• Could you briefly describe what are cardiovascular diseases?
• The two main cardiovascular diseases are coronary heart disease and stroke. In their early stages, these pathologies involve dysfunction of a type of cell in the arterial wall called the endothelium. Endothelial cells form the interface between the bloodstream and the arterial wall, and dysfunction of these cells is critical to the formation of atherosclerosis, which leads to thickening of the arterial wall and blockage of arteries by lipid-rich plaques. In Europe, 25% of male deaths and 27% of female deaths are attributable to atherosclerosis (2005 BHF Report), and the financial burden of the

disease in both direct health care and non health care costs has been estimated at 200 billion € per year. So there are huge human and financial costs.  

What is “Cellular Engineering”?

Cellular Engineering is the application of engineering for understanding and manipulating cellular function. Engineers bring a quantitative view of pathologies such as cardio vascular disease. What we have learned over the past 25 years is that cardiovascular disease is controlled not only by genetic and lifestyle factors but also by mechanical considerations such as pressure forces, frictional forces and stretch forces to which endothelial cells are subjected. Engineers’ expertise is critical to understanding the mechanical environment within the arterial system. Engineers are also uniquely positioned to study the effect of mechanical stimuli on the cells of the arterial wall. One other aspect engineers contribute to is the design and implementation of devices and drug delivery systems to treat the disease. So engineers can bring a highly original approach to biology and medicine.

Why does this approach bring new possibilities for cell biology?

Applying engineering to cell biology promises to provide a much more quantitative and exact understanding. Modern tools, particularly at the micro- and nano-scale, allow us to apply engineering science to cells in much the same way that it has traditionally been applied to various areas such as aeronautics, structures, manufacturing, the environment, etc. This promises to enhance our understanding of normal cellular function as well as dysfunction in disease. Biological engineering also allows the discovery of new therapeutic strategies and thus contributes to extending life expectancy. A goal of the AXA-Ecole Polytechnique Chair is to develop a generation of young engineers sufficiently versed in biology to pose physiologically- relevant questions and to formulate original approaches. Top engineering universities in the United States such as MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley have invested massively in biological engineering programs. There has also been significant investment in some European countries including the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. However, this interdisciplinary approach combining biology and engineering has not developed nearly as much in France, and we wish to change that. We believe that we are in the right place to make significant breakthroughs since Ecole Polytechnique attracts some of the best engineers in France who will be future academic and industrial leaders.

Do you aim for a change of mindset?

 Yes, we aim to change the current mindset that limits interactions between engineers and biologists. We have to convince people that these two fields can go hand in hand and benefit from one another. France has strong expertise in biology and in engineering, but they have remained mostly separate fields. The goal of this new initiative is to build a world-class program which fosters highly interdisciplinary collaboration.

How do you plan to overcome differences in ways of thinking?

 The Chair has several elements. In addition to a strong basic research program, there is an extensive teaching and mentoring component. We are going to launch a new Master’s degree and new classes at the interface between biology and engineering. We need to develop a generation of young engineers who are able to formulate original and quantitative approaches to cardiovascular science. In addition, graduate students with both engineering and biology backgrounds will meet regularly to discuss research papers and learn one another’s vocabulary. We will set up a seminar series, the AXA Distinguished Cellular Engineers seminar series, which will expose our students to out - standing work in this field. Other activities of the Chair will include a European exchange program for our students to get a feel for the type of research in this field in various other European countries as well as public outreach activities with the goal of making high school students aware of the field of Cellular Engineering and the outstanding career opportunities it provides. ■

Professor Abdul Barakat is researcher at the Ecole Polytechnique’s Hydrodynamics Laboratory (LadHyX) and holder of the AXA Chair for Cardiovascular Cellular Engineering.

Image 1 : Endothelial cells under the microscope. The blue staining denotes the cell nuclei and  the green and red staining denote structural proteins within the cytoplasm (cytoskeletal elements). Early atherosclerosis is characterized by dysfunctional endothelial cells. Image courtesy of cell-wars.blogspot.com

Image 2 : Professor Abdul Barakat with his students. 

Image 3 : The Chair in Cardiovascular Cellular Engineering is held at Ecole Polytechnique located in Palaiseau, south of Paris, France. Photo credit: Collection François Lacour

Photo credit: Collection François Lacour

His main area of interest is financial cover for natural disasters. The last few years have been characterised by a series of large-scale natural disasters that have caused hundreds of billions of euros in loss. Unfortunately, it does not look like there will be any improvement in the future. Who will bear these costs? Who will be able to bear them? A closer look at the situation in the United States and the lessons to be learned.

The number of natural disasters has increased in the United States over the past few years. What have been the consequences for the insurance industry?

The September 11 attacks in 2001 and a rapid succession of extreme weather events have led to a crisis for disaster insurance. Financial cover for these risks is now being majorly redefined. Private insurers never anticipated such a string of devastating natural disasters, nor did they forsee the government getting so radically involved.

How has responsibility shifted from insurance companies to states?

The debate between the public and private sector is heated. Private insurers are looking to increase their premiums to reflect this new era of natural disasters, but regulators are against this, since they seek to minimize the consequences for local economies. Certain major companies, such as insurance giant State Farm in Florida, have left the coastal regions to reduce their exposure to risks. This has strongly reinforced the role of public insurers, who offer low-cost cover. In just three years, after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the insurance corporation Citizens, which is run by the state of Florida, became the number one insurer in the area. That’s a big deal for the US, where insurance is run by the private sector!

Does the growing public sector pose a problem?

The problem is that these state-run insurers do not have enough reserves to face a new series of natural disasters. Their prices are much too low. If there is a deficit, all insurers operating in Florida will have to pay, as required by law. So it’s not surprising that their private competitors are picking up and leaving.

Several governments you have worked with have put these subjects exposition on the agenda. What solutions have emerged?

