Vaccines & Vaccination

Biography

Marc P Girard received his doctorate in veterinary medicine at Paris University in 1960, and his doctorate in Science in 1967, also in Paris. He trained for three years in the molecular biology of poliovirus as a Post-doctoral Fellow in the USA with Pr James Darnell, Renato Dulbecco and David Baltimore. He went on studying the molecular biology and genetics of poliovirus, then SV40 and adenovirus, before moving to HIV. He was a visiting professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Pr Hurwitz), the NIH (Dr Anthony Fauci), the Salk Institute in La Jolla (Pr David Baltimore) and Duke University (Pr Bolognesi). He worked for the last 20 years of his career on the development of an HIV vaccine.
Pr Girard was the Director General of the Mérieux Foundation in Lyon from mid 2001 to end of 2004. He previously was the Director of the Center for Research in Immuno-Virology (CERVI) in Lyon, France, which includes the BSL4 Virology Laboratory that was operated jointly by the Mérieux Foundation and the Pasteur Institute, and the Federative Research Institute on Virology, Immunology and Pathology of Emerging Diseases (IFR 74), a research laboratory of the French National Health & Medical Research Institute (INSERM).
Among the positions held by Pr Girard prior to his appointment in Lyon were Head, Department of Virology, and Professor, Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology, Institut Pasteur, Paris (1980-1999); Scientific Director (CSO), Pasteur Vaccins, a joint industrial subsidiary of the Pasteur and Mérieux Institutes (1984-1990); Vice-Director of the Pasteur Institute, Paris (1990-92), Professor of Virology and Molecular Biology at University Paris 7 Denis Diderot, Paris (1974-1984; on leave until 2001).
Pr Girard was the Chairman of the Concerted Action “Vaccines” at the French National AIDS Research Agency (ANRS) from 1988 to 1998. He then chaired the E.U. HIV Vaccine Initiative “EuroVac”, an international AIDS vaccine Research Consortium which grouped together 21 European laboratories participating in comparative Phase I clinical trials of candidate HIV vaccines in human volunteers.
Marc Girard went on official retirement on 31.12.2004 but he has remained active, teaching, giving talks and writing review articles on vaccines as an Honorary Professor at University Denis Diderot (Paris 7). He also is a member of the French National Academy of Medicine and of the French Veterinary Academy. He has been the organizer of the “Cent Gardes Conference” on HIV Vaccines since 1986.

Research Interest

Vaccine Research