Un demi-siècle de génétique de la levure au CNRS, de la biologie moléculaire à la génomique

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The singular fate of genetics in the history of French biology Fifteen years ago, the Journal of the History of Biology published an article that was significant in the historical epistemology of the 20th century. Entitled « The Single Fate of Genetics in the Biological History of France, » and inspired by the theories of philosopher G. Canguilhem, the three authors (R. Burian, J. Gayon, D. Zallen) described the manner in which genetics was developed in France on the margins of the mainstream chromosomal genetics of T. H. Morgan. They focused on the scientific career of Boris Ephrussi, an embryologist-physiologist with a fellowship at the Institut de biologie physio-chimique (IBPC). Ephrussi became the first person to hold a chair in genetics at the university level. Despite the intellectual resistance of naturalists on the faculty of sciences or at the National Museum of Natural History, Ephrussi and his student Piotr Slonimski introduced the new life science to the CNRS. Shortly after their foreign counterparts in the field, the French biologists created a new discipline under the contested name “molecular biology” which came from the convergence of genetics and biochemistry. The choice to use yeast for an experimental material permitted geneticists at the CNRS to reveal cytoplasmic (not chromosomal) genetic structure that would, twenty years later, lead to remarkable developments at the Centre de génétique moléculaire at Gif-sur-Yvette. This group of laboratories rapidly acquired an international renown in the study of phenomena of genetic regulation. They played an important role in the first sequencing program for a eukaryote (the yeast), which opened the way for post-genomics.