An “alternative” method to traditional insurance is gaining in popularity, by issuing catastrophe bonds, commonly referred to as “cat bonds”, on the financial markets. Last October, the Mexican government sold $290 million in cat bonds to cover exposure to hurricanes and earthquakes. This has become a very active sector as a direct consequence of strong population growth and increasing wealth throughout the world.

But doesn’t placing risk assets on financial markets seem like an unpopular idea since the subprime crisis?

Maybe, but the index of these bonds has continued to rise since 2005... In any case, the public and private sectors need to develop new solutions for financial cover that is better suited to today’s risks.

Climate change is a vast area of research. But how precise can mathematical projections be?

We can now make adaptive forecasting of climate change. And instead of just saying “by the end of the XXIe Century, it will be 5 degrees warmer”, we are now trying to make predictions for the next year or the next ten years. It is important for the insurance sector because it allows us to look at the changing rate of hazards. Historical catastrophe models assume that the risk is stationary, but we know that weather events and their rates do change in time. So our predictions get more dynamic.

What do we know of the impact of climate change on storms in Europe?

I'm one of the lead authors for the chapter on “Regional Climate and Extremes” in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. One of our problems today is making statements on that more local scale for the future. Today, the different models get very different answers.

 To what extent can we really predict a storm today ?

There is some predictability of the strong wind patterns in the atmosphere at least a month ahead, a couple of months maximum. We can say whether there is a higher risk of having storms, but we cannot predict exactly where it is going to happen or how many storms there will be. For example, the severe storms that impacted France in December 1999 were due to the persistence of a strong upper level jet stream. We know that this condition provides the energy needed for explosive growth of damaging windstorms. But we could not go further. It is a probabilistic prediction.

 Your RACEWIN project aims at improving these projections. How will you proceed ?

 Starting in October, we will collaborate with the UK Met Office to statistically analyse the storm tracks (which trace the central pressure of a storm all along its way) from a set of high-resolution regional climate model projections for the 21^st century. This will allow us to better quantify trends and clustering in future European windstorms. Clustering measures the tendency of storms to occur together over a short time in a particular region, rather than being randomly distributed. We will look at the dependency between successive storms and between extreme wind speeds and extreme precipitation. In addition, our project will set up a European windstorms research network to help bring together critical mass in this important area of climate science.

 * Note : the IPPC is a scientific intergovernmental body of the United Nations, in charge of assessing the risks of climate change. Its fifth report, a reference document, is due in 2014.

Professor David Stephenson, Director of Exeter Climate Systems University of Exeter, UK

Principal investigator of the AXA RACEWIN project :
European Windstorms in a Changing Climate: Storm Tracks, Clustering and Multi-peril Extremes

I study the physics of the Sun, specifically looking at sunspots and solar flares. My research topic is ’Understanding the complex magnetic topologies of solar active regions’. Basically what this means is that I am hoping to better predict solar flares by looking at the magnetic fields of sunspots. I use data from satellites that observe the Sun to look at how the magnetic field changes over time before a flare occurs and then how it is changed by the flare. This has implications on Earth due to space weather, which can disrupt communications and electronics both on the ground and on satellites.

What is “space weather”?

Space weather describes the interaction of magnetic fields and particles, which have been ejected from the Sun, with the Earth’s upper atmosphere and surrounding magnetic field. The particles form what is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind travels through the solar system, the Earth’s magnetic field acts as an obstacle and deflects the particles around the planet, rather than bombarding the atmosphere or surface.

Space weather has a number of effects on the space surrounding the Earth; the most re cognisable might be the aurorae, also called the ’Northern Lights’. Sometimes not all the par ticles are deflected and they launch downwards into our atmosphere at the polar regions where they interact, resulting in emissions that give the aurora’s multicoloured glowing appearance in the skies. In periods of higher activity on the Sun, many more solar flares occur than normal, increasing the amount of particles and radio emissions ejected from the Sun. This increased activity can cause geomagnetic storms, which are formed when the solar flare causes the solar wind to hit the Earth’s magnetic field much more strongly, causing a temporary disturbance in the upper atmosphere. This can cause severe disruptions to communications and power grids across the globe. The increased activity can also cause aurorae to form in even lower latitudes, as far down as the equator in very strong events.

What are the impacts of space weather on aviation and space flight?

In terms of aviation, flight crews, passengers and on board electronics are all under direct exposure to space weather on transpolar flights. Here, they are exposed to higher levels of radiation, which increases during periods of high solar activity. Too much exposure can cause illness so flight crews must limit the number of flights they make yearly. Radio communications between pilots and the ground can also be affected, causing diverted flights if a storm occurs. The more accurately we can predict these storms, the better for the airlines operating these routes. Astronauts’ lives can be threatened due to the high dosages of solar radiation they are exposed to and to the energetic particles from the Sun bombarding the space shuttle. The spacecraft shielding and protection from their spacesuits must be sufficient or an increased dose of radiation and particles due to a solar flare could be lethal. Solar activity monitoring systems are imperative to keep the astronauts safe.

Why does solar activity affect human technologies such as GPS, satellites, or weather monitoring?

The particles accelerated during solar flares can damage and degrade electronics on board spacecraft. For example, microchips can be damaged, causing errors in software commands. Geomagnetic storms can also blind sensors on board the craft and interfere with electronics. Sufficient shielding for instruments on board satellites is necessary to prevent degradation and is an area of continuous research to improve the materials used. The signal propagation of GPS and other satellite navigational systems are also affected in a similar fashion, as well as the disruption to the electronics on board the satellites. The impact of this on the ground could be wide-spread, disrupting shortwave radio broadcasts, mobile phone networks and transport navigation systems.

What are the long-term perspectives on that topic?

In order to minimise the impact of space weather on our technologies, a solar activity-forecasting infrastructure must be developed between governmental and commercial sectors. But first, we as scientists must understand the fundamental physical processes involved in driving space weather, such as sunspot magnetic fields. The more we know about these processes, the more we can improve statistical models to predict when a flare will occur. The accuracy of prediction methods available presently needs to be increased, in order to be able to predict solar activity over shorter time scales of hours rather than days. Scientists do need as near-real time solar data as possible for space weather predictions. ■

Sunspots are regions on the surface of the Sun that appear as dark spots and have very strong magnetic field. Solar flares are a very releases of large amounts of energy, which is stored in the solar atmosphere. The flares can hurtle towards Earth in the form of very energetic particles, X-rays, ultraviolet and radio emissions, amongst others.

