Odile Croissant
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6 October 1923
Odile Croissant | |
|---|---|
| Born | Odile Marcelle Marie Croissant 6 October 1923 |
| Died | August 3, 2020 (aged 96) |
| Occupations | Biologist, physicist |
| Employer | Pasteur Institute |
| Known for | Specialist in electron microscopy |
Odile Croissant (6 October 1923 - 3 August 2020) was a French biologist, physicist and specialist in electron microscopy. She trained in a number of countries, building her career from laboratory assistant to researcher at the Pasteur Institute. Croissant was one of the first scientists to develop techniques for the in situ detection of viral nucleic acids, and played a key part in the creation of the first physical map of the only human papillomavirus known at the time (HPV1).
Odile Marcelle Marie Croissant was born in Honfleur in Normandy on 6 October 1923.[1] In November 1942, she joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris, working as a secretary and laboratory assistant in the typhus laboratory headed by biologist Paul Giroud.[2]
In 1945, she moved to the Virus Department of the Pasteur Institute, headed by Pierre Lépine. It was during this role that she was introduced to electron microscopy by the physicists who had designed the first French electron microscope.[2] Croissant undertook a number of internships in her early career which enabled her to develop skills and experience. In 1947 she interned at the Institute of Electron Microscopy in Delft in the Netherlands,[3] then at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and in 1950 at the University of Montreal in Canada.[2]
Career
In 1947, she served as assistant secretary of the French National Centre for Scientific Research's Electronic Optics Commission. In 1949, Croissant became a physicist-preparator in the electron microscopy laboratory of virus department at the Pasteur Institute. She trained numerous students in electron microscopy techniques, particularly in RCA microscopy and ultra-thin sectioning techniques.[2]
In 1947, she was appointed as maîtresse de recherches at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. From 1946, Croisant worked in Pierre Lépine's laboratory, carrying out studies on viruses (including rabies, vaccinia, poliomyelitis, bacteriophages, insect viruses) and on the cellular lesions induced by these viruses.[2]
In December 1954, during the smallpox epidemic in Vannes, Brittany, she was tasked with identifying the virus responsible, based on samples taken from patients.[2]
In 1955, she spent three months in the United States as a visiting scientist at the laboratory of crystallographer Ralph Walter Graystone Wyckoff at the National Institutes of Health. He was renowned for his work in crystallography and electron microscopy, and had visited the virus department of the Pasteur Institute a number of times. From 1956, she was part of the theoretical and practical teaching team at the Pasteur Institute, which covered electron microscopy applications in the study of cells and viruses, the cell culture course in virology, the general microbiology course and the course on photonic optical microscopes and electron microscopy methods.[2]
In 1957, Croissant returned to spend a further four months as a visiting scientist at the US National Institutes of Health at the invitation of Wyckoff, who had become a regular collaborator.[2]
In 1958, she became interested in the various techniques for analysing the structure of matter using electrons and X-rays.[2] She worked on the structure of glass, in collaboration with the Institute of Mineralogy of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Strasbourg, working with Stanislas Goldsztaub[4] and Henri Saucier.[5]
Croissant studied the structure of glass and the chemical reactions caused by scratching, using microdiffraction and electron microscopy techniques.[6] On 10 January 1962, Croissant defended her thesis in physics at the University of Strasbourg, entitled "Study of the morphology and structure of silicate glasses using electron microscopy and electron microdiffraction".[5]
In 1963, Croissant made a third visit to the United States, where she completed a postdoctoral fellowship as an assistant professor in Wyckoff's laboratory, in the Institute of Physics at the University of Arizona. In 1964, upon her return to France, Croissant returned to France and was appointed research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and, in this capacity, served as head of the electron microscopy laboratory in the virus department at the Pasteur Institute. There, she began collaborating on human papillomaviruses (HPV) with virologist Gérard Orth's group, based at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif.[2]