Europ. J. Protistol. 38, 307–308 (2002) © Urban & Fischer Verlag http://www.urbanfischer.de/journals/ejp

In Memoriam: André Adoutte (1947–2002)

André Adoutte passed away in Tunisia on March 19, 2002 after a heart attack, while on a teaching mission. André was a renowned scientist, known for his work and brilliant ideas on cell morphogenesis and evolution of organisms. Among his numerous functions, he was a Professor at the University of Orsay-Paris XI since 1984, the Director of the ‘Centre de Génétique Moléculaire’ since 1999 and a Member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2001. He played an important role in the reorganization of the French Museum of Natural History and participated in the conception of the Great Gallery of Evolution. He was a member, with Luc Ferry, now Minister of Education, of the Committee for School Programmes. He also introduced the teaching of ‘evolution of development’ in the 100 year-old Course Program at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory. For the numerous people who knew him, he was a very open-minded, generous and accessible person, with great charisma that none will forget.

Born in Cairo on February 3, 1947, he arrived in France in 1964 to study biology at the University of Orsay. His professors rapidly noticed him so that he was recruited as a researcher and assistant professor while still an undergraduate student. He prepared a Ph.D. thesis in Janine Beisson’s laboratory in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, completed in 1977, on mitochondrial genetics in the ciliate Paramecium. His work was concerned with the isolation and genetic analysis of mitochondrial drug resistant mutants and his main contribution was to show that mitochondria in Paramecium are independent genetic units, without recombination within their cytoplasmic population, as later shown to be the case also in mammals. Then, during post doctoral research in Ching Kung’s laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977–1979, he tried to biochemically identify ion channel proteins using behavioral mutants. Thereafter, back in Gifsur-Yvette, and later in the University of Orsay, he shifted to the study of cell morphogenesis and pattern formation in relation to the organization of the cytoskeleton. The preparation of an anti-ciliary tubulin antibody, at first glance a minor achievement, proved to be determinant for the rest of his career. This antibody had the surprising property of cross reacting with axonemal tubulins of almost all species, whereas it did not recognize cytoplasmic tubulins in the same species. The first consequence of this result was the discovery of a new post-translational modification of tubulin, polyglycylation, producing the epitope recognized by the antibody, predominantly found on axonemal tubulin. The second consequence was that it gave André the opportunity to begin research on a problem which had long fascinated him, understanding the mechanisms of evolution. This was just at the period when molecular phylogenies based on ribosomal DNA were established. He reanalyzed these phylogenies by adding key organisms in the evolutionary tree and by stimulating improvements of the computational methods used to build the trees. He also realized the limits of the 0932-4739/02/38/03-307 $ 15.00/0

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phylogeny based on ribosomal DNA and initiated work to build a phylogeny of metazoa based on totally different genes, the hox genes. This choice was made because hox genes are involved in morphogenesis and pattern development. This was in frame with the current interest in ‘evo-devo’, evolution of development, re-activating the paradigm about relationships between ontogeny and phylogeny. This work showed that an elaborate cluster of hox genes appeared very early in evolution, before the diversification of the bilaterians. I had close contacts with André particularly at two periods of his life, in 1980–84, when he came back from his post doc and undertook the tubulin study, and since 1999 as the Director of the ‘Centre de Génétique Moléculaire’. In the first period, he introduced me to cell fractionation and biochemical analysis. He was a good pedagogue, always teaching matters as soon as he learned them. In all circumstances, he kept his conviviality, patience, good humour and availability, even during the last period, when he was overworked by his numerous responsibilities. Beyond being an innovative scientist with broad general culture in all fields of biolo-

gy, André was a great humanist who always tried to solve human problems first. As a professor, he captivated generations of students and students loved him and often came for friendly discussion in his office. An illustration is the following anecdote which I heard both from André and from one of the protagonists. One day, a few students knocked at his office and said, Well! You told us about evolution of species, but there is no actual proof of it, and they spent half an hour developing the creationist theory, refuting André’s arguments one after the other. André was rather upset at such a poor result of his entire teaching programme. He was trying to convince the students with great calm, when the door opened again and dozens of students, laughing in the corridor, said ‘Poisson d’Avril!’, it was the first of April… Jean Cohen Centre de Génétique Moléculaire Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Avenue de la Terrasse 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France [email protected]