A lot of things excite me about science. I think this fusion and integration of the fields, which is absolutely mind-blowing. We always knew that the systems are interacting, but today the level of sophistication by which we can link the nervous system and the immune system or the immune system with the metabolic system, how we see how the immune system controls behavior. I think this is to me the most extraordinary moment in biology where the silos are actually slowly, slowly getting down and we can finally speak the language of physiology because for years and years you had to be a neuroscientist and developing all the tools and knowledge in one very specific area. You had to be a molecular biologist. The reality is today we know that disease or physiology is the system and I think that's what I'm seeing happening that we now are able to see organisms in the complexity and not backup from complexity. That's where we come to the new tools and new ways to integrate science, so I think this is a truly remarkable moment in biology.

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.