Isabelle Mansuy – “The Lateral Thinker”
When it comes to explain the origin of mental disorders there are various theories: While some state that everything is manifested in our genes, others consider the impact of the environment and personal experiences to be as important. Isabelle Mansuy is a neuroepigeneticist and has an explanation in-between: Life experiences can modify our genes by leaving biochemical marks on or around the DNA, this is epigenetics.
Using a mouse model, the scientist could prove that traumatic experiences in early life change the epigenome of male mice that have symptoms of depression and – as a consequence – that their babies have similar symptoms. “We could show that behavioral changes are manifest up to the third generation, though the descendants have not lived any traumatic experience”, Mansuy explains. Transmission of the effects of trauma to the next generation could be linked to changes in RNA in sperm cells, which allow the transfer of symptoms to descendants. This research thus revealed that sperm RNA can be vectors of inheritance, and represent an alternative mode of heredity. The team hopes that in the future, it will be possible to identify epigenetic biomarkers involving RNA that may be used for diagnosing cognitive and psychiatric diseases linked to trauma in patients.
"Working on epigenetic inheritance is difficult and challenging, but is a daily joy”,
Prof Mansuy says.
After completing a Ph.D. in Developmental Neurobiology at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel and the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, Isabelle Mansuy did a postdoc at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior of Columbia University, New York, USA, then became assistant professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. Since 2003, she is professor at the University of Zurich and ETHZ. In 2004, Isabelle Mansuy was honored with the FENS Award sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim.
Boehringer Ingelheim FENS award
The Boehringer Ingelheim FENS award is sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim and is announced by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.
The award is given in recognition of outstanding and innovative scientific work from all areas of neuroscience research. The personal prize amounts to 25,000 EUR.
Candidates may either apply themselves or be proposed by a fellow neuroscientist. Candidates must be under 40 years of age (<40) and either be of European origin or affiliated with a European institution.