Pierre Tiollais memorial symposium on June 12, 2025

On June 12, the Institut Pasteur will pay tribute to Pierre Tiollais, who died on August 5, 2024, with an event in the Émile Duclaux lecture hall from 9am to 12 noon.

Pierre Tiollais was known the world over for his major contributions to cloning and sequencing the hepatitis B virus (HBV) then developing a safe and effective HBV vaccine, saving many lives.

Pierre Tiollais was a Professor Emeritus at Denis-Diderot University and at the Institut Pasteur, and an Honorary Professor at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. He was an emblematic figure at the Institut Pasteur and a pioneer of genetic engineering in France. Pierre Tiollais was greatly appreciated by his colleagues and was an outstanding mentor for many scientists (see the March 21, 2025 edition of the newsletter).

We hope that lots of you will come along to this event, during which several scientists will pay tribute to Pierre Tiollais with the following program:

Opening address: Pr. Jean Weissenbach

Virology session

Pr. Patrick Charnay: Genetic engineering and sequencing of the HBV genome
Dr. Barbara Testoni: From HBV molecular virology to biomarkers

Vaccinology session

Dr. Marie-Louise Michel: From HBV genome cloning to vaccine development
Pr. Stanislas Pol: HBV vaccination, implementation successes and challenges

Cancerology session

Pr. Christian Bréchot: Discovery of the HBV DNA integrants and their role in liver cancer
Pr. Thomas Baumert: Claudin-1: from Hepatitis C virus cell entry to targeting liver cancer

Organizing committee: Pascal Pineau, Hélène Strick-Marchand