Alain Viel is the director of Northwest Undergraduate Laboratories and senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Early life and education

Viel received a PhD in molecular and cellular biology of development in 1990 from

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

in Paris, France (Paris VI) for a thesis "Les particules ribonucleoproteiques dans le oocytes de xenopus laevis. mise en place du systeme de synthese proteique" and did postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

Academic career

His main research has been on

tumor suppressor A tumor suppressor gene (TSG), or anti-oncogene, is a gene that regulates a cell (biology), cell during cell division and replication. If the cell grows uncontrollably, it will result in cancer. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, it results ...

hDlg which includes an in-depth characterization of the combinations of hDlg isoforms present in multiple tissues and cell lines to correlate the presence of specific alternatively spliced insertions with a specific function of this tumor suppressor. He also studies the perturbation of hDlg distribution in two skin disease:

psoriasis Psoriasis is a long-lasting, noncontagious autoimmune disease characterized by patches of abnormal skin. These areas are red, pink, or purple, dry, itchy, and scaly. Psoriasis varies in severity from small localized patches to complete b ...

, characterized by a hyper-proliferation of basal cells, and

Darier's disease Darier's disease (DD) is a rare, genetic skin disorder. It is an autosomal dominant disorder, that is, if one parent has DD, there is a 50% chance than a child will inherit DD. It was first reported by French dermatologist Ferdinand-Jean Darier ...

, characterized by blisters resulting from the loss of cell adhesion in the supra-basal layers. He is a founding member of BioVisions.

Lectures

In 2015, Viel started to teach an online course ''MCB63X - Principles of Biochemistry'' with Rachelle Gaudet on

edX edX is an American For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit massive open online course provider. It was founded by MIT and Harvard. It is a subsidiary of 2U (company), 2U. History edX was founded in May 2012 by the admi ...

Publications

Books

Viel is a co-author of the book ''Biology: How Life Works''. It is published by

Macmillan Education Macmillan Education is a publishing imprint and business which has been owned by various divisions and companies of the Macmillan publishing group and, more recently, the Springer Nature Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a Germa ...

and is the first project to develop three pillars: the text, the visual program, and the assessment at the same time.

Multimedia

Viel is co-author of ''

The Inner Life of the Cell ''The Inner Life of the Cell'' is an 8.5-minute 3D computer graphics animation demonstrating the molecular mechanisms that occur when a white blood cell in the blood vessels of the human body is activated by inflammation (Leukocyte extravasation ...

'', an 8.5-minute 3D computer graphics animation illustrating the molecular mechanisms that occur when a white blood cell in the blood vessels of the human body is activated by inflammation (Leukocyte extravasation). It shows how a white blood cell rolls along the inner surface of the capillary, flattens out, and squeezes through the cells of the capillary wall to the site of inflammation where it contributes to the immune reaction.

References

External links

Webpage at Harvard UniversityNorthwest Teaching LaboratoriesMCB63X, Principles of Biochemistry, HarvardX, edXBioVisions
* ,
YouTube video

''The Inner Life of the Cell'' - Shockwave Flash Video (without narration)

Simplified cartoon version of the same process.
David Bolinsky's Speech
Presenting ''The Inner Life of the Cell'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Viel, Alain Living people Harvard University faculty Biochemistry educators French biologists Year of birth missing (living people)