Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo is a French researcher of evolutionary biology and genetics. She is a director of research at the

National Center for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

(CNRS) and head of the Drosophila Evolution Team at the Institut Jacques Monod.

Life and work

Born in

Meaux Meaux () is a Communes of France, commune on the river Marne (river), Marne in the Seine-et-Marne Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region in the Functional area (France), metropolitan area of Paris, Franc ...

, Courtier-Orgogozo took preparatory classes in Life and Earth Sciences so she could pursue a career in biology, and she graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS). She earned her Ph.D. at Pierre and Marie Curie University with the thesis titled, ''Formation of sensory organs in D. Melanogaster: cell lineages, apoptosis and evolution'' supervised by François Schweisguth. She continued her post-doctoral work at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

before returning to France and joining the CNRS. Her interests have centered on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to the formation of a complex multicellular being from a single egg. In April 2010, Courtier-Orgogozo began supervising an ATIP-AVENIR four-person team at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. In time, her team grew to ten people working in the Courtier-Orgogozo Laboratory who are studying several concrete cases of evolution in insects to identify general rules that govern the evolution of living beings. The

Irène Joliot-Curie Prize The Irène Joliot-Curie Prize is a French prize for women in science and technology, founded in 2001. It is awarded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the Airbus Group corporate foundation, the French Academy of Scien ...

that she received in 2014 cited her research on mutations responsible for changes that occurred during the evolution of several species of

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many speci ...

flies, to trace their evolutionary history and to better understand the fundamental mechanisms and the general understanding of their evolution, past and future.

Awards and honors

* CNRS bronze medal (2014) *

, Young Woman Scientist category (2014) * Knight of the National Order of Merit (2015) * Lacassagne Prize, College of France (2018)

Selected publications

* Courtier‐Orgogozo, V., Morizot, B., & Boëte, C. (2017). Agricultural pest control with CRISPR‐based gene drive: time for public debate: should we use gene drive for pest control?. ''

EMBO reports ''EMBO Reports'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research related to biology at a molecular level. It publishes primary research papers, reviews, and essays and opinion. It also features commentaries on the social impact of advances ...

'', ''18''(6), 878-880. * Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Martin, A. (2020). The coding loci of evolution and domestication: current knowledge and implications for bio-inspired genome editing. ''

Journal of Experimental Biology ''Journal of Experimental Biology'' (formerly ''The British Journal of Experimental Biology)'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of comparative physiology and integrative biology. It is published by The Company of Biologists. The ...

'', ''223''(Suppl_1), jeb208934. * Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Arnoult, L., Prigent, S. R., Wiltgen, S., & Martin, A. (2020). Gephebase, a database of genotype–phenotype relationships for natural and domesticated variation in Eukaryotes. ''

Nucleic acids research ''Nucleic Acids Research'' is an open-access peer-reviewed scientific journal published since 1974 by the Oxford University Press. The journal covers research on nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, and related work. According to the ''Journal Ci ...

'', ''48''(D1), D696-D703. * Courtier‐Orgogozo, V., Danchin, A., Gouyon, P. H., & Boëte, C. (2020). Evaluating the probability of CRISPR‐based gene drive contaminating another species. ''Evolutionary applications'', ''13''(8), 1888-1905. * Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & de Ribera, F. A. (2022). SARS-CoV-2 infection at the Huanan seafood market. ''

Environmental Research Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geogra ...

'', 113702.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Courtier-Orgogozo, Virginie Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) People from Meaux Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists French National Centre for Scientific Research awards 21st-century French scientists 21st-century French women scientists French biologists Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni French women biologists