Bernard Dujon PhD

Bernard Dujon is emeritus professor of Genetics at Sorbonne University and at Institut Pasteur where, in 1987, he has created the research unit « Molecular Genetics of Yeast » that he directed until 2015. His main scientific interests focus on the organization, propagation, and evolution of eukaryotic genomes, using primarily yeasts as models. Back in the 7O’s, at CNRS, he described the first rules of mitochondrial inheritance using Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants.

After post-doctoral training at Harvard University, they subsequently lead him to the discovery of intron-homing, an entirely new phenomenon of gene drive based on the existence of intron encoded homing endonucleases that have served as the first tools for eukaryotic genome editing in the ’90s. After the sequencing of S. cerevisiae was completed in 1996 (to which it largely contributed).

Bernard Dujon’s team focused his activity on the evolution and stability of yeast genomes, combining comparative sequence analyses with dedicated experiments on S. cerevisiae as well as on the pathogenic yeast Candida. The many surprises observed in the evolution of many yeast genomes formed the bases for experiments in which major mechanisms were revealed from artificial genetic constructs. Bernard Dujon is a member of Institut de France (Académie des Sciences), Academia Europaea, EMBO, and the National Academy of Inventors.