Pascale Cossart

Pascale Cossart
Born	(1948-03-21) March 21, 1948 Arras, France
Occupation(s)	Bacteriologist, Professor
Years active	Post-1977–present
Known for	Expertise on Listeria monocytogenes

Pascale Cossart (born 21 March 1948) is a distinguished French bacteriologist associated with the Pasteur Institute of Paris. She is recognized as a foremost authority on Listeria monocytogenes, a major food-borne pathogen responsible for illnesses including encephalitis, meningitis, and gastroenteritis.

Biography

Originally from northern France, Cossart was raised in Arras. She obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Lille University in 1968, then pursued an M.S. in chemistry at Georgetown University, completed in 1971. She earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry through joint work at the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris in 1977. Following a postdoctoral position at the Pasteur Institute, she advanced to become Professor and Head of the Unité des Interactions Bactéries Cellules at the same institution.

Among her prestigious accolades are the Richard Lounsbery Prize, the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science received in 1998, and the Balzan Prize for Infectious Diseases awarded in 2013.

Works

Cossart’s scientific investigations focus on infections caused by intracellular bacteria', with particular emphasis on Listeria monocytogenes, a pathogen transmitted through contaminated food that leads to severe disease with a mortality rate near 30%. Due to its robustness, capacity to infect various cell types, ability to traverse multiple host barriers, and spread driven by the ActA protein facilitating actin-mediated motility, Listeria serves as an exemplary model for studying intracellular parasitism. Her research has uncovered critical genetic and biochemical factors underpinning Listerias pathogenicity, such as the role of the bsh gene, RNA thermosensors that control virulence gene expression, and mechanisms by which the bacterium penetrates barriers like those of the blood–brain interface, intestinal lining, and placenta. A significant discovery from her laboratory revealed how the internalin protein of L. monocytogenes interacts with the E-cadherin receptor to enable placental barrier crossing.

In 2009, Cossart introduced the inaugural bacterial operon map illustrating the transcriptional regulatory networks governing Listeria's adaptive responses under diverse environmental conditions. By contrasting strains isolated from soil with those derived from the human gut, she identified non-coding RNAs involved in virulence modulation, additional RNA-based repressors, and riboswitch elements functioning both upstream and downstream of target genes.

Additionally, she engineered vital biological tools including a transgenic mouse line expressing a human membrane receptor that circumvents species-specific limitations on bacterial entry.

Significant publications

• Editor of Cellular Microbiology, ASM Press, 2004
• "Cracking Listeria’s Password," Science, 2001
• "The Listeria transcriptional landscape from saprophytism to virulence," Nature, 2009

Awards, prizes, and honorary lectures

• Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology (1995)
• Louis Rapkine Medal (1997)
• Richard Lounsbery Award (1998)
• Helena Rubenstein / UNESCO Award for Women in Science Leadership (1998)
• Corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences (1999)
• Nestle Prize "L’homme et sa nutrition" (2000)
• Louis Pasteur Gold Medal from the Swedish Society of Medicine (2000)
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar (2000–2017)
• Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2001)
• Valade Prize from Fondation de France (2003)
• Margaret Pittman Lecture at NIH (2003)
• Member of the American Academy of Microbiology (2004)
• GlaxoSmithKline International Member of the Year Award (2007)
• Descartes Prize (2007)
• ERC Advanced Grant Award (2008–2019)
• Member of European Academy of Microbiology (2009)
• President of Conseil Scientifique at Pasteur Institute
• Member of French Conseil National de la Science
• Robert Koch Prize (2007)
• Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2008)
• Foreign member of the Royal Society of London (2010)
• Robert Koch Medal (2010)
• Van Deenen Medal from Institute of Biomembranes (2011)
• Helmholtz International Fellow Award (2013)
• Balzan Prize recipient (2013)
• H.P.R. Seeliger Award (2013)
• Foreign Member of National Academy of Medicine USA (2014)
• FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award (2014)
• Jürgen Manchot-Guest Professorship holder (2014)
• Honorary Doctorate awarded by University of Birmingham (2015)
• Associated member of Académie Nationale de Pharmacie (2016)
• Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine recipient (2017)
• Prix René et Andrée Duquesne awardee (2018)
• Heinrich Wieland Prize winner (2018)
• FEMS Lwoff Award recipient (2019)
• Honorary Doctorate from Karolinska Institute (2020)
• Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology by NAS (2021)
• Grand Officier rank in Legion of Honor (2020); previously Commandeur in 2013; Officier in 2007
• Commandeur rank in Ordre national du Mérite (2010)