Let's Celebrate Louis Pasteur's 200th!
From chemist to the inventor of a rabies vaccine, his metamorphosis and his legacy.
WHEN: Tuesday, December 6, 2022, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
WHERE: hybrid event | 2001 Â鶹AV College Avenue, Room 1140, or Zoom.
Thérèse Bouchez, MD, MPH, CSPQ.
Lecturer, School of Population and Global Health
Abstract
Born on December 27th, 1822, the French chemist Louis Pasteur was one of the most important founders of medical microbiology.
Pasteur’s discoveries on fermentation revolutionized the food industry.
His discoveries on the silkworm diseases guided his later research on contagious diseases in animals, then in humans.
Pasteur and R. Koch’s works on anthrax brought the first experimental proof that a contagious disease was caused by a microorganism.
Consequently, Pasteur codified the rules of hygiene, which would be decisive to avoid infections, especially from surgery. Extended to our daily life, these principles have implications in numerous fields.
Pasteur hypothesized that attenuated forms of microbes could be used to protect against the virulent forms. After the vaccines against cholera and anthrax in animals, the one against rabies, applicable to humans, opens the road to the development of vaccinology.
Today, the "Pasteur Network" has 33 members, located on five continents. All bring services to their area, participate in the global surveillance of infectious diseases, and collaborate with numerous research programs. They serve a common objective which is to put science at the disposal to improve the human health of all everywhere in the world.
Speaker bio
Now retired and living close to her children and grandson, Dr. Bouchez has worked in several regions of Quebec, in Ottawa (ON), and in France in both Public Health (PH) and Clinical Medicine (as a GP, a Paediatrician, a Neonatologist and a Hospital Occupational Health Practitioner). She has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has also been involved as a researcher in a broad range of PH issues and has served with a number of organizations.
In Canada, her main fields of interest and achievements in PH have been maternal and child health, cardiovascular disease prevention, promotion of community health research and organization of continuous medical education, mostly at a regional level. She participated in the regional public health on-call system in Outaouais and Nord-du-Quebec. She successfully managed the meningococcal crisis in the Quebec Outaouais in December 1991 and the subsequent immunization campaign (under the name Mishra).
Dr. Bouchez has an MD degree and a pediatric certification from Lille 2 (France), an MPH from UC Berkeley (minor in Maternal and Child Health), a CSPQ in Community Health and a certification in Occupational Health from Lyon 1 (France).