Image 1 : Crédit photo NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org
Image of the sun taken by the NASA “SOHO” spacecraft in 2003.

Image 2 : Collection of images depicting the Sun’s impact on Earth: starting with a solar flare eruption on the Sun on the left, causing changes in the Earth’s atmosphere in the centre leading to the occurrence of the aurora in Alaska in the image on the right.

Sophie Murray is a AXA PhD fellow at the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

The study can be downloaded here (french only).

The interview can be listened here (french only).

You can also download the english summary of this study below.

The results are available here.

It led to the formulation of three main theories about the expected changes in the health status of the populations, the compression of morbidity, the pandemic of disability, and the dynamic equilibrium.

According to the first theory morbidity is compressed at the end of life due to the adoption of
healthy behaviors and the hypothesis of strong limitations on longevity. According to the second theory, we are merely keeping the sick people alive longer increasing the prevalence of chronic diseases and disability.

According to the third theory we are keeping the sick people alive longer but we are also slowing down the development of the chronic diseases and postponing the onset of disability. However, the most surprising observation during the last decades was the strong decrease in oldest old mortality, leading to an unexpected increase in the number of nonagenarians and centenarians.

The previous theories do not help to understand the relationship between the level of mortality selection (how easy or difficult it is to survive to a given age) and the functional health status of the survivors (i.e. the people reaching this given age).

This is the new frontier in healthy and active longevity research and it where the 5-Country Oldest Old Project (5-COOP) is going with the help of AXA Research Fund.

It led to the formulation of three main theories about the expected changes in the health status of the populations, the compression of morbidity, the pandemic of disability, and the dynamic equilibrium.

According to the first theory morbidity is compressed at the end of life due to the adoption of
healthy behaviors and the hypothesis of strong limitations on longevity. According to the second theory, we are merely keeping the sick people alive longer increasing the prevalence of chronic diseases and disability.

According to the third theory we are keeping the sick people alive longer but we are also slowing down the development of the chronic diseases and postponing the onset of disability. However, the most surprising observation during the last decades was the strong decrease in oldest old mortality, leading to an unexpected increase in the number of nonagenarians and centenarians.

The previous theories do not help to understand the relationship between the level of mortality selection (how easy or difficult it is to survive to a given age) and the functional health status of the survivors (i.e. the people reaching this given age).

This is the new frontier in healthy and active longevity research and it where the 5-Country Oldest Old Project (5-COOP) is going with the help of AXA Research Fund.

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You will see our latest updates, it a enthusiastic yet scientific page!

Biography
Godefroy Beauvallet, 39, graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1994 and from Télécom ParisTech in 1997. He began his career as an IT Project Manager with Gemplus, then became Associate Banker for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He joined the French Ministry of Industry in 1997. Between 2000 and 2002, he was Adviser to the Minister for Public Service and State Reform, Michel Sapin. In 2002, he became Assistant Professor and Team Manager at Telecom ParisTech. In 2007, he became CFO and Deputy CEO of Institut Télécom, a group of 6 French engineering and management schools specialized in IT. He is the author of several books and many scientific papers about the use of digital groupware tools in project management and Lean Management.

Florence Noble is a researcher in the Neuropsychology of addiction laboratory of the French National Centre for Research (CNRS) in Paris and teaches courses in Neurobiology at the University of Paris Descartes. She is strongly involved in the quest for new treatments through basic research and clinical trials.

Drug users were long stigmatised as people who were lacking in willpower and incapable of curbing their use. Doctors and scientists have helped allow this vision to evolve, and addiction is now considered to be an illness, on par with other disorders such as depression. Public authorities have taken this into consideration, though to greatly varying extents depending on the country, with certain governments creating research centres dedicated to the illness and others remaining much more reticent. Fortunately, however, research on addiction has greatly increased, even though public funding has remained much lower than expected.

A person who is addicted to a substance no longer uses this substance for pleasure, but rather to avoid the suffering caused by withdrawal and difficulty to adapt to the world around them. Recent progress in research has allowed us to identify the areas of the brain and the chemical molecules that play a role in the onset of addiction. Scientists, however, have their work cut out for them with major issues at stake, such as understanding how addiction starts, identifying the health problems associated with excessive use of a substance (and therefore trying to prevent them), and understanding why many patients relapse after sometimes long periods of abstinence. This knowledge is essential in order to offer efficient treatments to cure patients. The AXA Research Fund plays an important role in sustaining successful research in this area.

Closer to home, major storm Xynthia hit the Atlantic coast of France in February 2010, killing more than 50 people and creating €2.5 billion worth of damage. Certain examples remain definitively ingrained in the collective memory. 

Who could forget the tsunami that swept through the Indian Ocean in 2004? How could anyone in the United States forget the flooded streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? Even Hurricane Katrina was no isolated disaster. In fact, between 2004 and 2005, seven major hurricanes struck the United States over fifteen months, causing more than $120 billion of insured loss and damage, three times more than the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Beyond the shocking images, these disasters raise a number of questions. What conclusions should be drawn? Are these disasters the inevitable result of climate change and disorder? Or are they the serious consequences of a growing global population that has become increasingly concentrated in cities and on coasts? How can we bear the costs of destruction? 
According to the German reinsurance company, Munich Re, costs related to natural disasters reached $50 billion in 2009 and four times this amount in 2008.
A number of uncertainties remain, however researchers of all disciplines continue to advance knowledge, in order to find solutions and help prepare for future extreme weather events.
Measures include better identifiying vulnerable areas, attempting to predict the impact of climate change, finding new tools to face financial loss, and bringing prevention measures to the centre of policies. These measures, and many others, should be urgently explored.

