Jean-Pierre Toutant is the current scientific adviser (attaché) at the French Consulate in Chicago. He studied Natural Sciences at the University of Paris VI and was awarded a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Neurobiology Lab at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris (ENS, 1985). After earning his doctorate, he worked at the National Institute for Agronomic Research at Montpellier (INRA, France) for twenty years. Both at ENS and INRA, he studied acetylcholinesterase (ace), a key enzyme of the nervous system in vertebrates as well as in invertebrates (insects, nematodes). He has published a number of papers on the cloning and expression of ace genes in C. elegans and on the biochemical properties of AChE in different species. From 2000 to 2004 he was coordinator of a European project, New Biosensors for Improved Detection of Environmental Contamination by Anticholinesterase Pesticides, involving 11 research groups in 8 European countries. |
