Philippe Lebaron

Domaine d’expertise

Philippe Lebaron was hired as an assistant professor in 1989 at the University Pierre et Marie Curie. He was in charge of implementing a research group in microbial ecology at the marine station in Banyuls-sur-mer. The research activities were initially focused on sanitary microbiology and on the concept of bacterial viability. Then the activities were rapidly extended to microbial biodiversity and to the understanding of the role of bacteria in biogeochemical cycles. An important partnership with the industry was developed all along this period with Chemunex, Pierre Fabre, Veolia, EDF,...and with the environmental agencies. The public/private collaboration has been very strong with Chemunex and with the Pierre Fabre pharmaceutical company. A common research group was established in 2002 with the Laboratoires Pierre Fabre and 4 permanent persons from the company are actually working in Banyuls. This partnership is often considered as a partnership reference in France and in Europe. These collaborations have open new research activities in the field of biotechnology. P. Lebaron is co-author of three active patents.

The group has increased during the last 20 years with up to 20 persons. Since 2014 and after a new distribution of the research activities, all these persons are working in different research units inside the institute.

P. Lebaron went for a sabatical from August 2004 to August 2005 at the marine station in Lewes, DE, USA working in the group of Dave Kirchman. When he came back in September 2005, he took the position of director of the marine institute in Banyuls-sur-mer. The collaboration between P. Lebaron and D. Kirchman has been extended to the two institutes and many people from Banyuls and Lewes have  developed new collaborations during the last 5 years. P. Lebaron has been renewed at the direction of the OOB in 2010 until the end of August 2015.

email address :

lebaron@obs-banyuls.fr