The Association
Due to the fact that the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, as a public institution depending on the Province of Brabant, had no legal personality, Professor Jules Bordet, in 1943 already, judged it opportune and necessary to create a non for profit association, “Les Amis de l’Institut Pasteur de Bruxelles” in order to support and promote by all means the activities of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, especially its research activities in the field of infectious diseases, sera, vaccines and immunization procedures.
a. Introduction
The non for profit association “Les Amis de l’Institut Pasteur de Bruxelles” was founded on the 25th September 1943 by Professor Jules Bordet, first Belgian Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1919 for his pioneering research on immunity and first director of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels.
Since its creation and until 2008 this association aimed to support and promote by all means the activities of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, especially research activities in the field of infectious diseases, sera, vaccines and immunization procedures (article 3 of the original statutes).
The Governing Council was, in addition to Professor Jules Bordet, composed of the following founding members: Félicien Cattier, president of the University Foundation and the National Fund for Scientific Research, Baron Robert Gendebien, industrial, Octave Gengou, professor at the Free University of Brussels, Prince Albert de Ligne, Emile Marchal, professor emeritus at the Institut Agricole de Gembloux, Ernest Rénaux, professor at the Free University of Brussels, Jérôme Rodhain, director of the School of Tropical Medicine, Robert Rutteau, President of the administrative commission of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, Ernest-John Solvay, industrial, Emile Tournay-Solvay, industrial, Victor Van Straelen, director of the Museum of Natural Sciences, Louis Wodon, Honorary Secretary of the House of the King and Paul Bordet, Director of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels.
Due to the fact that the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, as a public institution depending on the Province of Brabant, had no legal personality, Professor Jules Bordet, in 1943 already, judged it opportune and necessary to create a non for profit association, “Les Amis de l’Institut Pasteur de Bruxelles” in order to support and promote by all means the activities of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, especially its research activities in the field of infectious diseases, sera, vaccines and immunization procedures.
The ministerial decision (published as Royal Decree in December 2007), (A.R. 20 december 2007), by which all the missions of the PIB were abolished, put a definitive end to the existence of the Pasteur Institute in Belgium and hypothecated the initial objectives of our association as well. Nevertheless, we made the decision, in accordance with the wishes of our donors and testators, to pursue our support to medical and scientific research in microbiology and infectious diseases. In collaboration with the Directorate of International Affairs, Direction des Affaires Internationales (DAI), of the Institut Pasteur in Paris (IPP) we have redefined the goals of our association (new article 3 of our statutes). This decision enables us to continue our missions.
Spite of this unfortunate evolution, our association has decided, provided a minimal adjustment of its objectives, to continue without any delay the commission which it has fulfilled for almost 70 years.
Due to the fact that the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, as a public institution depending on the Province of Brabant, had no legal personality, Professor Jules Bordet, in 1943 already, judged it opportune and necessary to create a non-for-profit association, “Les Amis de l’Institut Pasteur de Bruxelles” in order to support and promote by all means the activities of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, especially its research activities in the field of infectious diseases, sera, vaccines and immunization procedures.
The disappearance, in 2008, of the Pasteur Institute in Belgium, forced us to adapt the name and objectives of our association to new realities; the changes were decided in mutual agreement with the general direction of the “Institut Pasteur” in Paris (IPP), specifically with the direction of the “Réseau international des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP”), the International Network of Pasteur Institutes.
The association aims to support basic microbiological and immunological research that in the context of an international cooperation is performed between researchers in Belgium and researchers of the “Institut Pasteur” and / or the International Network of Pasteur Institutes.
This option allows us to pursue, in accordance with the wishes of our donors and testators, our support to the scientific collaboration programs in the different Pasteurian domains between Belgian researchers and RIIP-researchers.
Currently, our activities are focused on providing research grants to young researchers implicated in a research project between a Belgian research laboratory and a RIIP-laboratory. A restraint scientific committee composed of the scientific members (also leading microbiologists) of our association is in charge of the assessment of the grant applications.
The association aims to support basic microbiological and immunological research that in the context of an international cooperation is performed between researchers in Belgium and researchers of the “Institut Pasteur” and / or the International Network of Pasteur Institutes Réseau international des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP).
Currently, our activities are focused on providing research grants to young researchers and on supporting basic research that is performed in the context of an international cooperation with the International Network of Pasteur Institutes RIIP.
The Governing Council is currently presided by Prof. Dr. Lise Thiry, professor emerita of the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB) and honorary head of department of the Pasteur Institute of Brussels.
b. Objectives
The association aims to support basic microbiological and immunological research that in the context of an international cooperation is performed between researchers in Belgium and researchers of the “Institut Pasteur” and / or the “Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP).
