Irène Landau

{{short description|French parasitologist}}

Irène Landau is a French parasitologist and professor emeritus at the National Museum of Natural History, France (MNHN) and Centre national de la recherche scientifique.{{Cite web|url=http://mcam.mnhn.fr/en/directory/irene-landau-5997|title=Irène LANDAU|date=2018-03-09|website=Molécules de Communication et Adaptation des Micro-organismes (MCAM)|access-date=2019-08-18}}

Landau initially studied medicine, obtaining her medical qualifications in Paris in 1958 and a certificate in tropical medicine in 1963.{{Cite journal|date=2000|title=Remise du prix Emile BRUMPT|url=http://www.pathexo.fr/docfiles/brumpt21-31.pdf|journal=Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique}} She changed to focus on parasitology research, joining the lab of Lucien Brumpt in 1964 as a research assistant, and a year later relocating to Alain Chabaud's group at the MNHN.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FO1oWyVf5qEC&q=irene+landau+parasites|title=Four Passions: Conversations with Myself|last=Peters|first=Wallace|date=2012-05-01|publisher=Strategic Book Publishing|isbn=9781622121724}} She was promoted in 1966 to senior lecturer and made group head of studying the Plasmodium genus.{{cite journal | vauthors = Rioux JA, Durette-Desset MC, Albaret JL, Bayssade-Dufour C, Cassone J, Landau I, Petter A, Tchéprakoff R | display-authors = 6 | title = Professor Alain Chabaud (13 March 1923-11 March 2013) | journal = Parasite | volume = 21 | pages = 18 | date = 2014 | pmid = 24759653 | pmc = 3996963 | doi = 10.1051/parasite/2014013 }} She briefly worked in London in the 1960s in the group of Cyril Garnham at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she met and begun collaborating with Wallace Peters and Robert Killick-Kendrick.{{Cite journal|last1=Lainson|first1=Ralph|last2=Baker|first2=John R. | name-list-style = vanc |date= December 2011 |title=ROBERT RENÉ KILLICK-KENDRICK MPhil, PhD, DSc, FSB 20 June, 1929 - 22 October, 2011|journal=Revista Pan-Amazônica de Saúde|language=en|volume=2|issue=4|pages=51–55|doi=10.5123/S2176-62232011000400008|issn=2176-6223}} During a research trip to the Central African Republic in 1964/5 Landau isolated and described the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium chabaudi (naming it after her supervisor) from local Thamnomys rutilans thicket rats.{{cite journal | vauthors = Landau I | journal = Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences| volume = 260 | pages = 3758–61 | date = March 1965 | pmid = 14339659 | title = Description of Plasmodium chabaudi n. sp., Parasite of African Rodents }}{{cite journal | vauthors = Carter R, Walliker D | title = New observations on the malaria parasites of rodents of the Central African Republic - Plasmodium vinckei petteri subsp. nov. and Plasmodium chabaudi Landau, 1965 | journal = Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology | volume = 69 | issue = 2 | pages = 187–96 | date = June 1975 | pmid = 1155987 | doi = 10.1080/00034983.1975.11687000 }}{{Cite journal|last1=Landau|first1=Irene|last2=Killick-Kendrick|first2=R.| name-list-style = vanc |date=January 1966|title=Rodent plasmodia of the République Centrafricaine: The sporogony and tissue stages of Plasmodium chabaudi and P. berghei yoelii|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|volume=60|issue=5|pages=633–649|doi=10.1016/0035-9203(66)90010-1|pmid=4163669}} She brought these samples with her to London, and together with Killick-Kendrich they isolated and identified another new rodent malaria species.{{Cite journal|date=2007|title=Prix international Émile-Brumpt 2006|url=http://www.pathexo.fr/documents/articles-bull/T100-5-3153-Brumpt-7p.pdf|journal=Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique|volume=100 5|pages=379–385}} The species was similar to Plasmodium berghei, and it was named Plasmodium yoelii in homage to the malarial researcher Meir Yoeli.{{Cite journal|last1=Landau|first1=Irene|last2=Killick-Kendrick|first2=Robert| name-list-style = vanc |date=7 March 1966|title=Note preliminaire sur le cycle evolutif des deux Plasmodium du Rongeur Thamnomys rutialns de la Republique Centrafricaine|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5768557b/f88.image|journal=Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série D|volume=T262|pages=1113–1116|via=BnF Gallica}} To this day both species are used extensively in malaria research.{{Cite journal|last1=Durette-Desset|first1=Marie-Claude|last2=Bain|first2=Odile | name-list-style = vanc |date=November 1991|title=Profile: Alain G. Chabaud|journal=Systematic Parasitology|volume=20|issue=3|pages=237–238|doi=10.1007/BF00009788|s2cid=44500428|issn=0165-5752}}{{cite journal | vauthors = Stephens R, Culleton RL, Lamb TJ | title = The contribution of Plasmodium chabaudi to our understanding of malaria | journal = Trends in Parasitology | volume = 28 | issue = 2 | pages = 73–82 | date = February 2012 | pmid = 22100995 | pmc = 4040349 | doi = 10.1016/j.pt.2011.10.006 }}{{cite journal | vauthors = Aliprandini E, Tavares J, Panatieri RH, Thiberge S, Yamamoto MM, Silvie O, Ishino T, Yuda M, Dartevelle S, Traincard F, Boscardin SB, Amino R | display-authors = 6 | title = Cytotoxic anti-circumsporozoite antibodies target malaria sporozoites in the host skin | journal = Nature Microbiology | volume = 3 | issue = 11 | pages = 1224–1233 | date = November 2018 | pmid = 30349082 | doi = 10.1038/s41564-018-0254-z | first8 = Marcio Massao | first9 = Sabine | first7 = Olivier | s2cid = 53026551 }} Peters, Landau and Killick-Kendrick styled themselves as the 'plasmodiacs'.

