The CeRIS keeps and manages a unique collection of historical resources and images produced at the Institut Pasteur.
These wide-ranging resources provide a record of the history of the Institut Pasteur and its scientists for the past 130 years. Most of them are accessible to the public.
PaJ@Mo is the CeRIS digital library. It contains digitized documents about the early days of French molecular biology at the Institut Pasteur and scholarly writings by its scientists.
Since 2012, the National Library of France (BnF) has been digitizing collections such as the Institut Pasteur Annals, archives from institutes in the the Institut Pasteur International Network, and the work and correspondence of Louis Pasteur.
The CeRIS library offers access to the exhaustive bibliographies of Institut Pasteur scientists who have contributed to the history of science. Where possible, links are provided to access the full text of the references cited.
Louis Pasteur, 1822-1895
Chemist and biologist
Founder of microbiology, established the Institut Pasteur in 1888 following invention of the rabies vaccination.
Ilya Mechnikov (also written as Elie Metchnikoff), 1845-1916
Russian zoologist and biologist.
Head of Department (1888-1916) and Deputy Director (1904-1916) of the Institut Pasteur. Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908 for his work on immunity.
Jules Bordet, 1870-1961
Belgian physician and bacteriologist.
Director of the Provincial Institute of Serotherapy and Bacteriology (1900) which became the Pasteur Institute of Brabant (1905) and then the Pasteur Institute of Brussels (1943).
Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1919 for his work on immunity.
Félix Mesnil, 1868-1938
French zoologist and biologist.
Joined the Institut Pasteur in 1892 and worked with Alphonse Laveran on trypanosomes. Appointed as Head of the Colonial Microbiology Department in 1907.
Alexandre Yersin, 1863-1943
French physician and biologist of Swiss origin.
Isolated the plague bacillus in Hong Kong in 1894. Founded the Institut Pasteur in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in 1895.
Albert Calmette, 1880-1933
Physician and bacteriologist.
Founder of the Institut Pasteur in Lille, Deputy Director of the Institut Pasteur in Paris (1917-1933). Developed the BCG with Camille Guérin in 1921.
Edouard Dujardin Beaumetz, 1868-1947
French physician and biologist.
Assistant, head of laboratory, then head of the plague unit at the Institut Pasteur, Paris (1897-1940).
Other bibliographies of Institut Pasteur scientists (in French)
Since 2010, the CeRIS has been hosting exhibitions on its premises that feature documents from the archives, the picture library and the library's historical collection. These virtual exhibitions are a long-term record of the CeRIS exhibitions.
Women at the Institut Pasteur
(in French)
The history of the operon model
(in French)
An introduction to evolution
(in French)
The Archives Division of the CeRIS, set up in 1987 for the Institut Pasteur's centenary, is responsible for collecting, organizing and describing the records of the Institut Pasteur's administrative and scientific departments.
The Pasteur Museum first opened to the public at the Institut Pasteur in 1936. The Museum harbors the memory of the life and work of Louis Pasteur in the large apartment where he lived for the last seven years of his life.
The picture library contains collections of the photos produced at the Institut Pasteur – historical, scientific and institutional photos – in digital format.
The images on the picture library website can be reproduced with the permission of the picture library and subject to acceptance of the loan conditions.
All the documents available in the digital library are free of copyright and can be downloaded or printed.
Yes, you can consult the historical documents held by the archives and the library. Further information about using the historical archives is available here. Further information about using the library is available here..
The digitized collections in Gallica are the result of cooperation between the National Library of France and the CeRIS. They are mainly composed of the Institut Pasteur's periodical publications: the Institut Pasteur Newsletter and Annals, archives from the institutes in the Institut Pasteur International Network, etc. In PaJ@Mo, the CeRIS digital library, the digitized collections are mainly scholarly publications by the Institut Pasteur's scientists. In the long-term, PaJ@Mo will also reference the documents about the Institut Pasteur held by Gallica.
