Biography

Nicole Le Douarin is honorary Professor at the College de France in Paris and former Director of the Institut d’Embryologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire du Collège de France et du CNRS. Presently, she works at the Institut Alfred Fessard – CNRS – à Gif-sur-Yvette, France. Nicole Le Douarin understood that a peculiarity of quail cells, that she noticed, could become the basis of a stable, uniquely reliable cell marking technique, allowing the migration and fate of embryonic cells to be followed throughout embryogenesis by the construction of quail-chick chimeras.

This approach enabled her to decipher the fate and role of the neural crest in vertebrate development. Nicole Le Douarin’s scientific achievement covers more than 450 articles and several books which made her world famous and unanimously recognized as a major driving force in modern developmental biology. She is the recipient of distinguished international awards such as: Kyoto Prize of Advanced Technology, Jeantet Prize for Medicine, Gold Medal of CNRS.

She is a member of many academies including: the French Académie des Sciences, Royal Society (UK), US National Academy and Doctor Honoris Causa of several highly regarded Universities. She is honorary Permanent Secretary of the Académie de Sciences, Paris.

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