Hervé Seitz

CNRS-UMR 9002,  Montpellier

After completing his studies at the École normale supérieure, Hervé Seitz prepared his thesis under the direction of Jérôme Cavaillé, Toulouse, from 2001 to 2004. Among the European pioneers for the study of microRNA, he discovered many microRNA genes subjected to parental genomic imprint, characterized their expression pattern and studied the epigenetic regulation of their expression

From January 2005 to January 2009, he completed his post-doctoral internship at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, under the direction of Phil Zamore. By combining biochemistry with bioinformatics, he studied the biogenesis of microRNAs, and contributed to the discovery of the endogenous piRNAs (2006) and siRNAs of Drosophila (2008).

Back in France in 2009 in his thesis laboratory, he became interested in the identification of microRNA targets. He introduced a new concept: the "targets" identified by molecular biology or bioinformatics are often functionally insensitive to small microRNA-driven repression (the effect of repression is mitigated by homeostasis and does not give any macroscopic phenotype). Since the creation of his own research team (at the IGH, in Montpellier, in October 2011), and with the help of talented and motivated collaborators, he has verified the predictions of this theory, and he is now exploring its implications.