Daniel Chourrout

Chourrout Group - Molecular Genetics of Protochordates
Position: Group Leader, Director General of the Sars Centre

Daniel Chourrout

• Doctorat Univ Paris VI
• Directeur de Recherches INRA, France from 1990
• At Sars since 1997

Daniel Chourrout studied at the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud from 1976 and earned his PhD in Genetics from the University of Paris VI. Before coming to Norway, he was the Director of Research at INRA (French Agriculture Research Institute) in the Lab of Fish Genetics. His research started with salmonid fish, and more particularly focused on the design and exploitation of genetic manipulations including gynogenesis, polyploidy and transgenic technologies. It included in a later phase the model fish medaka for studies of brain development. He was appointed in 1997 to develop the Sars Centre for Marine Molecular Biology, in which his group studies the evolution of chordate development using the tunicate Oikopleura dioica as a model system.