Funded by the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, a new €15.3 million project coordinated by Institut Pasteur brings together seven partners across four continents to advance clinical trials and prepare for the manufacturing of a chikungunya vaccine in Africa. 

Institut Pasteur is launching ACT-CHIK (Accelerating Clinical Trials for CHIKungunya Vaccine in Africa), a major four-year research project funded by the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon Europe program. With €15.3 million in EU funding, ACT-CHIK will advance the clinical development of MV-CHIK — a measles-virus-based chikungunya vaccine originally developed at Institut Pasteur — through a large-scale Phase Ib/III clinical trial in four African countries, while preparing for technology transfer to an African vaccine manufacturer.

Extreme heat and cold are growing cardiovascular risks that can trigger heart attacks, strokes, heart failure and sudden cardiac death, according to a recent scientific statement by experts at Weill Cornell Medicine and other leading institutions. 

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) have demonstrated that larvae of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) are suitable as an alternative infection model for investigating the pathogenicity of bacteria on a larger scale. This could significantly reduce animal testing on mammals in the future. The results of the study were published in The Lancet Microbe.

LRBA deficiency has long been viewed primarily as an immune disorder, but researchers at Science Tokyo have found that the condition may also impair urinary concentrating ability.

Using patient registry data from 43 individuals, mouse models, and protein analysis, the study found that LRBA deficiency can cause excessive urination and electrolyte abnormalities, highlighting the need for closer fluid and sodium monitoring in affected patients.

Scientists reveal how exercise eases osteoarthritis: mechanical joint loading helps red blood cell‑derived EVs carry oxygen into cartilage and meniscus. These EVs enter avascular tissues via HRG (histidine rich glycoprotein)‑HSPG (heparin sulfate proteoglycan) affinity mechanism, directed by hypoxia‑induced CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling. The study establishes a “circulation‑joint transport axis” that alleviates intra‑articular hypoxia, offering a non‑drug strategy for joint health.

To transmit excitatory signals, nerve cells mostly use glutamate as neurotransmitter. For detecting these transmitter signals, the cells can rely on a whole repertoire of receptors with different signaling properties. Researchers at the Chair of Cellular Neurobiology, led by Professor Andreas Reiner at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, together with their collaboration partners in New York (Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine), investigated the function of a specific glutamate receptor complex and made some surprising observations. The findings were reported in the journal Nature Communications on April 24, 2026.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global health burden, with its progression heavily characterized by irreversible kidney fibrosis. A major driver of this fibrotic scarring is the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process where renal tubular epithelial cells lose their standard properties and acquire highly motile, myofibroblast-like features. While the transcription factor Snail1 (encoded by the SNAI1 gene) is widely recognized as the master switch governing EMT, the intricate molecular networks and downstream proteomic alterations it dictates during fibrosis have largely remained elusive.