The upper Eocene-Oligocene carnivorous mammals from the Quercy Phosphorites (France) housed in Belgian collections

The Quercy Phosphorites Formation in France is world famous for its Eocene to Miocene faunas, especially those from the upper Eocene to lower Oligocene, the richest of all. The latter particularly helped to understand the ‘Grande Coupure’, a dramatic faunal turnover event that occurred in Europe during the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Fossils from the Quercy Phosphorites were excavated from the middle 19th century until the early 20th century in a series of sites and became subsequently dispersed over several research institutions, while often losing the temporal and geographical information in the process. In this contribution, we provide an overview and reassess the taxonomy of these barely known collections housed in three Belgian institutions: the Université de Liège, KU Leuven, and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. We focus our efforts on the carnivorous mammals (Hyaenodonta and Carnivoramorpha) and assess the stratigraphic intervals covered by each collection. These fossils are derived from upper Eocene (Priabonian), lower Oligocene (Rupelian), and upper Oligocene (Chattian) deposits in the Quercy area. The richness of the three collections (e.g., the presence of numerous postcranial elements in the Liège collection), the presence of types and figured specimens in the Leuven collection, and some identified localities in the RBINS collection make these collections of great interest for further studies on systematics and the evolution of mammals around the ‘Grande Coupure’

Altered Response Hierarchy and Increased T-Cell Breadth upon HIV-1 Conserved Element DNA Vaccination in Macaques

HIV sequence diversity and potential decoy epitopes are hurdles in the development of an effective AIDS vaccine. A DNA vaccine candidate comprising of highly conserved p24 gag elements (CE) induced robust immunity in all 10 vaccinated macaques, whereas full-length gag DNA vaccination elicited responses to these conserved elements in only 5 of 11 animals, targeting fewer CE per animal. Importantly, boosting CE-primed macaques with DNA expressing full-length p55 gag increased both magnitude of CE responses and breadth of Gag immunity, demonstrating alteration of the hierarchy of epitope recognition in the presence of pre-existing CE-specific responses. Inclusion of a conserved element immunogen provides a novel and effective strategy to broaden responses against highly diverse pathogens by avoiding decoy epitopes, while focusing responses to critical viral elements for which few escape pathways exist

Mise en forme de budésonide par précipitation anti-solvant et formulation de poudre à base de budésonide pour IPS

A l’heure actuelle, l’efficacité thérapeutique des inhalateurs à poudre sèche reste limitée. Seul 30% environ du principe actif contenu dans la dose nominale de l’inhalateur arrive aux sites d’action dans les poumons. L’objectif principal de ce mémoire réside dans la mise en forme de budésonide par précipitation anti-solvant (LAS) de manière à améliorer cette efficacité thérapeutique. L’innovation de ce projet consiste en la conception d’une poudre de principe actif dont la granulométrie est comprise entre 0,5 et 5 μm. De plus, par l’utilisation de la précipitation anti-solvant et celle de stabilisants, nous pouvons contrôler la morphologie des particules obtenues. Le second objectif de ce mémoire réside dans la formulation de poudre pour inhalation à base de budésonide et d'un excipient et la caractérisation in-vitro de ces poudres à l'aide d'un impacteur à cascade

Controlling powder microstructure for pharmaceutical applications

Dry powder inhalers are used for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. They are based on a mix of drug and excipient (drug carrier) that is inhaled by patients. The excipient (50-100µm) transports the drug (1-5µm) to the pulmonary alveoli. The drug delivery efficiency is dominated by the interaction force between the excipient and the drug. In order to modulate the interaction force and to optimize the deposition of the drug, we have to control the morphology of both components

Marqueurs sériques du premier trimestre et insuffisance rénale maternelle

PARIS7-Xavier Bichat (751182101) / SudocSudocFranceF

Spray dried mannitol carrier particles - Influence of process parameters and PVP addition on the polymorphism and morphology of mannitol

This work aims to present how spray-drying process parameters and the addition of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) affect the morphology, the size, the crystallinity and the polymorphism of mannitol carrier particles

Particle engineering of budesonide using sonocrystallization technique for DPI : optimization of process parameters

Dry Powder Inhaler (DPI) are used for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. They are based on a mix of drug and excipient that is inhaled by patients. The excipient transports the drug (budesonide) to the respiratory tracts. In order to optimize this deposition, the budesonide particles should have a spherical morphology and a size between 1 to 5 µm. Sonocrystallization is the technique used to design this drug. Using experimental design, we were able to highlight the influence of several parameters on the size and morphology of budesonide particles