ReVET is a Project involving 13 HEIs (3 European and 10 Asian) with the main aim to contribute to the promotion, strengthening and capacity building of veterinary studies in Asian partners Universities using the European “know-how”. The main basis of the present proposal is transferring and sharing the experience in the veterinary field from Europe to Asia and from Asia to Europe. The entire partnership will work together building and reinforcing curriculum and all the teaching material needed for a high quality standard veterinary college to be implemented in Asian partner countries. The proposal strategy is as follows; firstly, an infield study of the situation will give to the project a faithful idea of the state of the art. Secondly, this information will be reflected in a Situation Report (1 per Country) and shared on the ReVET platform. New veterinary curricula will be designed by EU and Asian academic staff; Asian teachers will receive a training of trainers in Europe (at the same time they will share their experience throughout open-day talks and lectures in the European HEIs). Third, all teaching materials needed, will be generated by European REVET Partners HEIs. Last, but not least, the new/up-dated curriculum will be implemented in the last year of the project. The impact of the project will be as a cascade: the teaching-learning process of the veterinary student is reinforced, thus skills will be improved, as the results of the improvement, the livestock production and welfare will be most favourable alleviating hunger and ensuring a better control of food safety. Finally zoonotic outbreaks will be reduced contributing to an overall beneficiary impact for the world.

Food safety is a major issue in France and in the world. In this respect, much attention requires to be paid to the possible contamination of food and feed by fungi and the risk of mycotoxin production. Mycotoxins are frequent contaminants of cereal. According to survey data published by ONU, 25 % of the world crops are contaminated. Most mycotoxins are not degraded by the common technological treatments and thus remain present in finished products. Thus, mycotoxins contamination is a significant problem of food safety throughout the food chain. The control of the mycotoxins contamination represents a major challenge for the wheat sector (soft wheat and hard wheat). These are the fungi of the Fusarium genus and the associated production of trichothecenes (with deoxynivalenol or DON as the main contaminant) that are, due to their potential toxicity and their occurrence, the most worrying contaminants. The wheat contamination by mycotoxins is particular complex for at least two reasons i) different fungal species contaminate simultaneously wheat grains and ii) these fungi produce concurrently several trichothecenes. The aim of the DON&Co project is to answer the question "how the composition of the Fusarium community influences the concentration and the type of trichothecenes accumulated in the grain and, as a consequence, its toxicity?" The DON & Co project will lead to the definition of agronomic tools allowing the respect of current European regulations/recommendation (EC N 1881/2006 and 2006/L229) but also to the acquisition of reference data concerning the toxicity of DON and its acetylated derivates. These references will lead to a better appreciation of the "mycotoxin risk" in wheat and could contribute to the evolution of regulations. Only an integrated approach, such as the one proposed in the project DON & Co, combining descriptive studies, epidemiological analysis (from the flora to the toxins) with mechanistic approaches, will allow answering the proposed question.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is the leading cause of disability among young adults in developed countries. TBI can lead to irreversible brain damage and debilitating neurological deficits, especially in severe cases. Few developments have been observed in terms of therapeutic or pharmacological treatments in recent years due to the heterogeneity of lesions which is a complex factor for clinical trials. Current strategies rely mainly on rehabilitation and mechanisms of brain plasticity. These are very limited. As a result, strategies based on cell-based therapies could open the way to new recovery possibilities and lead to a significant reduction in public health costs. Today, simply cell-based strategies have shown their limits: high mortality, low regenerative power. RECOVER is an innovative project aimed at achieving brain repair in a preclinical model of TBI by developing a therapeutic strategy using a combined approach: 1 / cell-based and 2 / based on 3D bio-implants. The project focuses on the repopulation of the lesioned area. In order to replace the extracellular matrix of brain tissue, we have developed an innovative synthetic hydrogel that is suitable for 3D cell culture of neuronal cells. In order to replicate the architectures of the cerebral cortex, an oriented material will be used to guide neuronal cell cultures in 3D. An innovative source of cells is proposed from biopsies of peripheral nerve tissue. It will allow translation into the clinic by autologous transplant. The tissue connections will be studied in vivo in longitudinal optogenetics implemented in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) during classical functional and in-situ MRI evaluations and at the end of the experiment after sacrifice by histopathological and immunohistochemical analysis of grafted brains. Behavioral tests used for the evaluation of motor function recovery will also be performed. This project is supported by the strong expertise of the candidates on three different and convergent themes: cellular therapy and functional evaluation (ToNIC), hydrogels (IRMCP) and 3D architectures or "scaffolds" (LAAS) thus opening a window opportunity to improve translational research on TBI. The last partner (LabHPEC / ENVT) has the expertise for histopathological assessment of the fate of in situ cell-bioimplants as well as early preclinical safety studies (biocompatibility of materials, local tolerance) of Innovative Drugs and Technologies in a GLP regulatory environment. Beyond TBI, this project is part of a broader research program focusing on neurological disorders following multifactorial brain or spinal cord injury. Indeed, our brain regeneration strategy is applicable to spinal cord injury, brain injury after a stroke, and to damage related to degenerative diseases.

In all countries, women are less affected than men by severe forms of COVID-19 at all ages. It has been proposed that the gender bias in the severity of COVID-19 may be linked to a biological effect of sex resulting in a relative deficiency of innate antiviral immunity in men compared to women. As the sex bias is seen in people >50 years-old and persists in aged people, sex hormone effects in female are unlikely to explain these differences. We hypothesize that gene dosage effects due to X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) escape could possibly contribute to the sex differences in COVID-19. We have shown that TLR7 encoded by the X chromosome escapes XCI in the immune cells of women, and that the TLR7 protein is expressed at a higher level in women even after menopause. Since TLR7 is the Toll receptor involved in the innate and adaptive immune response against single-stranded RNA viruses, we hypothesized that this mechanism could account for the best innate immune responses to RNA viruses observed in women. In this proposal, we will test the role of the escape from XCI of Tlr7 in the production of type I interferons and in the vaccine response to SARS-CoV2 in mice. We will also assess whether there is a gender bias in the functional response of human plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) in response to SARS-CoV2. This project will provide new fundamental and conceptual knowledge on the nature of the immune mechanism underlying the female predominance in the innate and adaptive immunity induced by Tlr7 in response to SARS-CoV2. These results could open avenues for the development of new vaccine strategies against the COVID-19 pandemic and make it possible to adapt certain therapeutic strategies according to sex for personalized medicine.