Dr. Ménard received his M.D. in 1990 from the Université Paris V René Descartes. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology in 1995 from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. From 1995 to 1998, he conducted postdoctoral research in the Pathology Department of the New York University School of Medicine, where in 1998 he was named Assistant Professor, Department of Medical and Molecular Parasitology. He is the recipient of several awards, among them the 1995 Prix Jacques Pirraud en Maladies Infectieuses by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, the 1997 T.D.R. Program in Parasitology Award from the World Health Organization, a 5-year Career Award in Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in 1997, the 2001 Prix “Charles-Louis de Saulses de Freycinet” from the French Academy of Sciences, and the 2001 Prix “Georges Zermati” from the Fondation de France. He is currently chief of laboratory at the Pasteur Institute of Paris. This is his second HHMI International Research Scholar grant.

Robert Ménard studies Plasmodium, the genus of parasites that cause malaria. He plans to identify and characterize the proteins produced by Plasmodium in two of its early stages, before it infects red blood cells and causes symptoms of malaria. What he learns may be useful in developing protection strategies against the early stages of malaria infection.