Emmanuel Drouet

Emmanuel Drouet, is professor of Virology at the University of Grenoble (France), and previously served as a biomedical pathologist in the Institut Pasteur (Lyon, France). As scientist in EMBL laboratory (European Molecular Biology Laboratory), Dr Drouet’s research investigates the persisting viruses in human (RNA and DNA viruses) and the balance with our host immune system. He focuses on their effects on humans (both their impact in pathology and their symbiotic relationships in humans). Relying on clinical observations, Drouet pioneered experiments about the positive role of some viruses (human herpesviruses, human endogenous retroviruses) on human health. His studies shed a new light on microbial agents, behaving alternatively in a cooperative or destructive way depending on the environment they find themselves in. Drouet explains how this shows us the same life living the ‘universality’ of biological patterns manifesting in nature throughout all the magnitudes. He says the deeper he looks the more he sees a similarity between the “viral” world and ourselves; he will try to demonstrate that the play of life is what it is before the labeling of good or bad. He has published over 65 book chapters and journal articles in clinical microbiology and immunology as well as fundamental biology