Jérôme Boisbouvier is head of the IBS/NMR of large biomolecular assemblies team. His "XXL-NMR" project has received financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) for a total of €3.5 million over 5 years. Applicants for ERC grants are established researchers who have been conducting significant research for at least ten years, in terms of the originality and importance of their research contributions.
The cell is a set of dynamic molecular machines that biologists are seeking to observe at atomic resolution, and thus better understand complex conformational changes, transient interactions and protein dynamics. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is the method of choice for such studies. However, the analysis of NMR spectra of most large hetero-oligomeric molecular assemblies is severely hampered by increasing NMR signal widths and large signal superpositions. Jérôme Boisbouvier's XXL-NMR project therefore aims to develop breakthrough technologies that will considerably simplify the NMR spectra of very large protein complexes, as well as their analysis at atomic resolution.
This project will propel biological applications beyond their current limits, transforming solution NMR spectroscopy into a highly competitive method for studying large, medically-relevant biomolecular assemblies, and finally accessing new molecular machines.
Jérôme Boisbouvier studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure. In 2000, he obtained a PhD in Physics from Grenoble Alpes University. In 2001, he worked at the NIH in Bethesda (USA) under the supervision of Dr Adriaan Bax. In 2004, he joined IRIG/IBS. In 2008, he was awarded the CNRS Paoletti Prize for his work in the life sciences, as well as the CNRS Bronze Medal awarded by both the Chemistry and Biology Departments of the CNRS. Jérôme Boisbouvier has a CNRS Research Director position since 2010.
Over the past fifteen years, his team became a leading player in the field of isotope labeling for biomolecular NMR. In 2010, Jerôme Boisbouvier won a first ERC "Consolidator" grant, enabling him to study the functioning of biological machinery in real time. In 2014, he received ERC "Proof of Concept" funding, to disseminate the isotope labeling innovations developed by his team. He has been awarded a third ERC "Advanced Grant" in 2022 for the XXL-NMR project.