Pascale Cossart
Cossart in 2013.
Born	(1948-03-21)21 March 1948 (age 77)
Alma mater	Lille University,Georgetown University,University of Paris
Awards	Robert Koch Prize (2007) Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2008)[1] Balzan Prize (2013) Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine (2017)
Scientific career
Fields	Bacteriology
Institutions	Pasteur Institute

Pascale Cossart (born 21 March 1948) is a Frenchbacteriologist who is affiliated with thePasteur Institute of Paris. She is the foremost authority onListeria monocytogenes,^[2] a deadly and common food-bornepathogen responsible forencephalitis,meningitis,bacteremia,gastroenteritis, and other diseases.

Cossart was born in the north of France in 1948. She grew up and attended school inArras.^[3]Cossart earned a B.S. and M.S. fromLille University in 1968. She then earned an M.S. in chemistry fromGeorgetown University in 1971, and her Ph.D. inbiochemistry at the Pasteur Institute and theUniversity of Paris in 1977 (University Paris Diderot).^[4] She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at thePasteur Institute.^[4] She is currently a Professor and Head of the Unité des Interactions Bactéries Cellules at the Pasteur Institute.^[4] In 1998, she received theRichard Lounsbery Prize and theL'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science.^[4] She was awarded theBalzan Prize for Infectious Diseases: Basic and Clinical Aspects in 2013.^[5]

Cossart's research has focused on infection byintracellular bacteria, and in particular the infectious agentListeria monocytogenes.^[4]

Listeria is afood-borne bacterialpathogen responsible for numerous illnesses and a mortality rate of 30%. The bacteria is one of the best models ofintracellular parasitism because it is particularly hardy, able to survive in a variety of cells, cross multiple host barriers, and spreads throughActA, the protein responsible foractin-based motility.^[6] Cossart's work has shed light on the genetic and biochemical processes that makeListeria so effective and lethal, identifying thebsh gene; regulatory mechanisms such as anRNA thermosensor that controlexpression of the virulence genes such as bsh; and the ways in whichListeria enters cells and crosses physiological barriers such as theblood–brain barrier, the intestinal barrier, and theplacental barrier. The discovery by Cossart's lab of the interaction betweenL. monocytogenes' protein,internalin, and its cell receptor,E-cadherin, was the first such study that successfully demonstrated the molecular mechanism that permits a bacterial agent to cross the placental barrier.^[3]

In 2009 Cossart published what she describes as the first "bacterialoperon map"—thetranscriptional program that regulates Listeria's behavior in different environmental conditions.^[7] By comparing the sequences of Listeria drawn from soil and drawn from the human gut, Cossart identifiednon-coding RNAs that contribute to Listeria's virulence, identified additional RNArepressors, and determined thatriboswitches can act both downstream and upstream.^[3]

As part of her work she has also developed important biological tools, including atransgenic mouse that was the first animal model to overcome bacterial species-specificity. The mouse carried a human version of a host cell membrane receptor thatL. monocytogenes used to enter cells.^[3]

• Cossart, Pascale; Boquet, Patrice; Normark, Staffan; Rappuoli, Rino, eds. (29 November 2004).Cellular Microbiology. Washington, DC, USA: ASM Press.doi:10.1128/9781555817633.ISBN 978-1-68367-203-6.
• Finlay, B. Brett (2001). "CrackingListeria' s Password".Science.292 (5522). American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):1665–1667.doi:10.1126/science.1062045.ISSN 0036-8075.PMID 11387462.S2CID 12009460.
• Toledo-Arana, Alejandro; Dussurget, Olivier; Nikitas, Georgios; Sesto, Nina; Guet-Revillet, Hélène; Balestrino, Damien; Loh, Edmund; Gripenland, Jonas; Tiensuu, Teresa; Vaitkevicius, Karolis; Barthelemy, Mathieu; Vergassola, Massimo; Nahori, Marie-Anne; Soubigou, Guillaume; Régnault, Béatrice; Coppée, Jean-Yves; Lecuit, Marc; Johansson, Jörgen; Cossart, Pascale (17 May 2009). "The Listeria transcriptional landscape from saprophytism to virulence".Nature.459 (7249). Springer Science and Business Media LLC:950–956.Bibcode:2009Natur.459..950T.doi:10.1038/nature08080.ISSN 0028-0836.PMID 19448609.S2CID 4341657.

• "Professor Pascale Cossart".VinFuture. 22 October 2021. Retrieved28 November 2021.

• 1948 births
• Living people
• French microbiologists
• 21st-century French biologists
• L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates
• Richard-Lounsbery Award laureates
• 21st-century American women scientists
• Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
• Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences alumni
• French women biologists
• Women microbiologists
• Members of the French Academy of Sciences
• Officers of the Legion of Honour
• Foreign members of the Royal Society
• Commanders of the Ordre national du Mérite
• Pasteur Institute
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine
• Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
• Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

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