Florence Débarre
Florence Débarre is a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. She is a researcher in the field of Evolutionary biology.
Education and career
Débarre completed her doctorate in 2010 at Montpellier 2 University. After postdoctoral research in Canada at the University of British Columbia, she joined the University of Exeter in England in 2013. She moved to CNRS in 2015, and earned a habilitation in 2019.She is affiliated with the.
COVID-19 research
During the pandemic, Débarre spoke on the transmission rates of different variants of the COVID-19 illness.In early February 2022, Débarre was one of the experts questioned by the French National Assembly on the COVID-19 pandemic.
In early 2023, Débarre found genetic information on GISAID which had been collected around the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19 but had only recently been published. The samples that contained those genetics had been secured from, among other places, traders' appliances and equipment at the market. A sample included SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA and Common raccoon dog DNA, leading Débarre and colleagues to the conclusion that the origin of the disease was most likely natural Zoonosis. Unfortunately, the animals in question had already been removed from the market at the time of testing, so Débarre explained that irrefutable proof for a Zoonosis could not be delivered.
Débarre was attacked on social media by proponents of the COVID-19 lab leak theory, who reject the idea of zoonosis as a source for the pandemic.
In 2024 Débarre led research published in Cell that provided further evidence of the zoonotic origin of the pandemic.