The association may perform all acts that are wholly or partially, directly or indirectly related to its objective, in order to contribute to its development or to facilitate its achievement; so it can award prizes and grants, organize contests or colloquia, award grants to finance the exchange of researchers between institutions that are members of the “Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur” and research laboratories in Belgium
The association can rent out all appropriate movable and immovable property and use all necessary human, technical and financial resources. It may also cooperate with or be interested in activities that aim at similar goals. They forge links with other institutions. The Governing Council has the authority to interpret the nature and the extent of the objectives of the association (Article 3 of the Statutes)
c. History
Jules Bordet
Jules BORDET, first Director of the Pasteur Institute of Brabant was born in Soignies on June 13, 1870. After his secondary studies at the Atheneum of Brussels he studied at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles” where he obtained his doctor’s title in 1892
As a laureate of a government contest he obtained, in 1894, a travel grant that gave him the opportunity to work in Elie Metchnikoff’s laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Elie Metchnikoff had come into the limelight mainly by his discovery of “phagocytosis”, a defense mechanism against infections whereby the white blood cells ingest and kill the microbes that invade our body. With this discovery Metchnikoff laid the foundation of cellular immunity. Bordet, for his part, will lay the foundations of humoral immunity: the defense mechanism by which our organism defends itself by means of ( innate ?) substances that are naturally present in our blood serum or that we produce by ourselves at the invasion of microbes or foreign substances.
When Bordet, was introduced in Metchnikoff’s laboratory, Pfeiffer, a German scientist, had just discovered that the serum of guinea pigs that are vaccinated against cholera revealed the capacity to kill the cholera bacillus in the abdominal cavity of non-vaccinated guinea pigs. However, when this test was repeated in a test tube, Bordet observed that the serum of vaccinated guinea pigs did not kill the cholera microbes, but caused clotting of the microbes (agglutination). On the basis of this observation Bordet showed, in a series of simple but decisive tests, that the animal organism responds to the invasion of microbes, cells or foreign substances, by producing well dertemed molecules, called antibodies, which can fix the foreign intruders and make them sensitive to a substance that previously is present in the blood serum: the complement.
The complement has the capacity to kill those foreign invaders. Microbes, cells or chemical substances which can initiate the production of antibodies are called antigens. Humoral immunity is therefore based on the property of living organisms to produce specific antibodies against foreign antigens. Those antibodies fix the antigens and make them sensitive to the complement that in turn binds the antigen-antibody complex (complement fixation reaction).
The exceptional importance of the discovery of those basic elements of humoral immunity to medicine, is self-evident. For instance, by bringing together the patient’s serum with a suspension of known pathogenic microbes, the presence of specific antibodies against those microbes can be detected; this obviously proves/ shows that the patient has been really infected by those microbes.
The complement fixation reaction plays an important role in the diagnosis of infectious diseases. We know that the complement exclusively binds on the complex formed by the microbe and the specific antibody.
When the patient’s serum comes into contact with a microbe and shows the formation of a complex to which the complement binds, implies the presence in the patient’s serum of the specific antibody that corresponds to the microbe; this shows the evidence this microbe is or was present in the patient.
J. Bordet’s scientific works have not been limited to the basic discovery of humoral immunity as briefly described above. Among others, we only mention the discovery, in collaboration with Gengou, of the whooping cough bacillus in 1906.
Despite the insistences issued from of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, J. Bordet came back to Belgium in 1901, at the request of the Province of Brabant to establish and lead an Institute of Bacteriology.
Shortly after its establishment, this Institute was named Institut Pasteur du Brabant, thanks to the special permission given by Mrs. Pasteur. In 1907, the ULB, offered J. Bordet the chair “Bacteriology” at the Faculty of Medicine. He continued teaching until 1937. In 1919 he obtained the Nobel Prize for its works on immunity.
He was succeeded as director of the Pasteur Institute of Brabant by his son Professor Paul Bordet. However, Jules Bordet left not simply the Institute where he had given as much of himself. He remained for many years to follow the activities in the Institute, and especially the developments of scientific research
His death in 1961, was by his former staff in the Institute felt as a painful loss. But thanks to the scientific education he had continued to live on them and in them, they could work together with a new generation to continue with confidence and with the determination to succeed, the work that started in the beginning of this century.
The Pasteur Institute of Brussels
The Pasteur Institute of Brussels (PIB), initially called “Antirabies and Bacteriological Institute of Brabant ‘, was founded on March 15, 1900 at the initiative of the Brabant Provincial Council. The direction of the Institute was entrusted to Dr. J. Bordet who, in 1919, received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his pioneering research on immunity. In 1903 Dr. J. Bordet obtained the authorization of Mrs. Louis Pasteur to call his institution “Institut Pasteur”. The Institute was first called “Pasteur Institute of Brussels” and later “Pasteur Institute of Brabant”.
The Pasteur Institute was successively run by the Professors Jules Bordet, Paul Bordet, Jacques Beumer, Frans De Meuter and Jean Content.
The research activities elaborated by the Pasteur Institute for nearly a century in various fields of medical microbiology and immunology, aimed to develop new drugs and vaccines for the prevention and treatment of viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases. Moreover, the PIB aimed, through innovation-oriented research, at a refinement of laboratory techniques for the diagnosis of infectious diseases.
