Inserm Prizes: two prizes for researchers with an outstanding international career

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Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, grants every year prizes to researchers whose work contribute to the excellence and reputation of the Institute. In late November, the latest prize ceremony recompensed five women and men laureate, including two researchers with an outstanding international career: Nabila Bouatia-Naji and Mohamed-Ali Hakimi, two scientists who studied and trained in France and who received the science prize and research prize, respectively.

“By celebrating its talent, Inserm intends to showcase the diversity and abundance of the biomedical research professions and the creativity and passion of the people that keep things running every day.” To keep in line with this statement, the Inserm has created these prizes in the 2000’s in five categories: the Grand Prize, the Research Prize, the Innovation Prize, the Science and Society-Opecst Prize and the Research Support Prize.

Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Moroccan alumna and committed researcher

Nabila Bouatia-Naji, a Moroccan alumna, has been nominated in the Science and Society-Opecst Prize category (parliamentary office of evaluation of scientific and technologic choices). The Science and Society Prize recompenses a woman or man researcher who stood out “in the field of bringing value to research and her/his capacity to dialogue with society”.

As the Inserm write in her dedicated portrait, “from Tangier to Paris, and Lille, Nabila Bouatia-Naji never ceased to face challenges, such as the identification of genes predisposing to cardiovascular diseases women in majority”. This Prize celebrates her commitment, which has started as early as her years of training. She started her studies in her country, “where she discovered her passion for genetics and the transmission of hereditary characters”. She then went to France, and more specifically in Lille in 1998. This is where she studied in molecular and cellular biology, and passed a doctorate in human genetics. Then, she went to Cambridge for a post-doctorate, and was recruited by Inserm as early as 2009, where she “studied fibromuscular dysplasia, an unknown arterial pathology”. Research in genetics and the bridge between science and society are indeed the two ways that guide the career of Nabila Bouatia-Naji, now research director at Inserm at the Paris Centre of Cardiovascular Research (Parcc).

An ERC laureate (the European Research Council programme) for her work in genetics, Nabila Bouatia-Naji is also a member of the Femmes et Sciences association (Women and Science), where she works to promote the career of women scientists.

Mohamed-Ali Hakimi, a researcher with nomadic career

More researchers with a remarkable international career also won prizes by Inserm in 2025, such as

Mohamed-Ali Hakimi, who received the 2025 Research Award. This prize honours a researcher whose work has made a particularly “significant impact on the fields of fundamental research, clinical and therapeutic research, or public health research”.

According to Inserm, Mohamed-Ali Hakimi embodies a form of “social nomadism, while remaining faithful to his origins and values”. Of Algerian origin, he completed a master’s degree in Canada, followed by a thesis in plant molecular biology in Grenoble (Université Joseph-Fourier), and a postdoctoral fellowship in oncology in Philadelphia, in the United States. After joining Inserm in 2004, the research director has focused his work on toxoplasmosis, with the aim of “reducing risks to humans… and sparing cats”, as recent scientific advances now make it possible to replace cats, traditionally used in research to better understand infection by this parasite. This body of work has earned the team he leads an Excellence Chair in Biology and Health as part of the France 2030 investment plan.

The 2025 INSERM prizes also recompensed pneumologist and researcher Marc Humbert, the head of research specialised in digital health Sarah Zohar and the head of the European relations centre at INSERM Guillaume Fusai.