Élisabeth Tournier-Lasserve (born 1954) is a French neurologist, medical geneticist, university professor and hospital practitioner in genetics.
She is now head of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory, which provides a diagnostic service for hereditary neurovascular diseases for all French hospitals.
[1][2][3][4] With the geneticist Marie-Germaine Bousser, she discovered a genetic disease, designated by the acronym CADASIL (cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy), which is an adult-onset disorder characterized by recurrent ischemic strokes, dementia, and premature death.
[1][4][6] Tournier-Lasserve's main research interest over the past 25 years has been hereditary neurovascular disorders.
After the identification of the gene involved in CADASIL, her team identified several other genes involved in cerebral small-vessel diseases and cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM) and developed diagnostic tools for these conditions to improve clinical care and genetic counselling for patients and families.