Cared for His Siblings

He had siblings, yeah. As I mentioned before, my grandmother was this young child bride that was actually married and had children. She had eight children, five of them survived. That was a time where children died more easily from infectious disease. He had four sisters. What is really truly remarkable is my father always cared for his family and his youngest siblings, which are the two that really were in school when independence happened, became doctors. I think this is very much a testimony of a family that really cared for each other and it's a striking contrast between the older sisters that were married very young and then [my father who] was in war and jail and the two youngest [brothers] that became doctors.

Influenced My Passion for Science

I think the influence was actually everything [around me], but I have to say probably the person that had influenced me the most is my father. My father was one of the most open-minded people I have ever met. Someone that, again, hadn't had the opportunity to go to school, was self-taught, developed an incredible political career in Algeria, [was] extremely grounded in his value about his country and the necessity to actually build a country, this very young country that he inherited, for him and all the others. I think my father was also someone incredibly passionate [about] science. I think my passion for science came very much [from him and was] also influenced by his absolute respect for education and science.

His Absolute Commitment to Algeria

My father stayed absolutely in Algeria. He was absolutely committed. This was actually the fight of his life. This was the love of his life, his country. My father unfortunately was assassinated when I was in university because at the time Algeria had gone through very difficult once again uprising and a difficult situation. My father joined a group to build a democratic front in Algeria and actually was very much at the center of organizing political parties to create a coalition for the election. He was clearly too successful in his endeavor and paid the price with his life, but my father [was] someone who believed strongly in his ideas. I think the last word he said, and it's really the last word he said to someone before going to the place where he ended up [being] killed, is [that] there is no commitment without risk. He completely accepted the risk of his positions, and this is, like I say, someone who lived by his values, by his principles. So, he really influenced me the most of all the people that have done because I had the privilege to live with someone that was absolutely honest and consistent in his values and he paid for it with his life.

Yasmine Belkaid is a renowned scientist whose research focuses on the relationship between microbes and the immune system. She is the President as well as the head of the Metaorganism laboratory at the Institut Pasteur.

Belkaid earned her Master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene in Algiers, and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) from Paris-Sud University. In 1996, she earned her PhD in immunology from the Institut Pasteur, where she studied innate immune responses to leishmania infection. Belkaid then moved to the United States for a postdoctoral fellowship in intracellular parasite biology at NIAID’s Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases (NIH).

Belkaid has received numerous awards including the Robert Koch Prize, the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Prize, and the AAI Excellence in Mentoring Award. She also serves on the committees of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the Microbiome Technical Advisory Group at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the NIH Anti-Racism Steering Committee, the American Society of Microbiology, and the Genentech Scientific Resource Board.