Entomology, the study of insects, is a long-standing tradition at the Institut Pasteur. Institut Pasteur scientist Alphonse Laveran was the first to describe the malaria agent, Plasmodium, in 1880, while working in Constantine, Algeria. His work on protozoa earned him the Nobel Prize in 1907. In 1898, Paul-Louis Simond demonstrated that the bacterium responsible for plague, the Yersinia pestis bacillus discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, was spread by fleas. A few years later, in 1909, at the Institut Pasteur in Tunis, Charles Nicolle revealed the role of the louse Pediculus humanus in spreading typhus caused by the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1928. These illustrious Institut Pasteur scientists firmly established medical entomology as a typically Pasteurian discipline.

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