Pasteur seeks new chief

The newly appointed board of France's Pasteur Institute wants to find a new director to replace the controversial Philippe Kourilsky as quickly as possible, the board's president has told The Scientist.The new board was elected after the previous incumbents resigned en masse in January, and Kourilsky gave them the power to dismiss him before his mandate ends at the end of the year. Replacing him will be one of their first priorities, said François Ailleret, the board's new president and honorary director of the French state electricity utility Electricité de France. "Kourilsky announced that he would not be running for a second term and gave us the power to replace him before the end of his mandate," said Ailleret. "Now we will try to choose the right candidate to replace him as quickly as possible—hopefully before the end of the year."New board members are preparing a search model to look for qualified candidates, which should be ready in time for the board's next meeting on April 21. Ailleret told The Scientist he expects the new leadership will continue the modernizing changes Kourilsky pushed when he took over the dusty institution in 2000. What needs to change is not so much the ends Kourilsky pursued, but the means by which he pursued them, Ailleret said.When Kourilsky, a highly respected immunologist, took over the research dinosaur, he received widespread praise for his vision to bring in younger staff with more international experience and give them more autonomy. He also called for new technical platforms and new partnerships. "With his ambitions, Kourilsky had the Pastorian elite on his side, and that's who he needed to please, even if some others were growling for union matters," said outside observer Jean-Claude Weill, professor of immunology at Necker Hospital in Paris. "But he managed to lose these very precious people who were indispensable."Kourilsky's decision making was soon described as authoritative, non-concerted, and isolationist by a growing number of researchers inside the community. Soon, the ranks of the discontented became too large to ignore. "What we learned from all this is that the whole work isn't only about defining the objectives," said Ailleret. "Changes are always delicate, and the hardest job comes when you have to manage those changes. The previous leadership was somehow clumsy in its decision making, and we hope the next team will take more time to look into to the details and listen to all concerns."Finding Kourilsky's replacement is not the only issue the new board must tackle during its next meeting. It must also figure out a way to relocate scientists while Pasteur's decaying buildings are renovated. Kourilsky's sudden announcement in January that some departments would be transferred to a suburban site offered by drug manufacturer Pfizer infuriated a large group of scientists, who claimed they were not consulted in the decision. "Following the advice of an external audit last month, this relocation will not happen," said Ailleret. "But work in some of these buildings is imperative, and relocations will have to be considered. This time, the news must not drop from the sky on the labs that are concerned, it must come after a dialogue."While Ailleret seems confident the institute will pass over the difficulties of the last 9 months, some Pastorian researchers sound less optimistic. Matthew Albert, a biologist who moved from New York's Rockefeller University to Pasteur because he believed in Kourilsky's vision to revive the organization, sees the problem as characteristically French.Albert fears that too much political tension might stray Pasteur from its core mission, which is to generate not only fundamental research, but also public-minded health initiatives and treatments.“I’m not sure everyone here appreciates some of the changes that, elsewhere, are seen as stimulating –competing for renewal, having external reviewing,” said Albert. “We really hope the intention is to follow on what Kourilsky initiated and that Pasteur doesn’t loose its unique position within the French research system.”

Pasteur seeks new chief

New board wants to replace the contentious director Philippe Kourilsky as soon as possible

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of