À propos de Gradwohl Gérard

Gradwohl Gérard

Research director at INSERM

Présentation

Gérard Gradwohl (GG) is research director at INSERM. Since 2000 his research group aims at deciphering the gene regulatory cascades controlling endocrine cell differentiation and function in the pancreas and intestine. He earned his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 1991 at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France) in the field of DNA repair and obtained a permanent position at INSERM in 1991 as Research Associate. He next moved to Toronto for a postdoc at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute (Mount Sinai Hospital) where he studied the role of the Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Tek/tie2 during mouse angiogenesis. When he came back to France he  identified the Neurogenin/Math4 genes, a novel family of bHLH transcription factors, and studied their function during mouse neurogenesis at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology IGBMC (Illkirch, France). After the publication of a seminal study demonstration the key role of Neurogenin3 in the specification of the endocrine fate in the embryonic mouse pancreas he was awarded a starting grant (INSERM Avenir). Gérard Gradwohl is currently group leader at the IGBMC (Illkirch, France) within the Development and Stem Cells Program. Using mouse genetics and high-throughput sequencing approaches his team focuses on the role of transcription factors in the control of cell fate choices and the acquisition of the generic and specific properties of the different pancreatic endocrine cell types including insulin-secreting beta cells. His group also uses mouse models of human monogenic diseases to unravel the mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of pancreatic and enteroendocrine hormone failure. Research activities in his team are relevant both for the development of novel strategies for a stem cell based therapy in diabetes as well as to understand the mechanisms of rare diseases such as permanent neonatal diabetes or enteric anendocrinosis.