The Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (IP Montevideo) is one of the most recent affiliates of the Institut Pasteur International Network (RIIP in French), composed of 33 independent centres located in five continents and united by the same values.
Dedicated to scientific research in biomedicine, IP Montevideo is composed by high-tech scientific platforms in areas such as genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, molecular and cellular biology; laboratories are open to young scientists’ research projects; it has become an international education centre with courses on the latest biological knowledge and state-of-the-art technologies; and promotes start-ups for the development of biotechnological applications.
Founded on July 14th, 2004, the institute was born through an emblematic agreement between the French and the Uruguayan Government, under the presidency of Dr. Jorge Batlle.
The Uruguayan Government and the University of the Republic (the only state university in Uruguay) together with the Institut Pasteur de Paris created a foundation with the purpose to produce and disseminate scientific and technological research in the field of human health, following the same objectives of the French headquarter.
The law that enabled the creation of the foundation also authorized the conversion of the historical debt of France with Uruguay, originated in the First World War, into an economic contribution for the creation of the institute in Montevideo. Formally, the IP Montevideo was inaugurated on December 8th, 2006 by the president of the republic —at the time, Dr. Tabaré vázquez— and authorities of France. It began to operate in February 2007
