Since its founding, thanks to your support and to the commitment of its members, Imagine has already:
- Identified more than 250 genes, improving both the diagnosis and the lives of many families;
- Developed more than 32 clinical diagnostic tests for more than 3,000 diseases;
- Performed more than 20,000 DNA sequences;
- Completed the first global treatments for several pathologies: sickle-cell anemia, beta-thalassemia, interferonopathies, and many more;
- Collected clinical information for 680,000 patients in a data warehouse, helping to accelerate advances and discoveries on many pathologies;
- Developed 61 therapeutic solutions from now to the pre-clinical or clinical stage that could potentially treat more than 100 genetic diseases, 50,000 children in France and 500,000 in Europe in the next 5 to 10 years;
- Enrolled more than 7,000 patients in 580 clinical trials.
Develop ambitious research and care programs
Supporting Imagine is to give a real hope of finding a cure to millions of children with a genetic disease in France and in Europe, and to contribute daily to accelerating possible discoveries and treatments by helping to fund major priority programs for the next ten years.
These Integrated Care and Research Programs (iCARPs), are led by research teams, core facilities, reference centers for rare diseases and hospital departments at Imagine Institute and Necker-Enfants malades hospital AP-HP. They concern the following fields: nephrology, neurodevelopment, immunology-infectology-gastrology, hematology, development-cardiology. The latest of these programs, computational and artificial intelligence, aims to develop tomorrow’s medicine by combining data science and computer-aided decisions.
Your support has already allowed teams at the Institute to uncover the genes responsible for many pathologies in these fields, understand the mechanisms of these diseases and develop therapeutic solutions helping to treat thousands of children.
Develop tomorrow’s genomic medicine
First center for research and care on genetic diseases in Europe, Imagine Institute does everything possible to be at the forefront of innovation, and to make this innovation available to patients as fast as possible. Since its founding, the Institute’s teams have identified more than 250 genes responsible for pathologies and carried out the world-first gene therapies for severe combined immunodeficiencies SCID, Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, sickle-cell anemia, beta-thalassemia and interferonopathies. New treatments for achondroplasia and indolent systemic mastocytosis have been developed.
To continue on this pathway and increase discoveries, various programs are being developed at Imagine thanks to our donors, sponsors and partners:
- The DEVO-DECODE project, funded through the support of the MSDAVENIR Foundation, to explore the non-coding DNA of our body (98% of our DNA), therefore improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases, and eventually, offer new therapeutic strategies;
- DIM (Area of Major Interest) Gene Therapy in the Greater Paris Region, led by Imagine Institute and coordinated by Prof. Marina Cavazzana, aims to accelerate the development of gene therapy;
- The Dior Chair of tailored medicine aims to invent a personalized medicine in gene therapy thanks to support from the House of Christian Dior Couture, and by combining Prof. Marina Cavazzana’s expertise in gene therapy with Dr Antonio Rausell’s expertise in bioinformatics;
In November 2018, thanks to the tremendous generosity of its donors during the “Heroes for Imagine” charity evening, Imagine Institute was able to acquire a high-throughput DNA sequencer, the NovaSeq, which helps to name diseases, multiply diagnostic capabilities, then offer ways to understand diseases and therapeutic options as a result.
Spread knowledge and train future generations
Training future doctors and researchers and continued training of doctors and healthcare personnel is a priority at Imagine Institute. This training mission conducting and learning how to conduct research is led with the University of Paris, with the generous support of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation. Its priorities are to implement and develop doctoral training, the involvement of hospital doctors in research programs led by the Institute, the doctoral training of foreign students, and the training of bioentrepreneurs.
Here, discover the training programs offered at Imagine Institute.
In order to share and disseminate knowledge, scientific lectures, seminars and lectures intended for the general public are organized at Imagine, in an auditorium funded by the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.
To support Imagine Institute
