Sixty years of life with François Gros.

This is meant to be a personal account of my relationship with François Gros who, as the director of the laboratory where I had my first team became a close and fatherly friend. Over 60 years we had permanent interactions, whether close or far away. And I wish to revive here some of our relation at the grassroots, as well as the folklore in and around his laboratory.

Tryptophan Substitution in CJ-15,208 ([Phe-D-Pro-Phe-Trp]) Introduces δ-Opioid Receptor Antagonism, Preventing Antinociceptive Tolerance and Stress-Induced Reinstatement of Extinguished Cocaine-Conditioned Place Preference.

The macrocyclic tetrapeptide CJ-15,208 ([Phe-D-Pro-Phe-Trp]) and its D-Trp isomer exhibit kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonism which prevents stress-induced reinstatement of extinguished cocaine-conditioned place preference. Here, we evaluated the effects of substitution of Trp and D-Trp on the peptides' opioid activity, antinociceptive tolerance, and the ability to prevent relapse to extinguished drug-CPP. Six analogs were synthesized using a combination of solid-phase peptide synthesis and cyclization in solution.

Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection.

Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth's climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in almost all countries.

Is RNA the working genome in eukaryotes ? The 60 year evolution of a conceptual challenge.

About 80 years ago, in 1943, after a century of biochemical and genetic research, DNA was established as the carrier of genetic information. At the onset of Molecular Biology around 1960, the genome of living organisms embodied 3 basic, still unknown paradigms: its composition, organisation and expression. Between 1980 and 1990, its replication was understood, and ideas about its 3D-organisation were suggested and finally confirmed by 2010.

CHOIRBM: An R package for exploratory data analysis and interactive visualization of pain patient body map data.

Body maps are commonly used to capture the location of a patient's pain and thus reflect the extent of pain throughout the body. With increasing electronic capture body map information, there is an emerging need for clinic- and research-ready tools capable of visualizing this data on individual and mass scales. Here we propose CHOIRBM, an extensible and modular R package and companion web application built on the grammar of graphics system.