The Georges, Jacques and Elias Canetti Prize celebrates its 19th anniversary!

Here are the laureates that the Canetti Prize has rewarded those last 15 years:

For his work on the tuberculosis bacillus

Ludovic Tailleux is a Research Associate at the Institut Pasteur. He works in the Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics Unit led by Roland Brosch (winner of the 2007 Canetti Prize).

Ludovic Tailleux holds a PhD in Immunology from Paris Diderot University (2003) and an accreditation to supervise research from Paris Descartes University (2016). He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur in the unit led by Brigitte Gicquel (winner of the Canetti Prize in 2008) and was recruited as a Research Associate in the unit in 2006. He was promoted to the status of Director of Research in 2015.

Ludovic Tailleux adopts a multidisciplinary approach combining immunology, microbiology and genetics to shed light on how the etiological agent of tuberculosis, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium, interacts with cells in the human immune system.

His research has helped further our understanding of how M. tuberculosis behaves in human dendritic cells (key cells for inducing an immune system response) and has led to the identification of the main M. tuberculosis receptor on the surface of these cells.

Ludovic Tailleux is currently working on the identification of molecules capable of boosting the resistance of human cells to M. tuberculosis infection and/or improving the efficacy of antibiotics.

Ludovic Tailleux won the Jacques Monod Prize in 2003.

For his work on Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium responsible for severe foodborne infections, especially in immunocompromised individuals and pregnant women.

Javier Pizarro-Cerda leads the Yersinia Unit in the Department of Microbiology at the Institut Pasteur. With his team, he is responsible for monitoring the risk of a plague outbreak and the development of a vaccine against the plague agent, Yersinia pestis.

After completing university studies in Costa Rica, Javier Pizarro-Cerda arrived in France in 1994 as a PhD student at Aix-Marseille University. In 1999, he joined the Institut Pasteur to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship in the unit led by Pascale Cossart. He became a research assistant at the Institut Pasteur in 2002 and was promoted to Director of Research in 2015.

One of the major advances in his research was the identification of a novel bactericidal toxin produced by Listeria monocytogenes in the host intestine to destabilize the microbiota. Listeria monocytogenes is responsible for severe foodborne infections, especially in immunocompromised individuals and pregnant women.

Javier Pizarro-Cerda became a member of Academia Europaea in 2019. He is President of COMESP (the Committee for the Assessment of Staff Scientific Activities) at the Institut Pasteur and is a member of the organizing committee for the vector-borne diseases section. He is committed to strengthening links between the Institut Pasteur and South America.

Alongside his research, Javier Pizarro-Cerda loves music and traveling.

For his research on shigellosis, a diarrheal disease that is prevalent in tropical regions.

Claude Parsot is a Director of Research at the Institut Pasteur. He works in the Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit led by Francois-Xavier Weill (winner of the 2013 Canetti Prize).

Claude Parsot joined the Institut Pasteur in 1981 to pursue a PhD in Georges Cohen's laboratory on the biosynthesis pathways of amino acids. In 1988, he joined John Mekalanos' laboratory at Harvard Medical School in Boston, United States, to work on the regulation of virulence genes in the cholera bacterium.

Claude Parsot returned to the Institut Pasteur in 1990, this time to Philippe Sansonetti's unit, where he began working on another enteric pathogenic bacterium, Shigella flexneri. One of the major advances in the research by Claude Parsot and his team was the identification of a "syringe-needle" system used by S. flexneri to inject its virulence factors into the host cell (a type III secretion system).

In recognition of the quality of his research, Claude Parsot received the Louis Pasteur medal from the French Academy of Sciences in 2006.

In 2010, Claude Parsot was appointed as Executive Director for Education at the Institut Pasteur, a post he held until 2014.

For his research on Salmonella and some species of Escherichia coli to help tackle and prevent foodborne infections.

François-Xavier Weill is a Director of Research at the Institut Pasteur. He leads the Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit, the National Reference Center for Escherichia coli, Shigella and Salmonella and the WHO Collaborating Center for Typing and Antibiotic Resistance of Salmonella.

François-Xavier Weill is a physician and biologist who for the past 20 years has focused on diversity, genetic evolution and the circulation of pathogenic bacteria, especially antibiotic-resistant bacteria. His work in the field of microbial genomics has improved our understanding of the evolutionary history of major pathogens such as the agents of cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid fever, dysentery and foodborne salmonellosis. The results of his research have been published in prestigious scientific journals and some have been transposed to public health strategies.  

