Museum
Camille Lataste-Dorolle: first female laboratory head
On the 25th anniversary of her death, the museum team wanted to shine a light on the little-known career of Camille Lataste-Dorolle (1905-2001), a pharmacist, microbiologist and researcher at the Institut Pasteur.
A vocation shaped in France and Asia
Camille Lataste was born in Dax, in the Landes department in France. Her father was a school teacher and she obtained her school leavers' certificate in Hanoi in 1923. She returned to France to attend university and graduated as a state-registered pharmacist in Paris in 1929. Her passion for all things microscopic soon led her to the Institut Pasteur, where she completed the famous Grand Cours in microbiology. Driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, she also specialized in parasitology, mycology and hematology.
The Indochina era: from the lab to the field
In 1930, she returned to Indochina, a region that had remained close to her heart. In Hanoi, aged just 25, she took over as head of the BCG and vaccines laboratory, making her the first woman to be appointed as a laboratory head. The focus of her research was adapting vaccines to local populations. It was there that she met Alexandre Yersin, the scientist who had discovered the plague bacillus.
She spent the period between 1934 and 1950 in Saigon, working in a variety of areas:
- She coordinated biochemical research on the nutritional value of food in South-East Asia.
- She was active in tackling food fraud and introduced food safety standards.
- She organized a system of surveillance for drinking water in Cochinchina to prevent waterborne diseases.
Active engagement as a scientist during the Second World War
In 1945, she was taken prisoner by Japanese forces and interned in a camp in Hue. In the most precarious of conditions, she set up a makeshift laboratory to produce vaccines with Pierre Dorolle, whom she married in 1946. She demonstrated remarkable courage by demanding that these treatments also be given to prisoners in the camp, at great risk to her own life. Her self-sacrifice was subsequently recognized when she was awarded the Legion of Honor.
From Geneva to cutting-edge research on Leptospira
From 1950 to 1960, Camille Lataste was based in Geneva, where she explored biophysics and the use of irradiation for food preservation, before taking over as head of the Leptospira laboratory at the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 1961. Her world-leading research led to the development of a vaccine that was crucial in protecting sewer workers in Paris.
Engagement beyond the lab
From 1971 onwards, she was involved with UNESCO in defending the rights of women and children and promoting bioethics.
More information:
Biography on the CeRIS website (in French)
Sandra Legout, Les femmes pasteuriennes : de la cuisine à la paillasse, September 10, 2011 (in French)