Biography and publications | Gilles Boeuf - Sustainable development - Environment, energy and society

Biography

Gilles Boeuf is a professor at the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University (UPMC) and carries out his research work in the "Integrative Biology of Marine Organisms" unit at the Arago Laboratory (Observatoire océanologique) in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Pyrénées-Orientales

"Integrative Biology of Marine Organisms" unit at the Arago Laboratory (Oceanological Observatory) in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Pyrénées-Orientales. He is currently President of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. After twenty years at IFREMER, he spent six years as Director of the Observatoire océanologique de Banyuls, then four years as Director of the CNRS/UPMC unit Modèles en biologie cellulaire et évolutive. He has been a member of numerous scientific councils, and was a member of the Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique for nine years (1991-2000).

He is currently Chairman of the Scientific Council of Agropolis International in Montpellier, Chairman of the Environment Commission of the Fondation de France, Chairman of the Scientific Council of CIRAD, and a member of the Scientific Council for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity of the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, member of the Board of Directors of the Agence des aires marines protégées and the Association Humanité et Biodiversité, member of the Comité de perfectionnement du Centre scientifique de Monaco, member of the Scientific Council of the Good Planet Association, member of the Bureau of the International Platform for Biodiversity and Ecological Services, President of the Association de gestion de la Réserve naturelle de la Massane (Pyrénées-Orientales). He is a member of the French Commission for Unesco, Knight of the Legion of Honor and of the National Order of Merit. In 2013, he was awarded the Albert^1er Grand Medal by the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco for his career-long dedication to the oceans.

An academic, Gilles Boeuf did his thesis at the Arcachon marine biology station. He then worked in Brest as a research officer and then director at CNEXO and IFREMER. He then became a professor at UPMC and was posted to Banyuls, where he still pursues part of his teaching and research activities. He has carried out over 100 missions abroad, to some forty countries, and spent more than three years in Chile.

A specialist in environmental physiology and biodiversity, he has long worked on the migration of salmonid fish, using experimental physiology and endocrinology to study various adaptive and evolutionary mechanisms in animals. He is particularly interested in the mechanisms of development, growth and adaptation in fish. He has worked and written extensively on the biological basis of aquaculture and marine and continental biodiversity. He is the author of over 400 national and international publications (h-index at 33, nearly 3,000 citations, average > 27), participations in congresses and is a frequent guest abroad. In October 2010, with Bernard Swynghedauw and Jean-François Toussaint, he co-organized the symposium "L'Homme peut-il s'adapter à lui-même?" at the Muséum (lectures downloadable from canal-insep.fr, book published by Quae in November 2012) and, in November 2011, the symposium entitled "La biodiversité et son évolution, limites de l'adaptabilité des systèmes" at the Fondation des Treilles, in the Var. He co-organized, with the Commissariat général au développement durable, a symposium on bio-inspiration and biomimicry held at the Muséum on December 10, 2012. He moderated the "Biodiversity" theme at the Conseil économique, social et environnemental's environmental conference in September 2012. He took part in the National Research Agency's symposium, "8 years of environmental research", in December 2012, at the Collège de France. Finally, he delivered one of the opening lectures at the Conseil économique social et environnemental's international symposium, "The high seas, the future of humanity", on April 11, 2013.

Gilles Boeuf gives numerous lectures in France and abroad (over 80 in 2013) on the subject of the ocean, biodiversity, adaptation to the environment, the role of water in life and marine living resources. He was heavily involved in the events of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity, with more than 60 lectures, including the opening of the Unesco symposium in Paris in January and the opening of the French Biodiversity Week in Chamonix in May, and also made numerous appearances in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Research topics

1976-1993

Institut de biologie marine d'Arcachon and CNEXO, then IFREMER in Brest

Early in his career, Gilles Boeuf developed a strong research activity on smoltification (the metamorphosis affecting young salmonids, preparing them for marine life) through physiological and endocrinological approaches. He focused on the role of an enzyme localized in the gill microsomes, (Na+-K+)-adenosine triphosphate (Na-K ATPase), a membrane transport protein directly involved in osmoregulation and adaptation to seawater. Enzyme levels were found to be an excellent marker of the potential for active migration and adaptability to seawater in young salmon. Various hormones were studied (thyroid hormones, prolactin, growth hormone, melatonin, cortisol, IGFs, etc.) and found to play an active role in smoltification, Na-K ATPase expression, developmental and growth control, migration initiation, environmental memory, osmoregulatory capacity and adaptation in general. A major effort was required to develop reliable hormone assays of tissue or circulating levels in models, using biochemical and then molecular approaches (from 1989 onwards). This period of research culminated in a chapter in a book published in 1993, " Salmonid Smolting: a Preadaptation to the Oceanic Environment " (in Fish Ecophysiology, J. C. Rankin and F. B. Jensen Editors, Chapman and Hall, London, p. 105-135, 1993) and the publication of over 50 papers, most of them published with Patrick Prunet and Pierre-Yves le Bail, from Inra Rennes.

