What is the link between solar radiation and the development of autoimmune diseases? How are the symbiotic links between plants and fungi born and put in place? What are the links between biodiversity and the natural environment and that modified by man?
This for their 11th collaboration, the CNRS of Toulouse and La Dépêche du Midi have Thursday, in a both studious and festive atmosphere, the launch of the Petit Illustré biologie at the Quai des savoirs, on the alleys Jules Guesde. For the occasion, a round table chaired by Morgane Gibert, scientific officer at the CNRS in Toulouse, was organized with Anne Astier from the Toulouse Institute of Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases, Guillaume Bécart from the Plant Science Research Laboratory and Sébastien Brushed by the Evolution and Biological Diversity Laboratory, on major current topics and concrete applications such as (de) pollution, biodiversity or the immune system. The result of the work of 74 contributors, this new issue is part of the national dynamic of the Year of Biology with a view to making people discover the research of laboratories in our region: “Le Petit Illustré allows us to better understand science and to highlight our research units and the richness of their work ”explains Virginie Mahdi, assistant to the regional delegate for Occitanie Ouest at the CNRS.

64 illustrated pages

Presented in the form of a 64-page dossier bringing together 44 articles and an 8-page overview of technological instruments and platforms at the service of biology, this Petit Illustré aims to make a complex thematic field accessible to as many people as possible through ‘a dissemination of the scientific state of the art. A successful bet according to Eric Laffont-Baylet, managing director of the La Dépêche group: “Our initial desire was to popularize scientific knowledge at the moment t and bring it to the attention of everyone. This is particularly the case with this new number ”. As such, the book offers a path going from the cell to collaboration between individuals through more fundamental or even more applied research. In close partnership with National Education, the CNRS wishes to give this new issue an educational dimension through a scientific competition organized among high schools, the winner of which will receive a CNRS prize in June 2022.