Jules Hoffmann: Biography

USA - France/Luxembourg

Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann

2007 Balzan Prize for Innate Immunity

For their discovery of the genetic mechanisms responsible for innate immunity. They have worked in close cooperation to develop a new vision of the molecular defence strategy deployed by animals across a wide evolutionary spectrum against infectious agents. Their work has led to very promising medical applications.

JULES HOFFMANN
Biographical and Bibliographical Data
 
Jules A. Hoffmann, born in Echternach, Luxemburg on 2 August 1941, is a French citizen.
 
He is Research Director and Member of the Board of Administrators of CNRS. Since 2007, he has been President of the French National Academy of Sciences.
 
He graduated in Biology and Chemistry and received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Strasbourg in 1969. His post-doctoral training was at the Institut für Physiologische Chemie at Philipps Universität in Marburg an der Lahn, Germany, in 1973-1974.
 
He was Research Assistant at CNRS from 1964 to 1968, and became Research Associate in 1969, and since 1974 is Research Director of CNRS. Between 1978 and 2005 he was Director of the CNRS research Unit 9022 “Immune Response and Development in Insects”, and from 1993 to 2005 he was Director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of CNRS in Strasbourg.
 
Jules Hoffmann has served on numerous French and International Committees, and is a member of several Academies, amongst which are the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the French National Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization), the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the Russian Academy of Sciences
 
Jules Hoffmann and Bruce Beutler co-edited the Section on Innate Immunity in Current Opinion in Immunology, 2003.