Pierre Chambon

Pierre Chambon
Pierre Chambon
Born	7 February 1931 (age 93); Mulhouse, France
Nationality	French
Known for	nuclear hormone receptors
Awards	Richard Lounsbery Award (1982); Harvey Prize (1987); Sir Hans Krebs Medal (1990); Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (1991); Welch Award in Chemistry (1998); Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1999); Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2004); Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize (2003); Gairdner Foundation International Award (2010) ; Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (2018)
	Scientific career
Institutions	Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology [fr]

Pierre Chambon (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ ʃɑ̃bɔ̃]; born 7 February 1931 in Mulhouse, France) was the founder of the Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology [fr] in Strasbourg, France.^[2] He was one of the leading molecular biologists who utilized gene cloning and sequencing technology to first decipher the structure of eukaryotic genes and their modes of regulation. His major contributions to science include the identification of RNA polymerase II (B)^{[nb 1]}, the identification of transcriptional control elements, the cloning and dissection of nuclear hormone receptors, revealing their structure and showing how they contribute to human physiology. His group was also one of the first to demonstrate, biochemically and electron-microscopically, that the nucleosome is the smallest unit of chromatin (Cell, Vol. 4, 281–300, 1975). He accomplished much of his work in the 1970s – 1990s.

Chambon was elected a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and to the French Académie des Sciences in 1985, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1987.^[3] He was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1999 and a second time in 2018. In 2003 he was awarded the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2004 for his work in the field. In 2010, Chambon was awarded the Gairdner Foundation International Award "for the elucidation of fundamental mechanisms of transcription in animal cells and to the discovery of the nuclear receptor superfamily".^[4] In 2018 he received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for a second time.^[5]

Notes

^ Chambon named his three polymerases A, B, C. The now-more-common designations I, II, III were the nomenclature used by Robert G. Roeder and William J. Rutter.