Patrice Mollard

Patrice Mollard is the head of the Department of Physiology at the Institute of Functional Genomics of Montpellier, France (https://www.igf.cnrs.fr/index.php/en/research-en/departments-en/physiology-en/11-thematic-axis/physiology?layout=blog ). His is a basic scientist. His research deals with the brain-endocrine system dialog, with a particular focus on the pituitary gland from embryonic development through to adulthood. He earned his PhD at the University of Poitiers, France. He went on the University of Bordeaux where he got an assistant Professor position in Pharmacy and earned Doctorate-ès-Sciences focused on pituitary cell signaling from both rodent models and human pituitary adenoma. He got a research scientist position at CNRS and did a sabbatical leave at The Medical College of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. He moved to Montpellier in 1995 when he installed his lab and became Research Director at CNRS. Mollard’s lab pioneered in the early 2000’s studies of large-scale functional organization of endocrine cell types within the pituitary gland. Their identification and analysis of 3D-endocrine cell networks have altered the concept of the pituitary as a static organ which non-dynamically responds to hypothalamic inputs, to a gland capable of integrating and memorizing numerous external cues to appropriately adapt tissue output to prevailing environmental conditions. P Mollard is internationally recognized (>30 invited talks/keynote lectures in the last five years) and published more than 100 papers (e.g. Nature, PNAS, Nat. Commun, Nat Rev Endoc, Endocrinology…). He has always been committed to knowledge transfer, e.g. Mollard has recently written one ‘how to’ text book chapter aimed at undergraduate/postgraduate students (‘Masterclasses: Mathematical Modelling in Neuroendocrinology’).