Our level of requirement is high he admits

Once is not custom: this is a zen researcher who welcomes visitors to Marseille in the laboratory of the hôpital de la Timone rickettsiae. Didier Raoult is the archetype of the prolific learned: imaginative, undertaking by nature persistent and lucky check. In 2003, his team reported in the journal of reference "Science" the discovery of a so huge that its single chromosome virus was larger than many bacteria. By observing the electron microscope an Amoeba (Acanthamoeba castellanii) harvested in the network of a Parisian cooling tower water, scientists have this time focused the attention of the prestigious magazine "Nature", which was published this summer two new discoveries: a virus even greater than the previous, baptized with humour "mamavirus", and a dwarf eight times more small and unknown to this day"Sputnik", capable of infecting the first for to breed. Known until then bacteriophages, able to tackle bacteria viruses for which the discoverers received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1969 and 1980. This 'virophage' mechanism is totally unprecedented.

"This discovery risk to change our perception of the living world", does not hesitate to forward Didier Raoult. Until then, it was indeed thought that viruses were the only representatives of the animal Kingdom that evolutionary mechanisms were only led by the reaction of their hosts. We know now that they can evolve as the others in response to external attacks. The nuance is size: using this mechanism, scientists believe can divert their benefit strategies of viral infection, to plant their Spears drug in the body even more resistant viruses.

The incredible discovery of the OM team is not only the result of happenstance. "I am a grounds for the first time, guided by curiosity and the desire to understand." "I'm not looking to test hypotheses, I explore the unknown," explains Didier Raoult. Installed since 1983 on the médicalo-University campus of la Timone, the scientist has never left the epidemiological field. "My bench, it's life", it repeats forever. Classified as currently the most rated biologists, he consults with still two mornings a week at the service of infectious and tropical diseases. "The hospital focused cases, diagnosis allows to observe, fundamental science unlocks the mysteries", summarizes.

Red carpet in the United States

When, late 1970s, then as a young practitioner, he manages to develop a strategy for diagnosis of rickettsioses, a series of infectious tropical diseases transmitted by ticks and fleas, its future appears to be traced. Inserm (Institute of medical research) he closed the door on the pretext of a divergence of view, but no matter: the United States to place the red carpet. He made his studies Postdoctoral and nostalgic, refused a position at the prestigious Center for Discontrole, preferring "the disorder of HABs academic research". It can be freely experiment instruments for screening and diagnosis used elsewhere, such as tools for sequencing which it identifies and describes in the 1990s some 60 new pathogenic bacteria. At the time, his daring is funded by a hospital clinical research program for an exorbitant amount for the time, 600,000 euros.

In the meantime, Didier Raoult almost cannibalized the Virology laboratory which hosts it in Marseille. The scientist is another intuitive betting to trap bacteria that interest him: use amoebae, their natural predators. It is on one of them (Acanthamoeba polyphaga) his team isolated in 1992 the largest virus then known (Mimivirus), assumed to be a bacterium by its discoverer. "Thus, he explains, our laboratory is porous, permeable approaches and different ideas." A quarantine of foreign researchers, each with their culture, come to work here permanently. "Genomics of pathogenic bacteria, paléomicrobiologie, anthropology of epidemics... The unlikeliest investigation fields here are opportunities for expression. "One third of the Nobel Prize was awarded to researchers who have dared to explore beyond the boundaries of knowledge," said Didier Raoult.

Between 150 and 200 papers per year

With this strategy out of standards, the researcher is yet classified among the ten first French researchers by the journal "Nature", in terms of publications (more than a thousand to his credit) and citations with its work. Housed in the floors of the Faculty of medicine, his laboratory employs 140 people including 45 researchers who publish between 150 and 200 papers per year. "Our level of requirement is high," he admits. Everyone in the team, myself included, oversees several students and balance sheets are weekly. "This job pays: on average, each Princeton happening there produced five articles. "We are 75 more productive than an Inserm laboratory", calculated Didier Raoult. With an annual budget of 10 million euros, the cost of returns of a publication in its unit does not exceed 80,000 euros against 200,000 average (for a 3.5 impact publication) in the public institution.

If the scientist is so close to its, it is that it must fight each year for coffers. Prior to be greeted by "Nature", funding for its work on the giant virus was first rejected by the National Agency for research. This year, two other projects, tried out fields, have yet been retoqués. "It is irritating and incomprehensible, to revolt Didier Raoult. Under the pretext of egalitarianism, the French system claims to give to all. Research is a competition. As of the top athletes, researchers must be evaluated objectively and individually. The tools exist, easy to access. Lack the desire to compare. It is the only alternative if it intends to focus on the promotion and the financing of the most dynamic and most effective researchers.

With the means

Pending this "plan Marshall of research", Didier Raoult made with the means to the edge. Recurring credits do not reach 10. It must therefore fight "to win the balance" industrial and territorial communities. "Meetings of contracts" took place at the laboratory once per month to sift through calls for tenders and mount folders. "I sometimes have the impression to be the boss of a start-up," jokes the researcher. Who has just completed its largest fundraising: EUR 10 million in the next contract plan state-region to equip its laboratory of electron microscopy and other sequencers. A preamble to his dream of researcher Builder: creation, for 50 million euros of investment, of a "infectio-pole". This building of 20,000 square metres will accommodate 100 beds of high security for the treatment and research on epidemics, such as the Sweden or the Italy already have to deal with a pandemic or bacteriological attack. The round table is being negotiated, and twenty-five years after the creation of the laboratory of Didier Raoult, Inserm may be part.