The research project seeks a deeper understanding of the biological mechanisms underpinning individual differences in how people take risks by bringing together methodologies from behavioral and experimental economics and the biological sciences. The study will generate quantitative phenotypes that can propel advances in understanding the molecular architecture of human decision making in a risky environment.

The research study will be led by Prof Richard P. Ebstein and Prof Chew Soo Hong of NUS' Department of Psychology and Department of Economics respectively.

The series of truly devastating natural disasters in recent years demonstrated we have entered a totally new era of catastrophes. Whether we suffer from them as direct victims or witness them live on TV, none of us can remain indifferent. Globalization has brought immense benefits to billions of people. But because of highspeed economic, social and demographic development in many parts of the world exposed to natural hazards, those “natural” catastrophes are becoming less and less natural.

As such, the 21st century will either be the best century ever, where we overcome the great challenges of better dealing with large-scale disasters, or it will be a lost century because we fail to learn and act.

If we fail, these events will not only create massive destruction and impede economic growth in rich countries, they will become true poverty traps in countries where preparedness and risk transfer instruments are terribly lacking. In the interdependent world we all live in today, this would have major ripple effects around the globe.

As such, better risk assessment, better risk management and better risk financing will be critical in the years to come. There are also gigantic unrevealed opportunities for innovation and value creation here: new technologies, new insurance products, and improved public policies. Faithful to its vision of leveraging the best knowledge to help make informed decisions, the AXA Research Fund has been very active in supporting state-of-the-art research in this multi-disciplinary and growing sphere.

In recognition of its leading role in ageing research world-wide, the AXA Research Fund has recently funded Professor Carol Jagger to a permanent Chair in the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University to further research on understanding trends, causes and consequences of Longevity and Healthy Active Life for future health and social care policy.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

This chair's first objective will be to further strengthen fundamental research into supramolecular chemistry. This branch of chemistry is based on the study of molecular bricks which, brought together under controlled conditions, self-assemble to give more complex structures. There are numerous applications, particularly for new materials, in medicine, green chemistry or even IT storage systems.

This chair will develop the applications of supramolecular chemistry for medical sciences and will more specifically help find new solutions for treating ageing-related illnesses.

« Life is full of decisions, most of which have unknown consequences », explains inaugural Chair holder Itzhak Gilboa. « As individuals and societies, when we decide whether to buy insurance, undergo a medical treatment, or cope with global warming, we make decisions without knowing what will actually happen ».

The AXA-HEC Paris Chair for Decision Science will be devoted to sponsoring academic research, workshops and conferences, and will bring together researchers from various disciplines. It builds on HEC Paris’ research capacity in decision making and will integrate the latest research developments into its leadership training curriculum.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

The AXA - École Polytechnique Chair aims to develop a new generation of engineers sufficiently versed in biology to formulate original approaches to these diseases.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

<p> <p> These two projects, as well as all of those you will discover in these pages and upcoming editions, are among the 157 research efforts the AXA Research Fund have decided to support in 15 countries thus far. All of them illustrate our commitment of AXA to research as well the determination to create an environment that fosters the emergence of path-breaking scientific discoveries.

“Risk is the core of our business and, as a major actor of economic development, it is our
responsibility to help understand and prevent risk. This is the raison d’être of the AXA
Research Fund which provides researchers with the means to further improve knowledge
and understanding of the risks that we are facing” said Henri de Castries, Chairman and
CEO of AXA.

Thanks to a broad diversity of funding vehicles and a wide geographical scope, the AXA
Research Fund selected 71 new research projects in 10 countries. This selection was
determined by the Scientific Board, which is chaired by Ezra Suleiman and made up of both
eminent figures from the scientific world and AXA Group experts.

Thomas Kirkwood heads the Institute for Aging and Health at Newcastle University

Aging is humanity’s greatest success story! But there is an urgency to understand why and how we are getting old… In particular, Aging includes a demographic issue: life expectancy is continuing to increase at an astonishing speed. Each and every one of us gains every day about five hours of life expectancy! That rate is enormous.

Aging and its global implications are a hot topic. The consequences of life-expectancy will be massive, perhaps even more than Climate change or Terrorism. Population aging is going to affect almost every aspect of our lives as well as the obvious matters about healthcare, social care, retirement pensions, etc. It is a success story but we have to work in order to prepare ourselves !

People are ambivalent: do they really want to cope with all the issues involved with aging? Public opinion is generally very negative about aging. People seem to think it only concerns old persons and the public policy makers are slow to address this matter.

In reality, aging is fantastic news for economy! They will be more consumers, who will help growth on a global scale. People are making big mistakes about aging: it is a big question for everyone, and research in that field will benefit today’s babies as well as adults.

The goal of the Copenhagen summit is to find a new agreement on climate, in order to provide continuity after the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The first objective will be to agree on an emission reduction of greenhouse gases in order to prevent a rise of more than 2°C in the overall planetary temperature by the end of the century. Afterwards, the negotiators will have to agree on the best method to share the financial effort that will be necessary for the adaptation of countries that are vulnerable to future disruptions. The key to the agreement lies in the hands of a few countries, including the United States and China.

The stakes of the Copenhagen conference are much higher than in the Kyoto conference of 1997, since the goal is to plan the course of the national economies until 2050. Its importance exceeds the question of greenhouse gases: the relations between North and South are also at stak

Eric Chaney, Chief Economist of the AXA Group said: ‘While this research will focus
on filling gaps in the academic understanding of these issues it will clearly also be
extremely relevant to the development of knowledge informed policy.’

LSE academics undertaking the AXA Research Programme, will, for example,
assess the performance of the global regulatory framework during the current crisis
to analyse changes in regulation that could help reduce the risks of such crises in the
future. They will look at the whole structure of capital standards, leverage ratios,
accounting principles for bank assets and liquidity provision to the market. They will
also examine the use of risk models and balance sheet information in managing risk
at the level of intuitions, and for system-wide regulation.

