience in non-viral nucleic acid delivery for gene therapy, including plasmid optimisation (minicircle and biosafe miniplasmids) and chemical (cationic lipid and polymers) vectors, as well as physical delivery. The group has generated a safer and smaller eukaryotic expression vector, the pFAR4vector, which has demonstrated its superiority over conventional plasmids in various tissues and cells, and the next goal is to take this vector to the clinic in various therapeutic applications.
The CNRS group has pioneered in vivo plasmid electrotransfer and biosafe plasmids, leading to patented technologies licenced to European SMEs in France and Germany, including leading plasmid companies.
Main tasks attributed to the project
CNRS contributed to design, construction and optimisation of the therapeutic plasmids (WP2) as well as the validation of the plasmid constructs (WP2, 3) and the gene transfer system (WP5). CNRS participated in the in vitro safety analysis (WP6) and contributed the data to the Investigational Medicinal Product Dossier (IMPD). CNRS was responsible for supervising the GMP-defined plasmid production (WP2) and leads WP10 on dissemination of data and results from TargetAMD.
Contact
Prof. Daniel Scherman
daniel.scherman@parisdescartes.frProf. Daniel Scherman, PhD, is research director of Exceptional class and Head of the Research Unit since 2002. Previously, for 12 years Prof. Scherman led the CNRS/Aventis “Molecular and Cellular Vectorology Unit”. In parallel, he has also been the scientific director of the Genethon Laboratory (Evry, France, 2006-2008). Since 2009, he has been the president of the committee of “Non Viral Gene Therapy” of the European Society of Cell and Gene Therapy (ESGCT). He has also been a member of the Non Viral Gene Therapy Committee of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT) and is a founding member of the “French Society of Cellular and Gene Therapy” (SFTCG).
Prof. Corinne Marie
corinne.marie@parisdescartes.fr
Dr. Marie Pastor
marie.pastor@parisdescartes.fr