When visiting Elizabeth U Canning at Silwood Park in the 1970s she snuck a royal python over to England on her flight. The snake was reportedly kept as a pet in the department for many years.{{cite journal | vauthors = Petithory JC, Chippaux A | title = [The 2004 International E. Brumpt Prize] | journal = Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique | volume = 97 | issue = 5 | pages = 375–9 | date = 2004 | pmid = 15787273 }} Also in the 1970s, Landau visited the Wellcome Parasitology Institute in Belém to study the recently discovered Saurocytozoons with Ralph Lainson.{{Cite journal|last=Shaw|first=Jeffrey Jon|date=2021-06-01|title=Ralph Lainson. 21 February 1927—5 May 2015|url=https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.2020.0032|journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society|volume=70|pages=245–262|doi=10.1098/rsbm.2020.0032|doi-access=free}} It was after the respected British parasitologist that Landau later named the Lankesterellidae genus Lainsonia.

She submitted her PhD thesis in 1972, entitled 'La diversité des mecanismes assurant la perennite de l'infection chez les sporozoaires coccidiomorphes [The variety of mechanisms that ensure the persistence of infection in coccidiomorphic sporozoites]'. She advanced to co-director of the lab in 1987 before becoming full director of the lab of protozoology and comparative parasitology in 1989. In 1994 she was promoted to a full professor. Her and Chabaud were awarded the 1999 Émile Brumpt prize for their contributions to parasitology.

Landau has continued to work on Apicomplexa parasites into the present day.{{Cite web|url=https://www.goupilconnexion.org/Des-recherches-en-cours-et-projets|title=Des recherches en cours et projets en partage avec le Muséum National (...) - Goupil Connexion|website=www.goupilconnexion.org|access-date=2019-08-18}} She recently published (in collaboration with Francisco J. Ayala, Gregory Karadjian and Linda Duval) a description of the jumbled mitochondrial genomes of Nycteria parasites (which infect Nycteridae bats), explaining why cytochrome b sequencing of the parasites has been unsuccessful.{{cite journal | vauthors = Karadjian G, Hassanin A, Saintpierre B, Gembu Tungaluna GC, Ariey F, Ayala FJ, Landau I, Duval L | display-authors = 6 | title = Highly rearranged mitochondrial genome in Nycteria parasites (Haemosporidia) from bats | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 113 | issue = 35 | pages = 9834–9 | date = August 2016 | pmid = 27528689 | pmc = 5024609 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.1610643113 | doi-access = free }}