Another strand of the research programme will scrutinise the governance of banks
looking at board and ownership structure and how the top management are
remunerated. This will aim to learn more about the skill-set and financial knowledge
of non-executive directors, the board’s function when seen in competition with
banking regulation and ultimately its impact on bank performance.

High-powered incentive pay, the limited penalties when something goes wrong and
the way this encourages excessive risk taking by financial institutions will also be
examined.

To launch the research programme, a public panel discussion on the future of
banking and financial regulation will take place at LSE on Monday 19 October.

The panel will be Chief Economist of the AXA Group Eric Chaney, Dominique Carrel-
Billiard, CEO of AXA Investment Managers and LSE Professors Charles Goodhart
and David Webb. This event is free and open to all (1). For more information see
www.lse.ac.uk

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

Endowed with €1,250,000 for a five-year period, the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair in "A systems
approach to individual differences in longevity" aims to train a new generation of researchers
with a scientific understanding of a longer lifespan, approached from a multidisciplinary point of
view. Indeed, the major innovation of this Chair resides in the multidisciplinary approach it
proposes, which to date is unique in the world. The holders of the Chair, Linda Partridge,
Thomas Kirkwood, François Taddei and James Vaupel, have different scientific backgrounds:
demographics, genetics, nutrition, biology, etc. This diversity of approaches should make it
possible to study accurately the numerous parameters that affect the longevity of an individual.

By providing its support for the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair, the AXA Research Fund hopes it will
offer researchers the resources necessary to advance knowledge on the mechanisms of ageing.

What is longevity?
Within a period of eight generations (about 200 years), life expectancy has doubled. In the UK and France, it has been increasing at a rate of two years per decade. So for each hour that elapses, your lifespan could be increasing by 12 minutes, i.e. 5 hours per day! We commonly refer to this phenomenon as longevity. Alongside global warming, longevity, or the increasing mean lifespan of a living being, has become one of the major challenges of modern society, and must be a key priority for research.
Prof. Thomas Kirkwood,
Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle, UK.

What are the approaches and objectives of this Chair?
At present, no explanation provided by a single discipline is sufficient to understand individual differences in longevity. Indeed, the main problem faced by research on longevity resides in the complexity of ageing, which is a phenomenon dependent on numerous parameters, such as genetic heritage, social background or the environment. In this context, the multidisciplinary careers of the Chair holders constitute a major asset and valuable foundations for the work considered. This Chair also has an actual educational objective: it aims to disseminate knowledge and promote vocations. One of our major aims is to train a new generation of researchers with a scientific understanding of ageing, approached from a multidisciplinary point of view and in an integrated manner. We hope to enable the emergence of joint research projects involving Master's and PhD students and postdoctoral fellows from our different institutions and of different nationalities.
François Taddei,
Instigator and holder of the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

Faced with the uncertainty surrounding the various global warming scenarios, many experts at least agree on the benefit of a “no regret” policy which consists in adopting measures that are useful whether or not the severe global warming scenario is confirmed. Nonetheless, this scenario is less and less controversial: reality has already matched or exceeded the most alarming hypothesis examined by the IPCC. So, the debate today revolves around the size and shape that public policies should take. In my opinion, there are two pitfalls: a relativist view resigned to the currentstate of affairs, and an apocalyptic view. In any case, we will need to consider the impact and cost to society of the measures taken – to avoid, for example, taxes that will be tougher on underprivileged communities.

“The current environment only reinforces our conviction that academic research is
critical to meeting the challenges of a global society”, noted Henri de Castries,
Chairman of the AXA Group Management Board. “We are particularly proud of the
work accomplished by the Fund over the course of this first year, and we confirm
AXA’s long-term commitment to contributing to emergence of the talents and
technologies needed to ensure the development of our societies. Researching
today is protecting tomorrow”.

The reasoning is simple: AXA’s business is to support customers by providing them with insurance, personal protection and savings products and services. We are proud of the contribution our business makes to economic and social growth in the countries in which we operate, and we conduct it responsibly.

What could be more natural than for AXA to support and promote research, which is a catalyst of economic and social progress? We created the AXA Research Fund in early 2008 to implement this idea. On a more global scale, I am convinced that businesses play a major role alongside governments in financing academic research, and I hope with all my heart that we will inspire others to do the same

AXA believes that part of its engagements as a good corporate citizen means that the private
sector can and must help public funding to promote academic research.

In this context, the AXA Group has decided to launch the AXA RESEARCH FUND managed by
a Scientific Board chaired by Ezra Suleiman professor of political science at Princeton University
and independent member of the AXA Supervisory Board.

AXA has committed a total of € 100,000,000 to the Fund over 5 years.

« Life is full of decisions, most of which have unknown consequences », explains inaugural Chair holder Itzhak Gilboa. « As individuals and societies, when we decide whether to buy insurance, undergo a medical treatment, or cope with global warming, we make decisions without knowing what will actually happen ».

The AXA-HEC Paris Chair for Decision Science will be devoted to sponsoring academic research, workshops and conferences, and will bring together researchers from various disciplines. It builds on HEC Paris’ research capacity in decision making and will integrate the latest research developments into its leadership training curriculum.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

"Within a period of eight generations (about 200 years), life expectancy has doubled. In the UK and France, it has been increasing at a rate of two years per decade. So for each hour that elapses, your lifespan could be increasing by 12 minutes, i.e. 5 hours per day! We commonly refer to this phenomenon as longevity. Alongside global warming, longevity, or the increasing mean lifespan of a living being, has become one of the major challenges of modern society, and must be a key priority for research"
Prof. Thomas Kirkwood,
Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle, UK.

Our fellows attended a Master Class by Miroslav Radman : "Stayiong Alive : in search of healthy Longevity".

Prof. Radman was a Member of our Scientific Board, Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Professor of Cell Biology at "Necker - Enfants Malades" Medical schol.

