Didier Mazel appointed Director of Scientific Careers and Assessment Department

The senior management team would like to share a message following the appointment of Didier Mazel as Vice-President Scientific Careers and Assessment at the Institut Pasteur:

"Dear all,

On my proposal, the Board of Governors, which met on Wednesday December 11, 2024, has approved the appointment of Didier Mazel as Director of the Scientific Careers and Assessment Department (DCES).

As part of the Scientific Department, the DCES is involved in managing the careers and skills of scientific managers, as well as in evaluating structures. As part of the implementation of the Pasteur 2030 strategic plan, Didier Mazel will be in charge of these major missions to support science and those involved in it. With his team, he will focus in particular on:

•    Organizing the evaluation of the scientific projects of the research entities (G5, U5 and U10) by the Institut Pasteur's Scientific Council for their creation and re-creation, the mid-term evaluation of the U10, as well as the implementation and distribution of the various calls for the recruitment of new teams;

•    Organizing the biennial evaluation of the activities of the Institut Pasteur's scientific managers, as well as their promotions and/or recruitment, in conjunction with the committee for the evaluation of the scientific activities of staff (COMESP);

•    Contributing to the promotion of the work of Pasteurians in the awarding of prestigious scientific prizes and managing the awarding of Pasteurian prizes.  

The evaluation of the research structures and frameworks put in place by the DCES is one of the essential elements guaranteeing the excellence of pasteurian research, and the recruitment of new talent.

Didier Mazel's experience and professional qualities will be indispensable to him in these tasks, and I have every confidence in him to help us implement our strategic plan to promote the excellence of our research and support the Pasteur community".

Yasmine Belkaid
President

Didier Mazel earned a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Genetics from the University of Paris VI in 1990, and he completed his thesis work under the supervision of Nicole Tandeau de Marsac at the Institut Pasteur where he was appointed assistant the same year. Promoted to research fellow in 1995, he became head of the laboratory in 2002 before taking over as head of the Bacterial Genome Plasticity unit in 2004 whose work focuses on the role of specific genetic elements involved in the acquisition of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, known as integrons, as well as the development of new antibiotic approaches and the structure of bacterial genomes.

Alongside his research activities, Didier Mazel is involved in teaching at the Institut Pasteur and has been sharing his expertise in bacterial genetics as director of the Genome Analysis course since 2015. He also co-directed the Resistance to Antimicrobial Agents MOOC. Professor at the Institut Pasteur since 2012, Didier Mazel has been Deputy Director for Scientific Evaluation at the DCES since 2020. In addition, and since 2018, he has chaired the Scientific and Strategic Council of the IRT Bioaster.   

Didier Mazel is the author of more than 140 publications in internationally-renowned scientific journals, and the results of his work have been patented four times. He was awarded the Jean-Pierre Lecoq Prize by the Académie des Sciences (2006) and the Pasteur Vallery-Radot Prize (2010). Recipient of the Louis Pasteur Chair of Excellence (2016), he is also an elected member of several scientific academies: the American Academy of Microbiology, the European Academy of Microbiology and the Academia Europaea.