The Fondation Mérieux
The Fondation Mérieux was set up in 1967 by Doctor Charles Mérieux, in memory of his father Marcel Mérieux, a pupil of Louis Pasteur and founder of the Mérieux Institute in 1897. An independent foundation, it works to serve the interests of public health. Its mission is to help developing countries to combat infectious diseases. Since its creation, the foundation has advocated openness and partnership and has built a major international scientific network. It plays the role of catalyst in local and international initiatives working towards the same public health goals. Charles Mérieux (1907-2001) Charles Mérieux dedicated his life to preventive medicine and vaccinology, with unshakeable enthusiasm, determination, and imagination, nevertheless always based on the Pasteurian tradition. "Tradition is not the ennemy but the support of audacity." This quote from Pope John XXIII was the favorite one of Charles Mérieux. Exert from Virus Passion, by Charles Merieux, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1997: "Tradition is the Support of Innovation." " Beginning with a very modest laboratory and above all a bioethic to which I always remained faithful, I have experienced industrial virology with the same passion as my father experienced the epic of Pasteur. I've gone from the glass bottle to the steel vat, from foot-and-mouth disease to polio, from animal production to cellular engineering. " " But after the vaccination of a hundred million Brazilians against African meningitis, I understood that it was also necessary to teach capable men to lead a new health politic and develop the concept of vaccinology." | Conference Centre Les Pensieres Located on the shores of Lake Annecy, France, Fondation Mérieux's Les Pensières conference center was created to provide a place of work and discussion for those working in international public health, and in particular, the struggle to control infectious diseases. Charles Mérieux created the Pensières Conference Center in his family property of Veyrier-du-Lac. Les Pensières was originally a dependency of the Abbey of Talloires. The oldest parts of the buildings date from the 16th Century, and were dedicated to wine-producing. The new buildings were designed and constructed in 1990 and 1992, and expanded in 2007-2008, to allow for development of the training and conference programs. Exert from Virus Passion, by Charles Merieux, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1997: "A Peaceful Heaven, Place of Beauty and Meditation." "A large meeting room, and a few prettily arranged rooms would suffice to make this place the ideal spot to welcome the scholars whom I count on receiving in the years ahead. Because the hotels lack soul and poetry, that the anonymous reception which is the same for all displeases me." "What I like is to share with others the pleasure that I find in exceptional sites and enjoy with them the atmosphere, which it exudes. And also to offer them a place where they will feel at ease, and which will bring them something new."
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