Alain Prochiantz

Alain Prochiantz (born 17 December 1948 in Paris) is a neurobiology researcher and professor at the Collège de France, of which he became director from 2015 to 2019. Alain Prochiantz is a former student of the École normale supérieure (1969). After a science thesis obtained in 1976 in the field of genetic translation, he turned towards neurobiology by working with Jacques Glowinski and became a research fellow (1978-1981) and then research director (1982-2007) at the CNRS. He was appointed head of the Biology Department at the École normale supérieure, which he kept until 2006, when he became the holder of the "Morphogenetic Processes" chair at the Collège de France in 2007. He has also been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 18 November 2003 and chairman of the Research Committee of the Foundation for Medical Research (FRM). In 2011, he received the Inserm Grand Prix de l'Inserm for all his work. Alain Prochiantz is also the author of numerous scientific articles and books on the brain; he participates in scientific theatre productions with his friend Jean-François Peyret. Together, they are collaborating on the writing of the play Ex vivo / In vitro, premiered at the Théâtre de la Colline in November 2011. Alain Prochiantz served as director of the Collège de France from 2015 to 2019. Alain Prochiantz has been working since the early 1980s in the field of molecular neurobiology, particularly on the processes of morphogenesis and nerve cell differentiation. He did his first major work at the Collège de France with Jacques Glowinski on the development and in vitro maturation of dopaminergic neurons in the mesencephalon. His laboratory having moved to the École normale supérieure, he then became interested in the molecular signals responsible for certain neuronal morphogenesis processes and, in 1991, highlighted in particular the role of homeoboxes of certain transcription factors (but also of different extracellular matrix proteins such as tenascin, glycoaminoglycans...) in these phenomena.