On 1st of January 1995, the Pasteur Institute, because o the Saint-Michel agreements and the split of the Province of Brabant, was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Public Health until 2008. In spite fierce protests from the Belgian and international scientific community for more than eight years, the Pasteur Institute was integrated, in 2003, as a department into the “Scientific Institute of public health (IPH) under the name “Pasteur Institute”.
Because of its specific missions, its reputation, its glorious past and its international influence, the then Minister Council took in 2003 a number of measures with regard to the Belgian Pasteur Institute to preserve its name and to ensure its autonomy, its specific scientific activities, and its further development as a recognisable entity. These measures were criticized and challenged continuously by the administrative authorities and the direction of the IPH. An ultimate petition to save the Pasteur Institute, highly supported by the scientific community was launched on 16th of December 2007. However, this petition had to be early stopped. Indeed, on 20th of December 2007, a ministerial decision (published as a Royal Decree in the “Moniteur Belge – Belgisch Staatsblad” of 5th of February 2008) completely abolished the missions and the name of the Pasteur Institute.The existence of the Pasteur Institute in Belgium consequently came to a definitive end.
The Pasteur Network
Information can be obtained using following links: Réseau International des Institus Pasteur (RIIP) and http://pasteur-network.org (PN)
Jules Bordet 1870-1961
Jules BORDET, first Director of the Pasteur Institute of Brabant was born in Soignies on June 13, 1870. After his secondary studies at the Atheneum of Brussels he studied at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles” where he obtained his doctor’s title in 1892
As a laureate of a government contest he obtained, in 1894, a travel grant that gave him the opportunity to work in Elie Metchnikoff’s laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Elie Metchnikoff had come into the limelight mainly by his discovery of “phagocytosis”, a defense mechanism against infections whereby the white blood cells ingest and kill the microbes that invade our body. With this discovery Metchnikoff laid the foundation of cellular immunity. Bordet, for his part, will lay the foundations of humoral immunity: the defense mechanism by which our organism defends itself by means of ( innate ?) substances that are naturally present in our blood serum or that we produce by ourselves at the invasion of microbes or foreign substances.
When Bordet, was introduced in Metchnikoff’s laboratory, Pfeiffer, a German scientist, had just discovered that the serum of guinea pigs that are vaccinated against cholera revealed the capacity to kill the cholera bacillus in the abdominal cavity of non-vaccinated guinea pigs. However, when this test was repeated in a test tube, Bordet observed that the serum of vaccinated guinea pigs did not kill the cholera microbes, but caused clotting of the microbes (agglutination). On the basis of this observation Bordet showed, in a series of simple but decisive tests, that the animal organism responds to the invasion of microbes, cells or foreign substances, by producing well dertemed molecules, called antibodies, which can fix the foreign intruders and make them sensitive to a substance that previously is present in the blood serum: the complement.
The complement has the capacity to kill those foreign invaders. Microbes, cells or chemical substances which can initiate the production of antibodies are called antigens. Humoral immunity is therefore based on the property of living organisms to produce specific antibodies against foreign antigens. Those antibodies fix the antigens and make them sensitive to the complement that in turn binds the antigen-antibody complex (complement fixation reaction).
The exceptional importance of the discovery of those basic elements of humoral immunity to medicine, is self-evident. For instance, by bringing together the patient’s serum with a suspension of known pathogenic microbes, the presence of specific antibodies against those microbes can be detected; this obviously proves/ shows that the patient has been really infected by those microbes.
The complement fixation reaction plays an important role in the diagnosis of infectious diseases. We know that the complement exclusively binds on the complex formed by the microbe and the specific antibody.
When the patient’s serum comes into contact with a microbe and shows the formation of a complex to which the complement binds, implies the presence in the patient’s serum of the specific antibody that corresponds to the microbe; this shows the evidence this microbe is or was present in the patient.
J. Bordet’s scientific works have not been limited to the basic discovery of humoral immunity as briefly described above. Among others, we only mention the discovery, in collaboration with Gengou, of the whooping cough bacillus in 1906.
Despite the insistences issued from of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, J. Bordet came back to Belgium in 1901, at the request of the Province of Brabant to establish and lead an Institute of Bacteriology.
Shortly after its establishment, this Institute was named Institut Pasteur du Brabant, thanks to the special permission given by Mrs. Pasteur. In 1907, the ULB, offered J. Bordet the chair “Bacteriology” at the Faculty of Medicine. He continued teaching until 1937. In 1919 he obtained the Nobel Prize for its works on immunity.
He was succeeded as director of the Pasteur Institute of Brabant by his son Professor Paul Bordet. However, Jules Bordet left not simply the Institute where he had given as much of himself. He remained for many years to follow the activities in the Institute, and especially the developments of scientific research
His death in 1961, was by his former staff in the Institute felt as a painful loss. But thanks to the scientific education he had continued to live on them and in them, they could work together with a new generation to continue with confidence and with the determination to succeed, the work that started in the beginning of this century.