Pascal Mayer is a French

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

and entrepreneur specializing in biomolecular analyses for diagnostics,

predictive medicine Predictive medicine is a field of medicine that entails predicting the probability of disease and instituting preventive measures in order to either prevent the disease altogether or significantly decrease its impact upon the patient (such as by pr ...

and drug discovery. He is known for his work that led to the development of a next-generation for an inexpensive and rapid

DNA sequencing DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. The ...

technology. that would become the basis of Illumina technology, and for which he was awarded the 2022

Breakthrough Prize in life sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of t ...

category. He is currently the president o
Alphanosos
He was awarded the

Canada Gairdner International Award The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a ...

in 2024. He is the co-founder of Alphanosos, a company in applied AI for sustainable health and bio-industries that develops natural health products based on patentable mixes of plant extracts.

Biography

Pascal Mayer was born in 1963 in

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

, where he grew up. He graduated in 1988 with a Master's degree (DEA) in Molecular Biology from the

Louis Pasteur University Louis Pasteur University (, ULP), also known as Strasbourg I, was a large university in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. As of 15 January 2007, there were 18,847 students enrolled at the university, including around 3,000 foreign students. Researc ...

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

, where he obtained his PhD in Macromolecular Biophysics in 1991 His thesis was devoted to the development of an automated apparatus for measuring electrical birefringence on gel and to the experimental study of

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

dynamics during pulsed-field

electrophoresis Electrophoresis is the motion of charged dispersed particles or dissolved charged molecules relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. As a rule, these are zwitterions with a positive or negative net ch ...

. From 1991 to 1994, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

(

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

) where he demonstrated how a new method for separating DNA in free solution could significantly improve DNA sequencing methods. During a second postdoctoral fellowship at the Paul Pascal Research Center of the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

, from 1994 to 1996, he invented a method and wrote software to analyze video-microscopy images of blurred moving objects (DNA molecules) using spatio-temporal correlation maps. In November 1996, he joined the

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

group in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, where his work led to the filing of patents revealing the new method of massive parallel

, subsequently acquired by the British company Solexa created by Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman, whose start-up was ultimately acquired by Illumina. These patents have enabled the creation of a rapid, robust and inexpensive DNA sequencing technique (one day and around $600 for the resequencing of a complete human genome), which is now used on a large scale. In this respect, Pascal Mayer received the

category in 2022 (alongside these two British scientists) and the

in 2024. This technology enabled the rapid sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) in 2020 and the regular monitoring of genetic mutations of the different variants. In 2014, he co-founded the compan
Alphanosos
located in

Riom Riom (; Auvergnat ''Riam'') is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. History Until the French Revolution, Riom was the capital of the province of Auvergne, and the ...

(

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; or ) is a cultural region in central France. As of 2016 Auvergne is no longer an administrative division of France. It is generally regarded as conterminous with the land area of the historical Province of Auvergne, which was dis ...

). In his company he has made several developments so far : * anti-coronavirus SARS-CoV2, validated in a lethal mouse model (efficacy in this model comparable to convalescent patient serum), registered as a marketed food supplement, with the aim of carrying out a clinical study. Also note in vitro activity against cold and H1N1 flu viruses. * natural antibacterials, patented in the European Union and 15 countries including the USA, active against bacteria multiresistant to traditional antibiotics, used in dermatological products already marketed, and validated by a clinical study. * anti-cancer (colorectal and epidermoid) in vitro on cell lines, specific to cancer cells (no measurable effect on non-cancer cell lines), experiments carried out with EPFL. * antibacterials based on IFRA compounds (perfume) for anti-bad odor ingredient, in partnership with Eurofragance. * successful technical evaluation with L'Oréal (generative AI of plant mixture extracts on dermatological application) * dermatological application for dogs

Rewards

* 2022 :

Breakthrough Prize The Breakthrough Prizes are a set of international awards bestowed in three categories by the Breakthrough Prize Board in recognition of scientific advances. The awards are part of several "Breakthrough" initiatives founded and funded by Yuri M ...

* 2024 : Gairdner Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayer, Pascal 21st-century French scientists Living people 1963 births