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Jean-Pierre Changeux
Professor, Collège de France; Professor & Chairman of the Department of Neurosciences, Pasteur Institute, Paris.
At the advent of the era of molecular biology, Jean-Pierre Changeux
pioneered the study of the role of conformational change in regulatory
processes. His PhD studies, carried under the supervision of Jacques
Monod, provided the experimental basis for the formal model of
allosteric regulatory interactions between bacterial proteins. The
model was originally put forward in a paper that has become one of the
hundred most quoted papers of the world scientific literature.
Throughout a long career, Changeux has consistently built upon and
extended his early theory, to spawn many new and flourishing fields of
investigation. His main contributions and discoveries in the course of
the past 40 years are centered on the general theme of the molecular
and cellular mechanisms of signal recognition and transduction, also
referred to as receptor mechanisms, primarily in the nervous system. He
has never hesitated to combine approaches from supposedly disparate
disciplines of pharmacology, molecular biology and developmental
biology as well as behavioural and pathological studies, as and when
required. His contributions to understanding the regulation of
acetylcholine receptors in turn contributed to advancing our
understanding of the nature of long term synaptic plasticity within
neural networks. They have also inspired a number of other
theoreticians and experimentalists. His seminal work on the nicotinic
receptor has pioneered new fields of research in signal transduction
mechanisms, molecular pharmacology and pathology of chemical
communications in the nervous system. The publication of his book
Neuronal Man: The Biology of The Mind in 1985 brought Changeux
celebrity status among the wider public. Since then he has used his
obvious talent for communication to co-author several other books
directed towards the non-scientific public. Notably "Conversations on Mind Matter and Mathematics" (1998) and "What Makes Us Think" (2002) are widely acknowledged as having initiated surprising and instructive dialogue between the two often hostile disciplines of neuroscience and philosophy. Jean- Pierre Changeux is the recipient of many prizes, including the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 1993 and the Balzan Prize in 2001. In April 2006 year he was awarded a Biotechnology Achievement Award from the University of New York School of Medecine in recognition of his career-long contributions to our understanding of the role of conformational changes in regulation of neuronal traffic. |
