The Generative Brain
Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale (FRM), French medical research charity logo

Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale (FRM), French medical research charity

The FRM is a private French charity that funds public medical research across all disease areas. It began in 1947 as an association set up by Jean Bernard, Jean Hamburger and other researchers, took its present name in 1962, and was recognised as of public utility in 1965. It says it runs on donations, legacies and philanthropy and is independent of the state; its own pages give 427 new projects a year and between 51 and 58.8 million euro allocated in France in recent years. For prion disease its clearest role is as funder of the INRA, now INRAE, prion team at Jouy-en-Josas through team grant DEQ20150331689, listed on papers from 2016 to 2024 on human and animal prion strains, including work on whether L-type BSE or atypical scrapie could cause known forms of sporadic CJD. It also hosts 22 sheltered foundations, five of them created by researchers or associations. Search excerpts say Alliance BioSecure, a prion safety research foundation, moved under the FRM before its legal entity closed in 2013, but no FRM page opened confirms it. Information only.

Key facts

  • The FRM traces back to 1947, when the Association pour le developpement de la recherche medicale francaise was set up by Jean Bernard, Jean Hamburger and other researchers; it became the Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale with a national scope in 1962.
  • It was recognised as of public utility in 1965, on 14 May 1965 per an encyclopedia source, and has held the Don en confiance donor charter label since 1990.
  • It presents itself as independent and funded by donors, legacies, partners and philanthropists, with no state funding according to a Tier 3 source.
  • Its English site gives 51 million euro allocated to research in France and 427 new projects in 2024; the French site, as read, gives 427 new projects and 58.8 million euro, presented as 2025, and an aim of 80 million euro a year by 2030.
  • Projects are chosen by a 32 member Scientific Council elected by laboratory directors of the main French research bodies and about half renewed every two years.
  • Under its statutes the FRM can shelter other foundations dedicated to medical research; it lists 22, of which 5 are research foundations created by researchers, nonprofits or associations and 17 are philanthropic, without naming them.
  • Grant Equipe FRM DEQ20150331689 appears in the structured grant lists of at least seven prion papers from the Jouy-en-Josas VIM unit, from February 2016 to October 2024, and an eighth paper from the same group in 2023 lists the FRM without a grant id.
  • Two of those papers, both from 2016, list the FRM grant next to Alliance BioSecure project BoHuToHu; one found no evidence that L-type BSE causes a known form of sporadic CJD in human PrP mice.
  • The 2024 Jouy-led study funded in part by the FRM grant, with ANSM, DEFRA and Fundacion Ramon Areces support, found that atypical scrapie did not transmit to human PrP mice on first passage and that the strain later obtained resembled but was distinct from MM1 sporadic CJD.
  • The 2020 PLoS Pathogens paper on host prion protein levels and prion spread to the spleen names the FRM as a funder alongside NeuroPrion, the GIS Prions and the Ile-de-France region.
  • A Europe PMC title search for prion papers with the FRM as grant agency gives 17 hits from 2006 to 2024; the nine whose records were opened all come from the Jouy-en-Josas group, and the others are mostly on normal prion protein biology in cancer or signalling, or on prion-like proteins.
  • Search excerpts describe the Equipes FRM scheme as three year team funding of 200,000 to 450,000 euro selected by the Scientific Council; the call document itself was not read.

Timeline

  1. 1947Association pour le developpement de la recherche medicale francaise founded.
  2. 1962Becomes the Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale.
  3. 1965Recognised as of public utility.
  4. 1990Awarded the Don en confiance label.
  5. 2013Search excerpts report that Alliance BioSecure chose to become a foundation sheltered by the FRM and that its assets passed to the FRM on dissolution; not confirmed from an FRM or Journal officiel page.
  6. 2016First Jouy-en-Josas prion paper listing grant Equipe FRM DEQ20150331689 published (MM2-cortical CJD prions in ovine PrP mice).
  7. 2016L-type BSE versus sporadic CJD paper published with FRM and Alliance BioSecure funding.
  8. 2020PLoS Pathogens spleen tropism paper published naming the FRM as funder.
  9. 2024Atypical scrapie zoonotic potential paper published with FRM grant DEQ20150331689.
  10. 2024Latest paper found listing grant DEQ20150331689 (FEBS J, synthetic prions).
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