Jules A. Hoffmann (; born 2 August 1941) is a Luxembourg-born French biologist. During his youth, growing up in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...
, he developed a strong interest in insects under the influence of his father, Jos Hoffmann. This eventually resulted in the younger Hoffmann's dedication to the field of biology using insects as model organisms.
He currently holds a faculty position at the
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers.
The French university traces its history to the ...
.
He is a research director and member of the board of administrators of the National Center of Scientific Research (
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...
) in
Strasbourg,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
. He was elected to the positions of Vice-President (2005-2006) and President (2007-2008) of the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...
.
Hoffmann and
Bruce Beutler
Bruce Alan Beutler ( ; born December 29, 1957) is an American immunologist and geneticist. Together with Jules A. Hoffmann, he received one-half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for "their discoveries concerning the activatio ...
were jointly awarded a half share of the 2011
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...
in
Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...
for "their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity,".
ore specifically, the work showing increased Drosomycin expression following activation of Toll pathway in microbial infection.
Hoffmann and
Bruno Lemaitre discovered the function of the fruit fly ''
Toll'' gene in
innate immunity
The innate, or nonspecific, immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies (the other being the adaptive immune system) in vertebrates. The innate immune system is an older evolutionary defense strategy, relatively speaking, and is th ...
. Its mammalian homologs, the
Toll-like receptor
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a class of proteins that play a key role in the innate immune system. They are single-pass membrane-spanning receptors usually expressed on sentinel cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells, that recogniz ...
s, were discovered by Beutler. Toll-like receptors identify constituents of other organisms like fungi and bacteria, and trigger an immune response, explaining, for example, how
septic shock
Septic shock is a potentially fatal medical condition that occurs when sepsis, which is organ injury or damage in response to infection, leads to dangerously low blood pressure and abnormalities in cellular metabolism. The Third International Co ...
can be triggered by bacterial remains.
Education
Jules Hoffmann went to the
Lycée de Garçons de Luxembourg
The Lycée de Garçons de Luxembourg ( en, Luxembourg Boys' High School) is a high school in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg. The Lycée is located in the Limpertsberg
Limpertsberg ( lb, Lampertsbierg) is a quarter in north-western Lux ...
before leaving to France. Hoffmann received undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry at the
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers.
The French university traces its history to the ...
, France. In 1969, he completed his Ph.D. in biology also at the
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers.
The French university traces its history to the ...
under Pierre Joly in Laboratory of General Biology at the Institute of Zoology.
His post-doctoral training was at the Institut für Physiologische Chemie at
Philipps-Universität
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the worl ...
in
Marburg an der Lahn,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
, in 1973–1974.
Studies and Research Careers
During his Ph.D. program under Pierre Joly, Hoffmann started his research in studying antimicrobial defenses in grasshoppers, inspired by the previous works done in the laboratory of Pierre Joly showing that no opportunistic infections were apparent in insects after the transplantation of certain organs from one to another.
Hoffmann confirmed discovery of phagocytosis done by
Eli Metchnikoff, through injection of ''
Bacillus thuringiensis
''Bacillus thuringiensis'' (or Bt) is a gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, the most commonly used biological pesticide worldwide. ''B. thuringiensis'' also occurs naturally in the gut of caterpillars of various types of moths and butter ...
'' and observation of increase of phagocytes.
In addition, he showed strong correlation between hematopoiesis and antimicrobial defenses by assessing the susceptibility of an insect to the microbial infection after X-ray treatment.
Hoffmann shifts from using grasshopper model to using dipteran species in the 80s. By using ''
Phormia terranovae'', Hoffmann and his colleagues were able to identify 82-residues long antimicrobial polypeptide named
Diptericin
Diptericin is a 9 kDa antimicrobial peptide (AMP) of flies first isolated from the blowfly '' Phormia terranova''. It is primarily active against Gram-negative bacteria, disrupting bacterial membrane integrity. The structure of this protein incl ...
which was glycine-rich, along with other polypeptides in ''
Drosophila melanogaster
''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the " vinegar fly" or " pomace fly". Starting with ...
'' such as
Defensin
Defensins are small cysteine-rich cationic proteins across cellular life, including vertebrate and invertebrate animals, plants, and fungi. They are host defense peptides, with members displaying either direct antimicrobial activity, immune sig ...
,
Cecropin, and
Attacin
Attacin is a glycine-rich protein of about 20 kDa belonging to the group of antimicrobial peptides (AMP). It is active against Gram-negative bacteria.
Attacin was first discovered in '' Hyalophora cecropia'', but is widely conserved in different i ...