They also attended the launch of the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair on Longevity, “A systems approach to individual differences in longevity”, in the presence of 

• Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO –AXA
• Axel Kahn, President of Paris Descartes University
• E. Suleiman, President of the Scientific Board of the AXA Research Fund
• T. Kirkwook, Biologist, Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health –Newcastle
• L. Partridge, Geneticist, Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing –London
• J. W.Vaupel, Demographer, Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute forDemographic Research –Rostock
• A. Baudisch, Biodemographer, Independent Junior Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research –Rostock
• F. Taddei, Geneticist, Research Director at Inserm, Director of the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire at Paris Descartes University –Paris
• J.-C. Menioux, Group Chief Risk Officer –AXA
• L.Taleyson, Head of Life Risks –AXA.

In addition to genetic and lifestyle factors, there is a mechanical element related to arterial blood flow which is critical to the development of atherosclerosis. This is the focus of our cellular engineering approach which will enhance our understanding of the disease as well as lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies which will contribute to extending life expectancy.» Abdul Barakat

By endowing the École Polytechnique to create this permanent chair, the AXA Research Fund wanted to support an ambitious and cutting edge programme. Indeed the chair will for the first time study atherosclerosis through a transdisciplinary approach combining biology and engineering. It also aims to develop a new
generation of engineers sufficiently versed in biology to formulate original approaches to these diseases. This partnership expresses our wish both to encourage innovative science and to help institutions attract the best talent to reinforce their research and training capacity at the highest level.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

The research project seeks a deeper understanding of the biological mechanisms
underpinning individual differences in how people take risks by bringing together
methodologies from behavioral and experimental economics and the biological
sciences. The study will generate quantitative phenotypes that can propel advances
in understanding the molecular architecture of human decision making in a risky
environment.

The research study will be led by Prof Richard P. Ebstein and Prof Chew Soo Hong
of NUS’ Department of Psychology and Department of Economics respectively.
John R. Dacey, CEO of AXA Japan-Asia-Pacific Region and Member of the AXA
Group Executive Committee, declared: “I am very pleased to announce the first
Asian grant by the AXA Research Fund to the National University of Singapore, for
an outstanding and innovative research project led by Professor Ebstein and
Professor Chew.
“As a global leader in insurance business, AXA actively promotes the understanding
and prevention of risks. We are convinced that basic research is essential for the
development of knowledge in this area and thus contributes to building stronger and
safer societies.
“AXA teams in Singapore share with me the pride of this extension of the AXA
Research Fund outside of Europe. I believe it is a very strong sign of our long term
commitment to the region and its strategic importance for the Group.
“I sincerely wish all the best to Professor Ebstein and his team and I really hope this
first step will encourage more Asian institutions to apply.”

Prof Barry Halliwell, Deputy President (Research and Technology), NUS, said: “We
are pleased to receive this esteemed gift from the AXA Research Fund which will
support the work of NUS researchers to identify and explain the biological
underpinnings of risk-taking in human choice and behavior.
“The gift is recognition of NUS as a leading global university centred in Asia, and the
University’s relentless drive to contribute to holistic understanding of critical issues
for Asia and the rest of the world.”

Principal Investigator of the study, Prof Richard P. Ebstein, Department of
Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS, said: “We believe that
human decision making in a risky environment has its roots in the early evolution of
life itself. The specific aim of our project is to identify and unravel the basic biological
mechanism underpinning decision making under risk.”

Several problems that afflict the world today remain obscure due to an almost
complete ignorance of the biological architecture of human decision making. These
problems can be viewed in terms of breakdowns in decision making ranging from
economic meltdowns, driven in large measure by widespread breakdowns in trust
between individuals and institutions freezing commerce worldwide, to disorders in
individuals where the primary symptoms are more dramatic and often involve
pathological changes in decision making behavior, e.g. drug addiction, pathological
gambling, eating disorders, borderline personality disorders and extreme mistakes in
saving and spending.

In recognition of its leading role in ageing research world-wide, the AXA Research Fund has recently funded Professor Carol Jagger to a permanent Chair in the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University to further research on understanding trends, causes and consequences of Longevity and Healthy Active Life for future health and social care policy.

Carol Jagger, AXA Professor of Epidemiology of Ageing, Institute for Ageing & Health (IAH), Newcastle University, said: “This is a fabulous opportunity for me. It will allow me to carry out extra work and it has already started to make a difference.

“This position will allow me to develop my programme in a place where there is a great resource. Working in the IAH offers a great opportunity for collaboration with others and will enable me to carry my work forward.

“I have been working with the 85+ study for the past five years and we have made some interesting findings already and I am sure there are more to come.”

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

20 selected AXA fellows will attend the AXA Forum for Longevity on Monday, March 28th, and then will participate on two-days workshops and Master Class.

and the launch of the HEC - AXA Chair for Decision Science organized at AXA headquarters, with the participation of Pr. Mohammed Abdellaoui, Itzhak Gilboa, Gerd Gigerenzer and Henri de Castries, Chairman & CEO - AXA Group.

Please see our Program page to have more details about the Talent Day, and have a look on the Facebook document !

This session participants so far: 7 Post-Doctoral and 13 Doctoral Fellows selected in 2008, 2009 and 2010, of 13 nationalities and from 18 international institutions. 

Eric Chaney, Chief Economist of the AXA Group said: ‘While this research will focus
on filling gaps in the academic understanding of these issues it will clearly also be
extremely relevant to the development of knowledge informed policy.’

LSE academics undertaking the AXA Research Programme, will, for example,
assess the performance of the global regulatory framework during the current crisis
to analyse changes in regulation that could help reduce the risks of such crises in the
future. They will look at the whole structure of capital standards, leverage ratios,
accounting principles for bank assets and liquidity provision to the market. They will
also examine the use of risk models and balance sheet information in managing risk
at the level of intuitions, and for system-wide regulation.

Another strand of the research programme will scrutinise the governance of banks
looking at board and ownership structure and how the top management are
remunerated. This will aim to learn more about the skill-set and financial knowledge
of non-executive directors, the board’s function when seen in competition with
banking regulation and ultimately its impact on bank performance.