1994-2006

Between IFREMER Brest and Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls

With the abandonment in France of aquaculture development in the field of marine salmon farming, IFREMER decided to stop the above-mentioned work and open up fundamental research on marine fish (essentially wolffish and turbot). Investigations then focused on the embryonic development and reproduction of these species, using the same physiological and endocrine approaches. Gilles Boeuf founded a scientific interest group (1994-1999) with IFREMER, INRA, CNRS, the universities of Bretagne Occidentale, Bordeaux 1, Rennes 1, Orsay Paris-sud and UPMC. Work has been carried out on the influence of temperature, salinity, day-night alternation, hypoxia, the presence of ammonia, etc. on health status and adaptive capacities. The chlorine channel protein (CFTR) has been cloned in salmon gill and dogfish rectal gland, and a parallel has been established between the type of mutation (genotype) and the severity of expression (phenotype) of cystic fibrosis in humans(Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2001), with Claude Férec in Brest. After leaving IFREMER in Brest for the Observatoire océanologique de Banyuls (UPMC) in 1999, this research was continued thanks to the organization of a team " physiologie environnementale et neuroendocrinologie " with Jack Falcón, within the UMR " Modèles en biologie cellulaire et évolutive " then " Biologie intégrative des organismes marins ". His work has focused on the hormone melatonin and the two serotonin-to-melatonin converting enzymes (AANAT and HIOMT), both in the retina and pineal gland, with molecular approaches, on various models : trout, wolfish, turbot, tuna, dogfish, some invertebrates... Numerous molecular tools in turbot were developed in Rennes with Daniel Boujard (articles in Endocrinology, Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences...). A much-appreciated paper on melatonin/growth hormone/prolactin interactions appeared in Endocrinology in 2003, and another in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, in 2007. Between 1995 and 2004, Gilles Boeuf worked with Patrick Payan in Nice on the physiology of the otolith/otosac complex (14 publications). An article published in 2001 in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology-PartC: Toxicology and Pharmacology was among the 5 most cited papers for 2005.

2007-2014

Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls and Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris

After joining the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Gilles Boeuf nevertheless continued his work at Banyuls with Jack Falcón on the role of melatonin and its receptors (with, among others, three papers in General and Comparative Endocrinology, a paper in PLoS one, in the Journal of Experimental Biology, in Molecular Ecology and a paper accepted by PNAS in November 2013). At the Muséum, however, he is required to work on different themes, linked to his responsibilities as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and then President of the establishment. In this capacity, he is in charge of coordinating research and chairs the Museum's Board of Directors, while ensuring close coherence between the Museum's five missions: research, lectures, collections, dissemination and expertise.

He also devotes a great deal of his time to representing the Museum and lecturing. He gives more than 80 lectures a year, on biodiversity, the role of water in biological systems, life in the oceans and its living resources, all over the world and aimed at all audiences, from research and teaching laboratories to the general public.

His current research focuses on the interactions between environmental physiology, endocrinology and biodiversity, on questions such as " Why are there so few species in the oceans, compared with the continents ? ", " How does life emerge from the oceans ? ", " What future for biodiversity ? ", " What are the limits of human adaptability ? ", " What are the uses of bio-inspiration for ecological transition ? "... In 2010, he published a book devoted to biodiversity in the Mediterranean with Oxford University Press. This work is carried out in close collaboration with partner teams, appearing in joint publications. In October 2010, our collaboration with Jean-François Toussaint (IRMES at Hôtel-Dieu) led to the organization of a symposium entitled : " L'Homme peut-il s'adapter à lui-même ? " which was published by Quae in November 2012, and a dossier in Futuribles magazine, " Les piliers d'un nouvel humanisme : plafonds ou transition, quel à-venir à la crise ? ", in November 2013.