photographist

“When I was little, instead of playing shopkeepers, my sister and I played at selling medicine. I wanted to be a pharmacist, but when I got to university I had a professor who was absolutely amazing. I loved his classes, where organic chemistry became real. I said to myself: "That's who I want to be later on!" So I did a PhD in medicinal chemistry, so that I in turn could pass on this passion. The first trace of chemistry dates back to around 1,200 BCE in Babylon, where a woman, Tapputi-Belatekallum, made perfume from plants. Today, I am responsible for the professional degree in Perfumes, aromas & cosmetics at the Faculty of Science at Montpellier, and I also teach the subject of perfumes and aromas – i.e. everything relating to the creation of perfumes from plants, but also chemical molecules used in this field.

In terms of research, I am working on peptide derivatives, peptidomimetics. As peptides are very easily impaired when taken by mouth, they need to be mimicked when used for medicine. I work for different pathologies, including cancer and AIDS – which are far more widely known than celiac disease, on which I worked for my post-doctoral research at Stanford. Unfortunately, to get research credits, you often have to work in pathological fields which attract funding. I have seen major changes in 10 years. I opted for university research because I wanted to work in fundamental areas, on rare diseases. Finally, I was gradually pushed, like everyone else, to work on cancer and AIDS, pathologies which allow us to have funding – notably from large foundations and associations.”

Isabelle Parrot
Professor and researcher - Max Mousseron Biomolecule Institute, Montpellier

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