NIAID’s Belkaid Receives Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award

Belkaid with Dr. Staffan Normark of the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award jury

Photo: F. GARDY, INSTITUT PASTEUR

Dr. Yasmine Belkaid, chief of the mucosal immunology section in NIAID’s Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, has been awarded one of four Sanofi-Institut Pasteur 2016 International Awards. Belkaid received the International Mid-Career Award for her contributions to the field of immunology. Each year, these awards honor four scientists “whose outstanding research in the life sciences is contributing to progress in global public health.” The award was presented on Dec. 13 in Paris, France.

Belkaid obtained her Ph.D. in 1996 from the Pasteur Institute in France on innate responses to Leishmania infection. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at NIAID on immune regulation to infection, she joined the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati as an assistant professor in 2002. In 2005, she joined the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases as a tenure-track investigator and became a tenured investigator in 2008. Since 2007, she has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work explores the role of the microbiota and nutrition in the control of immunity to infection.