Comptes Rendus Biologies最新文献

François Gros was Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences from 1991 to 2000. His immense scientific knowledge, his tireless efforts to develop international relations, particularly with developing countries, and his exceptional personality have greatly contributed to the modernisation and influence of the Academy.

I joined François Gros' laboratory as a postdoc at the end of 1971 and continued working with him as a research scientist until 1987, when I became an independent group leader at the Institut Pasteur. In the early 1970s, it was the beginning of research in his lab on muscle cell differentiation, as a model eukaryotic system for studying mRNAs and gene regulation. In this article, I recount our work on myogenesis and mention the other research themes in his lab and the people concerned. I remained in close contact with François and pay tribute to him as a major figure in French science and as my personal mentor who provided me with constant support.

The fight against antibiotic resistance must incorporate the "One Health" concept to be effective. This means having a holistic approach embracing the different ecosystems, human, animal, and environment. Transfers of resistance genes may exist between these three domains and different stresses related to the exposome may influence these transfers. Various targeted or pan-genomic molecular biology techniques can be used to better characterise the dissemination of bacterial clones and to identify exchanges of genes and mobile genetic elements between ecosystems.

Here I recall some privileged moments in my interactions with François: when he helped me obtain a grant for an NGO; when I participated in the work of COPED; when I returned to hospital medicine, his support for writing and publishing books that give patients a voice.

François Gros was a prominent French Molecular Biologist who made a major contribution to the discovery of messenger RNA in 1961. He pursued outstanding research on bacterial mRNA and its translation into proteins followed by pioneering work on muscle differentiation. I was lucky to be among his graduate students and owe much of my success in science to him. In this short text I will describe how the initial post-war studies of François guided him to discover the existence of short-lived RNA in bacteria, the messenger RNA containing the information for protein synthesis. I will also recount the influence he had on his students and their carrier in science.

Sixty years elapsed between the discovery of messenger RNA (mRNA) and the use of this molecule in an unprecedented global vaccination campaign that brought the Covid-19 pandemic under control. Sixty years of doubts for some and certainties for others about the possibility of using mRNA-an example of synthetic biology-in therapeutic medicine and vaccinology. Years of "translational" research and development have culminated in the success of anti-Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and the promise of more to come against emerging pathogens. A new paradigm in vaccinology, enabling pandemics to be tackled as they emerge. A lesson to be learned: medical progress is less a question of time than of the critical nature of the biological discovery that underpins it. Before leaving us, François Gros, who played a key role in the discovery of mRNA, was able to appreciate the relevance of this obvious fact.

This article shares the author's memories of his collaborations with François Gros when the latter was Professor at the University of Paris 7, then Director of the Institut Pasteur, then President of the Pasteur-Weizmann Council. He underlines the major contributions of "his boss" in the exercise of these functions.

Working with François Gros was a privileged moment in my scientific life, enabling me to appreciate a scientific personality whose generosity knew no bounds and whose vision of science was far ahead of its time.

François Gros, a biologist by training, began his research at the Institut Pasteur. In 1961, he discovered the molecular nature of the proposed intermediary between the gene and the protein, a so-called messenger RNA (mRNA), and determined its main characteristics. The author of numerous books, François Gros has helped shape and enlightened the birth of molecular biology and the development of related biotechnologies since the 1970s. He was Professor at the Collège de France and Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. Within the Academy, he initiated the creation of a committee for developing countries (COPED). François Gros was a humanist driven by moral rigour and an unfailing sense of commitment.

I was recruited by François Gros as a PhD student in his laboratory at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique in 1965, and continued to work with him after I graduated. In 1973, when he was appointed Professor of Cellular Biochemistry at the Collège de France, François decided to set up a team working on neuronal differentiation. He asked me to take part in this new scientific adventure. Here I'd like to talk about the members of his laboratory and some of their scientific work, in particular that on the cytoskeleton of neurons.