High-powered incentive pay, the limited penalties when something goes wrong and
the way this encourages excessive risk taking by financial institutions will also be
examined.

To launch the research programme, a public panel discussion on the future of
banking and financial regulation will take place at LSE on Monday 19 October.

The panel will be Chief Economist of the AXA Group Eric Chaney, Dominique Carrel-
Billiard, CEO of AXA Investment Managers and LSE Professors Charles Goodhart
and David Webb.

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

Endowed with €1,250,000 for a five-year period, the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair in "A systems
approach to individual differences in longevity" aims to train a new generation of researchers
with a scientific understanding of a longer lifespan, approached from a multidisciplinary point of
view. Indeed, the major innovation of this Chair resides in the multidisciplinary approach it
proposes, which to date is unique in the world. The holders of the Chair, Linda Partridge,
Thomas Kirkwood, François Taddei and James Vaupel, have different scientific backgrounds:
demographics, genetics, nutrition, biology, etc. This diversity of approaches should make it
possible to study accurately the numerous parameters that affect the longevity of an individual.

By providing its support for the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair, the AXA Research Fund hopes it will
offer researchers the resources necessary to advance knowledge on the mechanisms of ageing.

What is longevity?
Within a period of eight generations (about 200 years), life expectancy has doubled. In the UK and France, it has been increasing at a rate of two years per decade. So for each hour that elapses, your lifespan could be increasing by 12 minutes, i.e. 5 hours per day! We commonly refer to this phenomenon as longevity. Alongside global warming, longevity, or the increasing mean lifespan of a living being, has become one of the major challenges of modern society, and must be a key priority for research.
Prof. Thomas Kirkwood,
Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle, UK.

What are the approaches and objectives of this Chair?
At present, no explanation provided by a single discipline is sufficient to understand individual differences in longevity. Indeed, the main problem faced by research on longevity resides in the complexity of ageing, which is a phenomenon dependent on numerous parameters, such as genetic heritage, social background or the environment. In this context, the multidisciplinary careers of the Chair holders constitute a major asset and valuable foundations for the work considered. This Chair also has an actual educational objective: it aims to disseminate knowledge and promote vocations. One of our major aims is to train a new generation of researchers with a scientific understanding of ageing, approached from a multidisciplinary point of view and in an integrated manner. We hope to enable the emergence of joint research projects involving Master's and PhD students and postdoctoral fellows from our different institutions and of different nationalities.
François Taddei,
Instigator and holder of the AXA-Paris Descartes Chair

Click here to find out more about this research supported by the AXA Research Fund

With this original initiative, the Académie des sciences seeks to promote young researchers. This initiative has been launched by Pascale Cossart, Member of the Académie des sciences, Director of the Interactions Bactéries-Cellules Unit at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, and Member of the AXA Research Fund Scientific Board.

Committed to support world-class innovative research, the AXA Research Fund encourages this young researchers with a € 2.000 grant for each of them.

Here is the list of the laureates.

Jan-Hendrik Hehemann
UMR 7139 (CNRS/UPMC), Végétaux Marins et Biomolécules, Station Biologique de Roscoff, France
Le « sushi factor » : transfert de gènes, impliqués dans la digestion des algues rouges, de bactéries marines vers la microflore intestinale des Japonais 

Mathieu Coureuil
INSERM U1002, Laboratoire de Pathogénie des Infections Systémiques, France
Neisseria meningitidis adhère aux cellules endothéliales cérébrales
et envahit les méninges 

Sandrine Sarrazin
Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, (CIML), CNRS/ INSERM/Université de la Méditerranée, France
Le fabuleux destin d’une cellule souche 

Isabelle d’Erfurth
INRA, Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, France
Comment transformer la méiose en mitose 

Gabrielle Girardeau
Laboratoire de Physiologie de la Perception et de l’Action, CNRS - Collège de France, France
La nuit porte conseil : comment le cerveau renforce la mémoire pendant le sommeil 

François Ghiringhelli
INSERM, Institut Gustave Roussy, France
La chimiothérapie anticancéreuse : pas simplement des agents toxiques, mais aussi des traitements immunologiques

To see the video of this conference, please visit the Académie des Sciences website.

The British Council in France and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), in collaboration with the AXA Research Fund are pleased to invite you to attend a public panel discussion:

“Scientific uncertainty in decision-making”

Panel members:

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (UK)

Denis Duverne, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of AXA

The panel will be chaired by Laurence Tubiana, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI)

Monday 21^st March, 2011 – from 6:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m

Amphithéâtre Boutmy, Sciences Po, 27, rue Saint Guillaume, 75007 Paris

Recent debate on the role of human activity in climate change, on the efficacy of the H1N1 vaccine or on renewable energies policy, has brought the concept of scientific uncertainty to the forefront of public and media attention. But this debate has also brought to light the misunderstanding surrounding the concept and the dangers of its possible misappropriation.

With decision-makers required to take ever-increasing account of scientific uncertainties, the conference’s panellists will discuss their own experience of high-level decision-making and will explain how they have had to deal with scientific uncertainty whilst making strategic decisions. How do decision-makers – be they in the political, public or economic sphere – make decisions when they are confronted with uncertainty? What lessons can be drawn from recent experiences in France and in the United Kingdom where uncertainty has played a major role in supporting or discrediting a given position? What are the respective roles and responsibilities of scientists and the media in the public understanding of scientific uncertainty?

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins and Denis Duverne will address these questions and will then open up the discussion to the public.

Simultaneous interpretation into French and English will be available during the discussion

Please register for the debate on IDDRI website

or by email to Julie Cohen – julie.cohen@iddri.org

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins has been chairman of the National Institute of Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) since its formation in 1999. NICE is an independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health. Sir Michael Rawlins is also Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was the Ruth and Lionel Jacobson Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1973 to 2006 .At the same time he held the position of consultant physician and consultant clinical pharmacologist to the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust. He was vice-chairman (1987-1992) and chairman (1993-1998) of the Committee on Safety of Medicines; and chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (1998 - 2008).

