Presentation

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 Albert1er 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.

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.