Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, CNRS UMR7212/INSERM U944, Paris, France

Thierry Heidmann wins the 2009 Retrovirology prize In 2005 thanks to the generosity of the Ming K Jeang Foundation the Retrovirology prize was inaugurated A goal of the Retrovirology Prize is to identify an outstanding mid-career scientist who is close to the peak of his her productivity and who is expected to have many future years of high achievement Previous winners of the Retrovirology Prize include Stephen Goff 1 Joseph Sodroski 2 Karen Beemon 3 and Ben Berkhout 4 For 2009 the Editors of Retrovirology have selected Thierry Heidmann as the recipient of the Retrovirology Prize TH heads a CNRS laboratory at Universit Paris-Sud and Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif in the southern suburbs of Paris With a strong background in physics and mathematics he was interested in the early 1980 s in linking these disciplines of science with biology more precisely with neurobiology and the science of complex neuronal networks To fulfil his aspiration Thierry entered Jean-Pierre Changeux s lab at the Pasteur Institute to start a PhD on the newly discovered acetylcholine receptor This exciting experience led Thierry to turn to more applied science following a profound will to slowly but surely shift from studying the physical sciences to studying the biological sciences After his PhD Thierry focused on transposable elements and retrotransposons The question he asked at that time was simple how to be able to monitor the transposition of these mobile elements in a mammal where genetic approaches to detect transposition were both poorly efficient and time consuming He then decided to devise a system that could detect retrotransposition of any element whose mobilization includes a reverse transcription step no matter where the reverse transcribed transposed element would target and integrate This search resulted in 1988 in the generation of the first indicator gene for retrotransposition This was his first step in the field but a decisive one Since then his laboratory has focused on three complementary directions the regulation of retroelements activities the search for functional endogenous retroviruses and their role in physiological and pathological conditions Professor Ali Saib a member of the editorial board of Retrovirology http www Retrovirology com asked him a series of questions on these elements and about his views on several issues raised by his investigations

Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, CNRS UMR7212/INSERM U944, Paris, France

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Endogenous Retroviruses: Thierry Heidmann wins the 2009 Retrovirology prize