François-Xavier Weill is a laureate of the Deschiens Prize and the Eloi Collery Prize, awarded by the French National Academy of Medicine in 2007 and 2018 respectively, and the Canetti Prize in 2013.

In recognition of and support for her research on cryptococcosis, a major opportunistic infection in HIV patients.

Françoise Dromer is a Professor at the Institut Pasteur, where she has led the Molecular Mycology Unit and the National Reference Center for Invasive Mycoses and Antifungals since 2002.

As a physician, Françoise Dromer seeks to improve the prognosis of severe mycoses by improving our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning these infections. Her laboratory particularly focuses on Cryptococcus neoformans, an encapsulated yeast responsible for pulmonary infections and neurological and meningeal signs in immunocompromised patients.

With her team and her clinician and mycologist colleagues at Saint-Louis Hospital and Necker Hospital in Paris, Françoise Dromer applies her expertise to the identification of rare pathogenic fungi responsible for invasive mycoses. At a national level she is responsible for monitoring invasive mycoses and resistance to antifungal agents in association with Santé publique France.

Alongside her research, Françoise Dromer is Deputy Director of the Scientific Careers and Assessment Department.

In recognition of her work, Françoise Dromer received the Deschiens Prize from the French National Academy of Medicine in 2001 and was elected as a member of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2006.

In recognition of his work at the intersection of basic research in population genetics and applied research in epidemiology and human health, which has shed light on the way in which our environment has influenced our biological adaptation to infectious agents and our current susceptibility to infectious diseases.

Lluis Quintana-Murci is a Professor at the Collège de France and the Institut Pasteur. He leads the Human Evolutionary Genetics Unit at the Institut Pasteur.

Lluis Quintana-Murci was born in 1970 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He completed university studies in Barcelona, Spain, a PhD in Population Genetics at the University of Pavia, Italy, and an accreditation to supervise research at Pierre & Marie Curie University, Paris. In 2001, he was recruited to the CNRS as a Research Associate, and in 2008 he was promoted to the status of Director of Research.

The aim of the research conducted by Lluis Quintana-Murci and his team is to identify the genetic basis for resistance or susceptibility to microbial infection in humans. The results of their work help improve our understanding of the way in which natural selection has targeted innate immunity genes during evolution.

Lluis Quintana-Murci served as Scientific Director of the Institut Pasteur from 2016 to 2017. His research has been recognized by several prestigious prizes: the CNRS Bronze Medal (2008), the Dagnan-Bouveret Prize from the French Academy of Sciences (2009), the Canetti Prize (2009), the CNRS Silver Medal (2013), the Grand Prix for Medical Research awarded by the City of Paris (2014), the Mergier-Bourdeix Prize from the Academy of Sciences (2015), the Duquesne Award (2020) and the Allianz Prize from the Academy of Sciences (2020).

Lluis Quintana-Murci is holder of the Chair in Human Genomics and Evolution at the Collège de France and is a member of EMBO, Academia Europaea and the French Academy of Sciences.

For his work on tuberculosis.

Roland Brosch

is a Professor at the Institut Pasteur. Since 2008, he has led the Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics Unit in the Department of Microbiology.

Roland Brosch completed a PhD at the University of Salzburg in his home country of Austria. He then embarked on several years of post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, United States, and the Institut Pasteur in Paris (in the laboratories led by Dr. Jocelyne Rocourt and Professor Patrick Grimont). In 2000, he was recruited as a Research Associate in the Bacterial Molecular Genetics Unit led by Professor Stewart Cole.

Roland Brosch has worked for more than 20 years on mycobacteria, especially on the etiological agent of tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. His use of genomics and molecular genetics approaches enabled him to trace the evolutionary history of the bacterium and rule out the widespread theory that Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis, was the ancestor of M. tuberculosis. He demonstrated that Mycobacterium canetti, a very rare variant of the tuberculosis bacillus, isolated for the first time in 1969 by Georges Canetti, was phylogenetically similar to the ancestor of M. tuberculosis.

By comparing the genome of M. tuberculosis with that of the attenuated vaccine strain M. bovis BCG, Roland Brosch successfully identified the factors responsible for the attenuation of the BCG. His detailed study of a key region that is present in M. tuberculosis but absent from M. bovis BCG enabled him to demonstrate the existence of a protein secretion system that is vital for the bacteria to grow in the host cell and become virulent.

Roland Brosch and his team are currently focusing their efforts on the development of vaccine strains that offer greater protection than the BCG and on the identification of molecular compounds capable of limiting the growth of M. tuberculosis in preclinical infection models.

Roland Brosch is a member of the European Academy of Microbiology (EAM, 2017) and the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM, 2019).