Institut de Myologie — Institute of Myology

Overview

The Institut de Myologie is an international reference centre for neuromuscular diseases, located at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Founded in 1996 by AFM-Téléthon and Généthon, it coordinates medical management, basic research, clinical research, and education in myology. Its governance associates five public bodies: AP-HP, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, and the CEA. It is a core node of NeurATRIS.

Research Structure

Centre of Research in Myology (CRM)

Nine scientific teams covering fundamental research, neuromuscular disease mechanisms, and therapeutic applications. Main focus areas: extracellular matrix pathologies, centronuclear myopathy, muscle regeneration, myotonic dystrophy (REDs team).

Neuromuscular Investigation Center (NIC)

The NIC is the applied and clinical research infrastructure comprising:

• NeuPEL (Neuromuscular Physiology and Evaluation Laboratory) develops outcome measures and measurement tools for clinical trials including the MyoWrist dynamometer and ultrasound diaphragm assessment via the RespiMyo project.
• The NMR and Spectroscopy Laboratory studies in vivo muscle anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry using MRI and spectroscopy.
• The Morphological Unit identifies and characterises neuromuscular diseases of genetic origin through neuropathology and muscle biopsy.
• Myobank-AFM is an IBiSA-labelled biobank of human muscle, nerve, and fluid samples from neuromuscular and rare disease patients, aligned with BBMRI-ERIC standards and using HPO and ORDO for phenotyping.

Clinical Centres

• I-Motion Pediatric is the paediatric clinical trial centre for neuromuscular diseases.
• I-Motion Adults is the adult clinical trial centre.
• Service de Neuro-Myologie is the clinical department at Pitié-Salpêtrière.

Key Open Science Resources

• Muscle Atlas is an open-access histological atlas of muscle pathology.
• Myotools provides open-source tools for neuromuscular outcome measures.
• French and European neuromuscular disease registries are aligned with ERN Vocabularies (ERN-NMD).

Connections

• Translational infrastructure: NeurATRIS
• Clinical partner: AP-HP
• Biobank: Myobank-AFM → BBMRI-ERIC

Resources

• https://www.institut-myologie.org/en/
• https://recherche-myologie.fr/?lang=en (Centre of Research in Myology)
• https://www.neuratris.com (NeurATRIS, of which IHU-A-ICM is a founding node)