Romain Levayer, head of the group ‘Cell death and epithelial homeostasis’, has received the Pasteur Vallery-Radot prize 2023.
Jacqueline Pasteur Vallery-Radot, the wife of Louis Pasteur’s grandson, chose the National Library of France (BnF) as the residuary legatee of her estate. Under the terms of her will, the BnF awards two €16,000 prizes every year in consultation with the Institut Pasteur.
Since 2007, these prizes have been awarded annually to two French scientists under the age of 50 and working at the Institut Pasteur who have led a major scientific project in the field of biology or physics/chemistry over the last five years, thus proving themselves to be worthy heirs of Pasteur himself.
Winners are chosen by a panel of Institut Pasteur and French Academy of Sciences members, chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences.
The panel selected this year, along with Ludovic Deriano, Head of the ‘Genome integrity, Immunity and Cancer’ unit in the department of Immunology, Romain Levayer. His research and that of his team focuses on the coordination mechanisms between cells in a single tissue that maintain a balance between proliferation and cell death or adjust cell elimination following local disruptions. His research, conducted with his team, is important for understanding the processes that subtly regulate the selection of certain subpopulations of cells with mutations that can result in the emergence of tumors.
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