9^th Global Medical Microbiology Summit & Expo

Biography

I joined bioMérieux in 2007, my current position is EU R&D Microbiology Director at bioMérieux in charge of all microbiology products developments for bacterial culture (conventional media culture, chromogenic media (ChromIDTM…), identification (API® system, mass spectrometry (VITEK® MS)… ) and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: Etest®, VITEK®2 expert system, RAPIDEC ® Carba, ATB® sytem…) I received my Pharm D from the University of Lyon. After an Internship in medical biology in the Lyon area and obtaining an MSc in French National Reference Center for Staphylococci, I completed my residency in Clinical biology at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, France where I earned my PhD.

Research Interest

I conducted my research work at the French National Reference Center of Staphylococci. My research was focused on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) mainly on typing and virulence factors. I described a new emerging MRSA clone (Durand et al, Detection of New Methicilllin-Resistant-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clones Containing the Toxic Shock Sydrome Toxin-1 Gene responsible for Hospital-and community–acquired Infections in France, J. Clin. Microbiol 2006;44:847-853). This clone is now well known as “Geraldine’s clone”. As the leader of the bioMérieux Europe R&D microbiology group in recent years my research was directed on rapid microbiology (Van Belkum et al, Ann Lab Med.2013;(33(1):14-27, on mass spectrometry (Spinali et al, J Clin Microbiol.2015;53(3):760-5, and also on laboratory automation, mainly driven on the medical value brought by imaging technologies for bacterial culture (24th ECCMID, O075; 25th ECCMID, S097). My latest research covers S. aureus characterization through whole genome sequencing (EpiSEqTM service).