Conferences are in English.
Symposium
Journée François Jacob 2020 - Resurrecting the past to understand the present
The ability to sequence DNA from fossils - the latest genomic revolution - has completely overturned our vision of the origins of our species, the interbreeding between it and other hominids now extinct, and the way in which the populating of the planet was completed.
The era of paleogenomics began in 1984, with the publication of the sequence of a mitochondrial DNA segment from quagga, an extinct subspecies of South African zebra that became extinct at the end of the 19thcentury . However, it was only in the mid-2000s, and especially in the last decade, that the study of ancient DNA entered its golden age and paleogenomics was founded as a discipline in its own right. In addition to studying the ancient DNA of humans and other species, molecular and isotopic studies of fossil remains have also led to the analysis of ancient proteins, the reconstitution of our ancestors' diets and the evolution of pathogens causing infectious diseases through space and time.
The Journée François Jacob 2020 will be dedicated to this fascinating topic: "resurrecting the past to understand the present", through various examples drawn from paleo-biology studies, with a particular focus on humans and microbes. The symposium will bring together researchers from the fields of biology, paleontology and microbiology, to shed as much light as possible on a theme that has always interested mankind: that of our origins and our interactions with other species.
The Journées François Jacob
Every year, the Journées François Jacob, organized by the Collège de France's Institute of Biology, bring together leading specialists from France and abroad to discuss a theme at the cutting edge of biology research.
The winner of the Prix Antoine Lacassagne, awarded each year by the Collège de France to a biology researcher, is traditionally invited to receive his or her prize at the Journées François Jacob, and to give a seminar related to his or her work.
The Journées are named in honor of François Jacob, holder of the Cellular Genetics Chair at the Collège de France (1964-1991), who was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with André Lwoff and Jacques Monod for his discovery of the genetic regulation of enzyme and virus synthesis.