Our history

After a brilliant student career, Louis Pasteur entered the École normale supérieure and chose to study the optical activity for the polarized light of crystals of tartaric acid and tartrate derived from the fermentation of wine. He shows in his Thesis of Science defended in 1847, that living organisms produce optically active asymmetric crystals, which differentiates organic matter from the mineral world.

He began his career as a substitute professor of chemistry at the Faculty of Strasbourg, then he was appointed at the age of 32, the first dean of the Faculty of Sciences which had just been created in Lille in 1854. It is in our city that, working at the request of the brewers of the region, Pasteur will make, between 1854 and 1857, fundamental observations on alcoholic fermentations which will give birth to microbiology and the discovery of the role of germs. in infections.

Very quickly, Albert Calmette became interested in tuberculosis and was joined by the veterinarian Camille Guérin. A key research object that will occupy them for twenty years to achieve the discovery of an effective vaccine that bears their name: BCG (Bacille de Calmette et Guérin) developed in the premises of the Pasteur Institute in Lille.

From 1905 to 1919, the two researchers worked on this vaccine which was used with success for the first time in young children in 1921. In 1928, vaccination with BCG was widely distributed throughout the world.

Even today, the Institute’s researchers continue to fight tuberculosis and follow in Calmette and Guérin’s footsteps. Camille Locht’s team is working on the development of a booster vaccine that would prolong the effectiveness of the initial BCG and a treatment to make Koch’s bacillus more sensitive to antibiotics in order to reduce the doses and the effects associated secondary.