Casablanca-based Pasteur Network institute bridging European research consortia with North African infectious disease expertise and clinical access.
Institut Pasteur du Maroc (IPM) is a public health and biomedical research institute in Casablanca, part of the international Pasteur Network. Their work spans infectious disease biology and clinical diagnostics, with documented research into both tropical parasitic diseases (leishmaniasis) and oncological biomarkers (non-small cell lung cancer). In H2020, they participated exclusively in MSCA-RISE staff exchange projects, serving as a host/sending institution for researcher mobility between Morocco and Europe. This positions them as a bridge between North African clinical realities — where diseases like leishmaniasis are endemic — and European research networks.
LeiSHield-MATI (2018–2023) placed IPM in a multi-disciplinary consortium studying clinical, molecular, and social factors in cutaneous leishmaniasis, including parasite-vector-host interactions and psychological impact.
LungCARD (2017–2022) involved developing blood-based diagnostic tests for guiding therapy in non-small cell lung cancer patients.
LeiSHield-MATI keywords include RNAseq and HTseq, indicating hands-on capacity in RNA sequencing workflows applied to parasite and immune response profiling.
IPM's earliest H2020 involvement (2017) centred on oncology — specifically blood-based diagnostics for lung cancer. By 2018 their participation shifted toward infectious disease, with leishmaniasis becoming the dominant research theme alongside a broader molecular toolkit (RNAseq, immune response profiling, prognostic biomarkers). The two-project sample is too small to call this a definitive pivot, but the direction aligns naturally with the Pasteur Network's core infectious disease mandate and IPM's geographic position in a country where leishmaniasis is clinically relevant.
IPM appears to be moving toward its Pasteur-network core — infectious disease biology in the Mediterranean/African context — which suggests future collaborations are most likely in parasitology, neglected tropical diseases, and clinical molecular diagnostics.
IPM has never coordinated an H2020 project; both participations are as a third party within MSCA-RISE consortia, meaning they contribute primarily through researcher exchange rather than leading scientific work packages. Despite the small project count, they have connected with 26 distinct partners across 21 countries, which reflects the broad, hub-and-spoke nature of RISE consortia rather than deep bilateral relationships. Working with IPM likely means hosting or sending researchers and accessing North African clinical samples or disease contexts — not delegating project management to them.
Through only two projects, IPM has touched 26 partner organisations across 21 countries — a reach explained by the large multi-country consortia typical of MSCA-RISE. Their geographic footprint spans Europe and beyond, with Morocco serving as the African anchor in both consortia.
IPM is one of the few North African research institutes with any H2020 track record, and its membership in the global Pasteur Network gives it credibility and cross-institute connections that independent regional institutes lack. For European consortia targeting diseases endemic to the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa — leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, arboviral infections — IPM offers both geographic relevance and established institutional infrastructure. This makes them a distinctive partner for projects that need a scientifically credible African site without building a new collaboration from scratch.
