Bruno Lemaitre (born in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

) is a French immunologist and a professor at the

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(EPFL). His research focuses on the mechanisms of

innate immunity The innate, or nonspecific, immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies (the other being the adaptive immune system) in vertebrates. The innate immune system is an older evolutionary defense strategy, relatively speaking, and is the ...

and

endosymbiosis An ''endosymbiont'' or ''endobiont'' is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism most often, though not always, in a mutualistic relationship. (The term endosymbiosis is from the Greek: ἔνδον ''endon'' "within ...

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many speci ...

. Lemaitre has also authored several books on the topic of

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

in science.

Career

Lemaitre obtained a PhD in

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

from the

Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie Pierre and Marie Curie University (french: link=no, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, UPMC), also known as Paris 6, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the La ...

in 1992, defending a thesis on the regulation of P element transposition in

. He then pursued work as research associate in the laboratory of Jules Hoffmann, where he identified

Toll-like receptor Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a class of proteins that play a key role in the innate immune system. They are single-pass membrane-spanning receptors usually expressed on sentinel cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells, that recognize ...

s as essential mediators of

. This work was considered as a landmark paper by the Nobel prize committee and was featured in the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Hoffmann. In 1998, he was appointed group leader at the Molecular Genetics Center of the

French National Center for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

Gif-sur-Yvette Gif-sur-Yvette (, literally ''Gif on Yvette'') is a commune in south-western Ile de France, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Geography The town is crossed by and named after the river Yvette. The total area is and is green s ...

. He moved to EPFL in 2007 as a full professor within the Global Health Institute. Lemaitre has since 2016 published several books and essays related to the topic of narcissism in science and society. He is co-author of various

MOOCs A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, man ...

and an exercise book in French on the topic of immunology.

Research

The Lemaitre laboratory studies various aspects of

using

as a genetic model. The laboratory uses

genetic screen A genetic screen or mutagenesis screen is an experimental technique used to identify and select individuals who possess a phenotype of interest in a mutagenized population. Hence a genetic screen is a type of phenotypic screen. Genetic screens c ...

s as tools to identify novel factors involved in the immune response following microbial infection. His team has contributed to the better understanding the role of the

Toll Toll may refer to: Transportation * Toll (fee) a fee charged for the use of a road or waterway ** Road pricing, the modern practice of charging for road use ** Road toll (historic), the historic practice of charging for road use ** Shadow toll, ...

and

NF-κB Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) is a protein complex that controls transcription of DNA, cytokine production and cell survival. NF-κB is found in almost all animal cell types and is involved in cellular ...

pathways in the activation of bacterial defense, as well as how the host's immune system discriminates between different bacterial pathogens. Lemaitre also studies host- microbiota interactions, and more specifically how the microbiota influences gut

homeostasis In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...

and

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

. Another aspect of interest to Lemaitre is to decipher the roles and mechanisms of the interactions occurring between Drosophila and its

endosymbiont An ''endosymbiont'' or ''endobiont'' is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism most often, though not always, in a mutualistic relationship. (The term endosymbiosis is from the Greek: ἔνδον ''endon'' "within ...

s of the

spiroplasma ''Spiroplasma'' is a genus of Mollicutes, a group of small bacteria without cell walls. ''Spiroplasma'' shares the simple metabolism, parasitic lifestyle, fried-egg colony morphology and small genome of other ''Mollicutes'', but has a distinctiv ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Distinctions

Lemaitre received two ''Advanced Grants'' from the European Research Council for projects on gut immunity and homeostasis (2008) and

Spiroplasma ''Spiroplasma'' is a genus of Mollicutes, a group of small bacteria without cell walls. ''Spiroplasma'' shares the simple metabolism, parasitic lifestyle, fried-egg colony morphology and small genome of other ''Mollicutes'', but has a distinctiv ...

interactions (2013). Lemaitre was elected as an EMBO member in 2007. He received several research prizes, such as the Noury, Thorlet, Lazare Prize from the French Academy of Sciences (2001), the First Prize of the Schlumberger Foundation (2002), the

William B. Coley Award The William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology is presented annually by the Cancer Research Institute, to scientists who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of basic and tumor immunology and whose w ...

for distinguished research in basic and tumor immunology (2003), the Lucien Tartois Prize from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (2006) and the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Science (2010).

Bibliography

* ''An essay on Science and Narcissism: How do high-ego personalities drive research?'' (2016. Published by Quanto in 2019) * ''Les dimensions de l'égo'' (Quanto, 2019) *

References

External links

*
Books on the topic of narcissism authored by Bruno Lemaitre
on EPFL PRESS. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lemaître, Bruno French immunologists Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne faculty École Normale Supérieure alumni 1964 births Living people 20th-century French scientists 21st-century French scientists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists