Each winner has received an award of €100,000.
Four award recipients were selected among the 80 scientists who were nominated this year for these awards for their research in four different fields:
- Dr. Carolina BARILLAS-MURY, in the field of tropical and neglected diseases
- Dr. Christelle DESNUES, in the field of disease prevention, including vaccines
- Pr. Alain FISCHER, in the field of immunology, immunomodulation, immunogenetics and translational technologies
- Pr. Roy KISHONY, in the field of new approaches to drug resistance.
The award recipients were officially honored in a ceremony today at Sanofi’s headquarters. Professor Peter C. Agre, 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and chairman of the selection jury, Christopher A. Viehbacher, Chief Executive Officer, Sanofi and Professor Christian Bréchot, President of the Institut Pasteur, participated in the proceedings.
“The Institut Pasteur is proud to accompany Sanofi, its historic and privileged partner, in presenting Awards to four outstanding laureates”, stated Pr. Christian Bréchot, President of the Institut Pasteur. “For 125 years, our Institut has perpetuated the concept launched by Louis Pasteur of fundamental research tightly linked to its practical applications. To see his name associated with that of a global healthcare company via the “Sanofi – Institut Pasteur Awards” seems to me a strong emblem of his vision functioning better than ever today.”
“The coming together of Sanofi and Institut Pasteur for these Awards reflects two of the core elements required in improving global health – innovation and partnership. Sanofi is proud to support this initiative”, said Christopher A. Viehbacher. “There will always be a certain amount of uncertainty in science, but without the creativity, courage, passion and determination of scientists, such as those we honor through these awards, we would not succeed in bringing future innovative solutions to meet patient needs.”
The jury 2013 included eight members:
- Pr. Peter C. Agre, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2003
- Pr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, University of California, San Francisco, Nobel Prize for Medicine 2009
- Pr. Alice Dautry, Former President of Institut Pasteur (2005-2013), Head of Biology of Cell Interactions, Institut Pasteur
- Pr. Ivan Dedov, President of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
- Pr. Jörg Hinrich Hacker, President of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle
- Pr. Philippe Monteyne, Vice President, Research & Development France, Sanofi
- Pr. Philippe Sansonetti, Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Professor at the College de France and Head of Molecular Microbial Pathogenesis, Institut Pasteur
- Dr. Elias Zerhouni, President, Global Research & Development, Sanofi.
The four honorees were selected within two groups of candidates: mid-career scientists and senior scientists.
Two, out of 22 applicants in the mid-career group, with not more than 15 years of experience following their doctoral degree and outstanding research:
- Dr. Christelle DESNUES, PhD, works for the CNRS Unit of Emerging Tropical Diseases at the la Timone University hospital, Marseille, France. She was nominated in the category of “Innovative Approaches to disease prevention, including vaccines”. She has been honored for her work in viral metagenomics and microbial ecology and in support of her current research on the diversity of viruses in the environment associated with humans.
- Pr. Roy KISHONY, PhD, Harvard Medical School, USA, and Technion, Israel, was nominated in the category of “New approaches to drug resistance”. He has established the quantitative principles governing evolution of resistance in multi-drug treatments, creating a new discipline at the intersection of pharmacology, systems biology, and evolution. He has been honored for his original systems biology research explaining the principles governing the evolution of drug resistance.
And two out of 58 applicants in the senior scientists group, with outstanding research:
- Dr. Carolina BARILLAS-MURY, MD, PhD, Senior Investigator at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, USA, was rewarded for her scientific contributions to the understanding of mosquito immune responses that affect malaria transmission. Her research incorporates insect biology, physiology and genetic strategies to understand the ways malaria parasites deal with mosquitos’ antiplasmodial defenses to survive and multiply.
- Pr. Alain FISCHER, MD, PhD, Director of the Pediatric Immunology Unit (Inserm), Hôpital Necker-Enfants malades, Professor at the Paris Descartes University, Paris France, was nominated in the “Immunology, immunomodulation, immunogenetics and translational technologies” category. He was selected by the Sanofi – Institut Pasteur jury for elucidation of the molecular basis of more than 30 primary immunodeficiencies in young children and the development of the first effective gene therapy in humans.
