Algerian Scientist Yasmine Belkaid Joins the Prestigious Academy of Sciences

Algerian-French immunologist and researcher Yasmine Belkaid has officially joined the French Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666, after being elected during a ceremony held on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.

In total, 18 new outstanding scientists have joined the prestigious assembly of the Academy of Sciences, composed of nearly 300 members, including 15 Nobel Prize winners.

Among them, Yasmine Belkaid, winner of the Arab Geniuses Prize in medicine, considered the equivalent of the “Nobel Prize of the Arab world”, has entered the closed circle of the greatest minds of their time.

Yasmine Belkaid commented on her induction into the Academy in a LinkedIn post: “On June 4, I was honoured to join the French Academy of Sciences. I am particularly honoured that this year, for the first time, a majority of women were elected.”

Yasmine Belkaid added: “Devoting my life to scientific research is an incomparable pleasure. It is a journey of discovery, filled with wonder and questions. I chose to explore the extraordinary relationship between the immune system and microbes.”

This new distinction for the Algerian scientist was acknowledged by the Academy of Sciences on the LinkedIn platform, in a post that pays tribute to her dedication to scientific research in the field of mucosal immunology.

“For more than twenty years, she has been at the forefront of understanding the mechanisms of regulation of the immune system at the level of natural barriers,” the academy wrote.

“Yasmine Belkaid identified the immune mediators responsible for pathogen persistence and established the crucial role played by T-Reg cells in this process. Her research has allowed her to demonstrate that the intestine is the main site of T-Reg cell induction,” the same post read. In short, a breakthrough in mucosal immunology that opens new perspectives for the understanding and treatment of infectious diseases.

A lot of congratulations accompanied the post of the prestigious Academy of Sciences, just hours after the announcement of the appointment of Professor Yasmine Belkaid, adorned for the occasion in the academician’s costume – a Spencer with embroidered olive branches.

The French Academy of Sciences is one of five academies affiliated with the Institut de France, along with the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

The Academy comprises several specialised committees that study contemporary and advanced scientific issues and issue informed reports and strategic opinions on them.

Members of the Academy are elected for life, after being nominated by current members in a rigorous process that takes approximately one year.

Yasmine Belkaid, the researcher who has served as Director General of the Pasteur Institute in Paris since January 2, 2024, joins a list of 304 members. She is the first woman to hold this position since the Pasteur Institute was founded in 1888.

Yasmine Belkaid was born in 1968 in Algiers, the daughter of Aboubakr Belkaid. She obtained a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology in 1993. She also worked at the Pasteur Institute in Algiers before continuing her studies in France and then the United States.

Yasmine Belkaid realised remarkable achievements in her scientific field, having been behind fundamental discoveries that have shaped mucosal immunology. For more than twenty years, she has been at the forefront of research seeking to understand the mechanisms of immune system regulation at the body’s natural barriers.

In particular, she has succeeded in deciphering the role of this system in protecting against pathogens and maintaining tissue balance in the presence of natural flora (beneficial microbes), dietary antigens, and other environmental factors.

Her research has shed light on the complex relationship between nutrition, inflammation, and immunity, revealing the long-term effects of malnutrition on tissue immunity. She has also opened new horizons by highlighting the essential role of the microbiome in the immune response to pathogens and vaccines.

As a reminder, the prominent Algerian writer Assia Djebar was the first Maghreb and Arab woman and the fifth woman to enter the French Academy, the sister body of the Academy of Sciences, after her election on June 16, 2005.