Philippe Sansonetti

Philippe Sansonetti, born on 9 April 1949, is a French physician and microbiologist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and, since 2008, professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He trained in biochemistry and microbiology at the University Paris VII and took his medical degree at Paris VI in 1979, spent time at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and returned to the Pasteur in 1981, where in 1989 he created the Molecular Microbial Pathogenesis Unit. His research has centred on how Shigella, the bacterium that causes dysentery, invades epithelial cells and is sensed by the immune system, and on vaccine candidates against it. He is considered one of the founders of cellular microbiology. His honours include the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 1994 and foreign membership of the Royal Society in 2014.