Camille Gurin

Jean-Marie Camille Gurin (b. December 22, 1872, Poitiers, France; d. June 9, 1961, Paris. French veterinarian, bacteriologist and immunologist who, together with Albert Calmette developed the Bacillus Calmette-Gurin (BCG), a vaccine for immunization against tuberculosis. Camille Gurin was born in Poitiers to a family of modest means. His father died of tuberculosis in 1882 (as well as his wife, in 1918). He studied veterinary medicine at the "Ecole Vtrinaire de Maisons-Alfort" from 1892 to 1896, working, while a student, as an assistant to pathologist Edmond Nocard (1850-1903). In 1897, he joined the Pasteur Institute in Lille and started to work with its director, French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist Albert Calmette (1863-1933). He started as a technician in charge of preparing Calmette's serum (antivenom against snake bites) and the vaccine against smallpox. He improved considerably the production techniques of the later, by using rabbits as intermediate hosts, and developed also a method to quantify the remaining virulence of these vaccines. At Lille, he was promoted to Head of Laboratory in 1900. Thereafter, from 1905 to 1915, and from 1918 to 1928 he devoted himself to the research on a vaccine against tuberculosis, in close association with Calmette, until his death in 1933. He discovered in 1905 that the bovine tuberculosis bacillum, the Mycobacterium bovis, could immunize the animals without causing the disease. Henceforth, he and Calmette developed ways of attenuate the pathogenic activity of Mycobacterium, using successive transferrals of culture. In 1908, after successfully obtaining an immunologically active preparation that could be use to produced a vaccine, he published with Calmette the results of what was named the BCG. In 1919 he was promoted again, this time to Head of Services. Finally, in 1921, after 230 passages of the BCG culture, they obtained an effective vaccine that could be used in humans. In 1928 he moved to Paris to became the director of the Tuberculosis Service at the Pasteur Institute. In 1939 he became vice-president of the "Comit National de Dfense contre la Tuberculose" (National Defense Committee against Tuberculosis). In 1948 Gurin was chairman of the First International Congress on BCG. He was also President of the Veterinary Academy of France (1949), and President of the Academy of Medicine (1951). In 1955, the French Academy of Sciences awarded him the Scientific Grand Prix. He died aged 89, in the Hpital Pasteur in Paris.

External links

Gurin, Jean Marie Camille Gurin, Jean Marie Camille Gurin, Jean Marie Camille

 

<< PreviousWord BrowserNext >>
tyburn (stream)
showa ku, nagoya
minbo
kenneth fearing
oomox
dominik duka
bristol wrench
marie agla, countess kinsky von wchinitz und tettau
cataclysm (dragonlance)
jammers
rubellius blandus
mthfr
dom capers
mid nineteenth century france
belle brezing
lupus anticoagulant
stamford brook
dennis green
counter's creek
ethel turner
chan gailey
gaius rubellius blandus
michael depoli
apala
christian okoye
scalextric
dubbing (transferring)
bill maas
inconnu independent art group
albert dekker
aerial perspective
river ember
ashraf
louisville plugger
teaching awards
exam system
nautica
theophylact, count of tusculum
theodora (10th century)
jen jand
ong's hat
insolvency
uss henley (dd 39)
tommy tuberville