Michel Delseny

Michel Delseny is an emeritus CNRS scientist and a Member of the French Academy of Sciences, specializing in plant molecular biology and the response of plant genes to environmental changes. He obtained an Agrégation and CAPES in Life Sciences (1970), a Doctorat de 3° Cycle in Biochemistry (Montpellier, 1972), and a Doctorat d'État in Molecular Biology (Montpellier, 1977).

He held various positions throughout his career, starting as a CNRS Scientist at the University of Perpignan (1970-1984). He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the John Innes Institute in Norwich (1979-1980). He later served as Director of Research at CNRS, leading CNRS Unit 565 and UMR 5545/5096 (1984-2008), and was Deputy Director of the Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon Genopole (1999-2005). He continued as an emeritus director until 2018 and is now honorary emeritus.

His research experience is in the field of plant physiology and molecular biology. He started his career by studying nucleic acids metabolism during seed germination. He contributed to elucidating rRNA synthesis and processing and identified mRNA as poly-adenylated RNA. He learned the basis of genetic engineering during his post-doc at the John Innes Institute (1979-80). Based in Perpignan, he investigated the function of stored mRNA in dry seeds and discovered that it coded mostly for the Late Embryogenesis Abundant proteins. He isolated their genes and investigated their regulation by ABA and several regulatory genes (ABI3, ABI5, LEC1, FUS3) in Arabidopsis. In the early nineties, he shifted his activity towards genomics, participating in European programmes to sequence the Arabidopsis genome. He also contributed to the initiation of the rice genome project in France. His lab isolated and characterized numerous Arabidopsis genes, as well as several genes from rice and other crops. Discovering whole genome duplications in Arabidopsis, he became interested in genome evolution and confirmed the occurrence of whole genome duplications in rice, wheat, maize, and several other crops. From the beginning, he has been interested in the response of plant genes to environmental changes. In the Academy of Sciences, he participates in the Environment and Developing Countries Committees.

Michel Delseny has authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Physiology, Theoretical and Applied Genetics, and Nature. His contributions also include numerous popular science articles, book chapters, three books, and three patents. He is a member of Academia Europaea, Corresponding Member of the French National Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also Corresponding Member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in Barcelona and full Member of the French Academy of Sciences.