Denis Duverne has been Deputy Chief Executive Officer of AXA, in charge of Finance, Strategy and Operations since April 2010. He is a graduate of the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC). After graduating from the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA), he started his career in 1984 as commercial counsellor for the French Consulate General in New York before becoming director of the Corporate Taxes Department for the French Ministry of Finance in 1986. In 1988, he became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy for the French Ministry of Finance and, in 1991, he was appointed Corporate Secretary of Compagnie Financière IBI. In 1992, he became a member of the Executive Committee of Banque Colbert, in charge of operations. In 1995, Denis Duverne joined the AXA Group and assumed responsibility for supervision of AXA's operations in the US and the UK and managed the reorganization of AXA companies in Belgium and the United Kingdom. Since February 2003, Denis Duverne has been a member of the AXA Management Board. From February 2003 to December 2009, he was the Management Board member in charge of Finance, Control and Strategy. From January 2010 to April 2010, he assumed broader responsibilities as Management Board member in charge of Finance, Strategy and Operations.

Laurence Tubiana is founder of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in Paris. She follows and participates in the international negotiations on climate change, in which IDDRI is highly involved. She is also professor and director of the Sustainable Development Centre at Sciences Po Paris. From May 2009 to May 2010, Laurence Tubiana was asked to set up the new direction of Global Publics Goods of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. She is a member of several scientific boards of major research institutions such as the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), the India Council for Sustainable Development and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. From 1997 to 2002, Laurence Tubiana served as senior advisor to the Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, on environmental issues and conducted a number of international negotiations on this subject. She was also member of the French Council of Economic Analysis and research director for the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). She has been a representative of the European NGOs at the World Bank and directed the French-based NGO Solagral. Founder of the journal Le Courrier de la Planète, she has published a number of articles and books on environment, development and international issues. Since 2007, she has co-directed the publication of the annual review Sustainable Development in Action – A Planet for Life.

With this original initiative, the Académie des sciences seeks to promote young researchers. This initiative has been launched by Pascale Cossart, Member of the Académie des sciences, Director of the Interactions Bactéries-Cellules Unit at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, and Member of the AXA Research Fund Scientific Board.

Committed to support world-class innovative research, the AXA Research Fund encourages this young researchers with a € 2.500 grant for each of them.

© Gérard Blot - RMN - Institut de France

Here is the list of laureates:

L’étiquetage des neurones du cortex…
par Edith Lesburguères et Bruno Bontempi, Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives, CNRS - Université de Bordeaux     (Science 2011)
De l’acquisition à la stabilisation des souvenirs. Une expérience chez le rat permet de décrypter un processus neurobiologique  nécessaire à la formation de la mémoire à long terme.

Structure atomique de deux anesthésiques généraux liés à leur cible…
par Hugues Nury et Pierre-Jean Corringer, CNRS, Institut Pasteur, Paris     (Nature 2011)
La révélation de la structure fine  du site d’action des anesthésiques généraux ouvre la voie à la conception de nouvelles classes de ces composés, mieux tolérés par l’organisme.

Contrôle du développement embryonnaire par des petits ARNs issus de transposons
par Catherine Papin et Martine Simonelig, Institut de Génétique Humaine, CNRS, Montpellier     (Nature 2010)
Ce nouvel éclairage sur la fonction des éléments transposables, longtemps considérés comme des parasites du génome, renforce la notion de co-évolution étroite entre ces éléments et le génome hôte.

Le métabolisme cérébral à la loupe biphotonique
par Jérôme Lecoq et Serge Charpak, Inserm, CNRS, Paris     (Nature Medicine, sous presse)
Chacune de nos pensées se traduit par une consommation importante d'oxygène par les neurones. Une nouvelle technique d’imagerie permet de mesurer cette consommation et les changements de flux sanguins associés

Comment sont choisis les sites d’échanges entre chromosomes lors de la méiose ?
par Frédéric Baudat et Bernard de Massy, Institut de Génétique Humaine, CNRS, Montpellier    (Science 2010)
La recombinaison des chromosomes lors de la méiose augmente la diversité génétique à chaque génération. Les échanges ont lieu en des sites précis du génome ; une protéine en contrôle la distribution...

La perception du nitrate par le transporteur NRT1.1 contrôle le développement de la plante…
par Gabriel Krouk et Alain Gojon, CNRS/INRA/Supagro/Université de Montpellier    (Dev Cell 2010)
Un mécanisme de perception de l’environnement totalement original est mis en lumière : il permet à la plante de favoriser la colonisation racinaire dans les zones du sol perçues comme étant riches en nitrate.

This is why, for the first time, the AXA Research Funds has organized a "Pop Day" to help its granted fellows to popularize their work. After a day of breathing, elocution, writing, and layout or illustration techniques exercises to help them explaining simply and clearly their work and preventing them from loosing their consitency, five of them chosed to present the subject of their research before an audience built of board of directors from the AXA Group. Each researcher has illustrated its presentation with pictures, examples, charts and concrete anecdotes. Both the public and the jury enjoyed presentations on the following subjects. (Click on the names to see the presentations)  :

1. 1.     Probabilities in Decision Trees: the impact of action on uncertainty, by Shweta AGARWAL (PhD at the London School of Economics)
   
   
2. 2.    The Opium Market, Revenue Opportunities and Insurgency in Afghanistan’s Provinces, by Vincent BOVE (Post-Doc at the University of Essex)
   
   
3. 3.     The Risks of Greed and Fear in Financial Decision Making, by Helena PIKULINA (PhD at the Tilburg University)
   
   
4. 4.    Leading by example : an evolutionary perspective on group-decision making by Andrew KING (Post-Doc at Institute of Zoology of London) ;
   
   
5. 5.    Robustness in managing risk uncertainty by Anders SANDBERG (Post-Doc at the University of Oxford)

Through this event, AXA gives the proof of its will for contributing risk education from the source of the fundamental research.