Institut Pasteur, partner of the Utopiales international science fiction festival. Ask for your free ticket!

For the fourth year in a row, the Institut Pasteur is an official partner of the international Utopiales festival, which promotes science fiction as an educational tool to explore the real world. The 25th edition of the festival will be held this year from October 30 to November 3 at La Cité Nantes Congress Center. Once again this year, several Institut Pasteur scientists will be taking part in the round tables.

After an outstanding 2023 edition with more than 141,000 visitors, the 25th edition of the international festival will be the biggest science fiction event in Europe, with something for everyone.

Each year, the festival combines literature, scientific research, film, graphic novels, visual arts, role-play, video games and manga, giving rise to multiple reflections on societal questions about our past, present and future.

The theme of this year's edition is "Harmony" It will be based around four aspects: peace, balance, cycle and dissonance. The 250 speakers will explore the different facets of the topic and try to determine whether this concept, which functions simultaneously as a whole, is synonymous with peace or balance, seeking to identify its cycles and inevitable dissonances, whether cognitive, ethical or generational. Are our societies capable of reaching agreement on a harmony that appeals to us all?

The Utopiales festival gives the Institut Pasteur the opportunity to involve its scientists in discussions that use science fiction as a tool to explore the real world, reflecting the determination of the Institut Pasteur's scientists to open science up to society. This year, five Institut Pasteur scientists will take part in the discussions and debates at eight round tables.

To celebrate the partnership between the Utopiales and the Institut Pasteur, the festival is offering Institut Pasteur staff free entry. Tickets can be booked now – note that travel to the festival is at your own cost.

To book your ticket, send an email to utopiales@pasteur.fr.

This is a great opportunity to go along and see Institut Pasteur scientists participating in an internationally renowned event!
 

Check out the program

 

Round tables with the Institut Pasteur

•    Where do cyborgs begin? With Yannick Goulam Houssen, a research engineer in the BioImaging Platform at the Hearing Institute

•   Seen as a monster with Thibaut Brunet, Head of the Evolutionary Cell Biology and Evolution of Morphogenesis Unit

•   Stable-unstable: balance in movement with Romain Levayer, Head of the Cell Death and Epithelial Homeostasis Unit

•   Intimate peace with Yannick Goulam Houssen

•   How would biology stand up to intergalactic travel? With Nicolas Rascovan, Head of the Microbial Paleogenomics Unit

•   Postponing death with Miria Ricchetti, Head of the Molecular Mechanisms of Pathological and Physiological Aging Unit

•   What we owe to microbes with Nicolas Rascovan

•   The utopia of a balanced world with Thibaut Brunet

•   Life and death of cells with Thibaut Brunet and Romain Levayer

•   Reinventing bodies with Miria Ricchetti

•   Telling our stories in the future moderated by François Bontems, head of the partnership with the Utopiales and a scientist in the Structural Virology Unit

Find out more