Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your career ?
I'm a geneticist specializing in epigenetics.
I began my university studies in England with a degree in physics, and then decided to focus on biology by enrolling at Cambridge University in the UK. Driven by research, I went on to do my PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. After four years of thesis work, I joined the Institut Pasteur in 1990 on a postdoctoral contract to study thefemale-specific Xchromosome.
My professional experience at the Institut Pasteur lasted nine years, during which I had the opportunity to become a CNRS research fellow. With this experience behind me, I decided to spend a year working in the United States at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research institute. It was then that I was able to set up a research team and join the Institut Curie in Paris, where I was appointed Director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology Unit in 2010. In 2012, I was appointed Professor at the Collège de France, then Director General of EMBL in January 2019.
How do you see your professorship at Collège de France ?
Being a professor at the Collège de France enables me to communicate advanced studies on my research topic to the public. As such, this communication can stimulate reflection on subjects broader than my own research topic.
Being appointed a professor at the Collège de France has enabled me to broaden and open up my horizons even further, in particular by having the opportunity to interact with professors from various fields.
In this way, I learned to do things beyond my area of specialization, and I think this is a very important element in a researcher's career.
Tell us about a highlight in your career
Following on from the answer to the previous question, I'd like to mention the symposium " Migrations, réfugiés, exil ", organized by the Collège de France in 2016, which subsequently gave rise to the PAUSE program. Alain Prochiantz, who was a trustee of the Collège de France, and I brought together leading scientists and civil society figures to form the PAUSE program's support committee. Together, we signed an opinion piece published onOctober15 2016 to alert public opinion to the urgent need to welcome scientists in danger in France.
Another highlight of my professional career : the co-discovery (in collaboration with Job Dekker) of a new rule for the spatial organization of chromosomes that reflects the way they function. This was an unexpected discovery whose studies opened up many new avenues for understanding certain pathologies, such as genetic diseases.
Have you encountered any obstacles in your career and how did you overcome them ?
I've been very lucky in my professional career, having had support on both a personal and professional level. So I haven't encountered any obstacles.
However, I'd like to point out that recently I've noticed that it's less easy for a woman to hold certain positions of responsibility, because the higher you go, the greater the challenge, and this is even truer when you're a woman.
What advice would you give to young women inspired by the scientific professions ?
The first piece of advice I'd like to give young women is to go for it without asking too many questions. If they're driven by curiosity, science offers some very inspiring careers that give you the opportunity to seek out the unknown, and in that sense it's unique. Of course, they may encounter obstacles that they will be able to overcome if they are driven by passion.
