THE 2008 LOUIS-JEANTET PRIZE-WINNERS


Professeure Pascale Cossart See the interview of the prize-winner and her team.		Professeur Jürg Tschopp See the interview of the prize-winner and his team.

THE WINNERS OF THE 2008 LOUIS-JEANTET PRIZE FOR MEDICINE are PASCALE COSSART (Paris) and JÜRG TSCHOPP (Lausanne).

THE PRIZE-WINNERS undertake fundamental biological research with significant implications for medicine.

PASCALE COSSART is awarded the 2008 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine for her pioneering fundamental research work on Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that causes listeriosis, a serious foodborne infection. She identified the main virulence factors of this pathogen and discovered how it penetrates and disseminates in the organism. Furthermore, PASCALE COSSART coordinated a European consortium that fully decrypted the Listeria monocytogenes genome. Her research has led to new concepts both in infection biology and in cell biology, paving the way to the development of new therapeutic tools for the treatment of infectious illnesses. PASCALE COSSART will use the prize money to continue studies on Listeria and to analyse several aspects of the infectious process that are still unexplored, in order to hopefully discover unsuspected strategies used by Listeria and other pathogens.

JÜRG TSCHOPP is awarded the 2008 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine for his pioneering work in the fields of cell death and inflammation. He uncovered the key role played in these two processes by the Fas and inflammasome protein assemblies. Should they be deficient, the former can lead to the development of cancer and the latter to serious inflammatory diseases. His work has already resulted in the development of new anti-cancer therapies, some of which are undergoing clinical trials, as well as an effective medicine against gout. JÜRG TSCHOPP will use the prize money to continue his research on the Fas complex and the inflammasome, hopefully leading to treatments for other disorders, and notably for neurodegenerative diseases.

THE AWARDS CEREMONY took place on Thursday October 9, 2008, in Geneva (Switzerland), on the occasion of the celebrations for the Foundation's 25 years anniversary.