Sylvain Brisse is Research Director at Intitut Pasteur and the Head of the research Unit Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens. He is also the Director of two French National Reference Centers, in charge of the microbiological surveillance of diphtheria and whooping cough. He also manages the genomic taxonomy of bacterial strains platform of Institut Pasteur (BIGSdb-Pasteur). His research interests include the population biology and evolution of pathogenic microbial species, and their applications to epidemiological surveillance, diagnostics and public health. He aims to understand bacterial emergence driven by antimicrobial resistance or vaccine escape, and to track the global and cross-sector dissemination of bacterial sublineages and their genetic elements. He also develops strain nomenclature systems that are widely adopted and facilitate international communication on bacterial sublineages. His main focus is on the multidrug resistant pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae, on Bordetella pertussis and on Corynebacterium diphtheriae, and other phylogenetically related pathogens.