Alain Prochiantz

Another of Cragg's influences is Alain Prochiantz. He was born December 17 1948 , and is currently a researcher in neurobiology and a professor at the College de France. Alain Prochiantz is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Superieure (1969). After a thesis of science obtained in 1976 in the field of genetic translation , he turned to neurobiology , working with Jacques Glowinski and became director of research at CNRS . He obtained the direction of the Biology Department of the Ecole Normale he held until 2006 to become Chair "morphogenetic process" of the College de France in 2007. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences since November 18, 2003 and Chairman of the Research Committee of the Foundation for Medical Research (FRM). In 2011 , he received for all of its work on the Inserm Grand Prix .
It is also the author of numerous scientific articles and books on the brain is involved in staging drama of scientific with his friend Jean-François Peyret . Together, they collaborate in the writing of the play Ex vivo / in vitro created at the Hill Theater in November 2011.
Alain Prochiantz works since the early 1980s in the field of neurobiology molecular processes including morphogenesis and cell differentiation nervous. He made ​​his first important work at the College de France with Jacques Glowinski on the development and maturation in vitro of dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain , , . Who moved his laboratory to the ENS , it then focuses on the molecular signals responsible for some neuronal morphogenesis process and stresses in particular since 1991 the role of the homeobox of certain transcription factors , (but also of different proteins of the extracellular matrix such as tenascin , and glycosaminoglycans ...) in these phenomena. As was then fully accepted in the scientific community, he suggested that cascades regulating homeotic genes (the Hox family ) are potentially involved in many stages of neuronal differentiation, the growth of neurites , neuronal polarity. .. However, going against a certain amount of knowledge, even of dogma in the field of molecular biology , he reports that areas of transcription factors, or even whole proteins such as protein Hox5 can be internalized in a cell , and therefore makes the idea of the possible secretion of a transcription factor given by a nerve cell A can be internalized by a neighboring cell B and have a biological effect on it. To clearly demonstrate this, he focuses his team to the homeoprotein Engrailed of the Hox gene family involved in the morphogenesis of brain structures and demonstrates that it also has an intracellular localization in secretory vesicles . The first key publication supporting this theory is made ​​in 1998 with the demonstration in vitro that a large proportion of nuclear transcription factor Engrailed is actually secreted into the extracellular medium by Cos and recaptured by neurons in co-culture acting as potential intracellular messenger peptide . It is interesting to note that these articles have been published in good journals in biology but not prominent because the data were relatively challenged by the scientific community . These discoveries will take some time to be recognized .
Alain Prochiantz continue its work in evolutionary genetics of development and directs its research towards the physiological aspects of his discoveries including basic molecular understanding of the processes of neuronal plasticity and axon guidance .

I found this information from: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Prochiantz