MARECHAL Eric

Eric Marechal is Director of Research at the CNRS, at Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Végétale (LPCV) where he leads with Juliette Jouhet the team "Biogenèse, dynamique et homéostasie des lipides membranaires". A graduate in Natural Sciences, he completed his thesis work from 1991 to 1994 at the Université Joseph Fourier under the supervision of Jacques Joyard. He then did a post-doctoral internship at Rockefeller University in New York, United States, in the laboratory of Professor Nam-Hai Chua, before being recruited at the CNRS in 1998. His research focuses on the metabolism of membrane lipids in plant cells, a very original metabolism due to the presence of a unique organelle, the plastid, and lipids absent in animal cells, galactolipids. In addition to developing his work in higher plants such as Arabidopsisthaliana, he is interested in single-celled organisms containing relatively little studied plasts despite their ecological and economic importance, such as non-chlorophyllous plasters of Apicomplex parasites (Plasmodium, malaria agent, Toxoplasma, toxoplasmosis agent) or the highly sophisticated chloroplasts of Diatoms (Phaeodylumactact) that inhabit the oceans. His work aims both to advance fundamental knowledge and to explore the possibilities of exploiting microalgae for biotechnological applications. It has therefore set up partnerships with various biotechnology players in France, Gene-IT, Cerep, Total Energies Nouvelles and Fermentalg.