.
Further molecular genetic analysis revealed that the promoters for the genes encoding these antimicrobial peptides contained DNA sequences similar to the binding elements for NF-κB in mammalian DNA. ''Dorsal'' gene, critical in dorso-ventral patterning in the early embryo of ''Drosophila melanogaster'' was also identified to be in this NF-κB family. It was initially speculated by Hoffmann and colleagues that activity of Dorsal was directly linked to the expression of the ''Diptericin'' gene. However, it turned out that Diptericin was normally induced even in the loss-of-function ''Dorsal'' mutants. Further conducted research showed that Diptericin expression was dependent on the expression of imd gene. Identification of another antifungal peptide named Drosomycin and RNA blots demonstrated that two distinct pathways(Toll, Imd) exist, involving Drosomycin and Diptericin respectively. Similarities of structure and function between several members in the Drosophila embryo and members in mammals being noted, study "The Dorsoventral Regulatory Gene Cassette ''spảtzle/Toll/cactus'' Controls the Potent Antifungal Response in Drosophila Adults" by
Lemaitre and Hoffmann in 1996 illuminated the possible existing innate immunity in Drosophila in response to fungal challenge. Later works identified that Toll transmembrane receptors are present in a wide variety of phyla and are conserved through evolution along with conservation of NF-κB activating cascades.
Hoffmann was a research assistant at CNRS from 1964 to 1968, and became a research associate in 1969. Since 1974 he has been a Research Director of CNRS. Between 1978 and 2005 he was Director of the CNRS research unit "Immune Response and Development in Insects", and from 1994 to 2005 he was director of the
Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of CNRS in Strasbourg.
Hoffmann is a member of the
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: link=no, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saal ...
, the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...
, the
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
, the
European Molecular Biology Organization
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...
(EMBO), the
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...
, the Fondation Écologie d'Avenir and the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
.
Hoffmann became a Commander of the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in 2012.
In 2015, Hoffmann signed the ''
Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change'' on the final day of the 65th
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The declaration was signed by a total of 76 Nobel Laureates and handed to then-President of the French Republic,
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle f ...
, as part of the successful
COP21 climate summit in Paris.
Controversy
Bruno Lemaitre, a research associate in the Hoffmann laboratory at the time when the major work on Drosophila innate immunity was conducted (for which Hoffmann was awarded the Nobel), claims he was inadequately recognized by Hoffmann as the instigator of and main contributor to the nobel-winning work.
Lemaitre now supervises his own laboratory at the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern Franc ...
in Switzerland.
[Bruno Lemaitre 2016. Science, narcissism and the quest for visibility. http://brunolemaitre.ch/narcissism-science/book/]
Awards

* 2003
Cancer Research Institute William B. Coley Award
* 2004
Robert Koch Prize
* 2007
Balzan Prize
The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the br ...
together with
Bruce A. Beutler for Innate Immunity
* 2010
Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award (shared with Ruslan M. Medzhitov)
* 2010
Keio Medical Science Prize
The Keio Medical Science Prize ( Japanese: 慶應医学賞) is a Japanese prize in medical sciences.
Introduction
The prize is awarded to scientists who made significant contributions to the field of medical sciences or life sciences. And these c ...
* 2011
Gairdner Foundation International Award
The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a ...
(shared with
Shizuo Akira
(born January 27, 1953 in Higashiōsaka) is a professor at the Department of Host Defense, Osaka University, Japan. He has made ground-breaking discoveries in the field of immunology, most significantly in the area of innate host defense mechani ...
)
* 2011
Shaw Prize
The Shaw Prize is an annual award presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, it honours "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and signifi ...
(shared with Bruce A. Beutler and Ruslan M. Medzhitov)
* 2011
CNRS Gold medal
* 2011
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ( sv, Nobelpriset i fysiologi eller medicin) is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or ...
(shared with
Bruce Beutler
Bruce Alan Beutler ( ; born December 29, 1957) is an American immunologist and geneticist. Together with Jules A. Hoffmann, he received one-half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for "their discoveries concerning the activatio ...
and
Ralph M. Steinman)
References
External links
Jules Hoffmannat the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...
Jules Hoffmannat the Balzan Foundation
HOW WE SENSE MICROBES: GENETIC DISSECTION OF INNATE IMMUNITY IN INSECTS AND MAMMALS*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffmann, Jules A.
1941 births
Living people
20th-century French people
20th-century Luxembourgian people
French immunologists
Members of Academia Europaea
Officers of the French Academy of Sciences
University of Strasbourg faculty
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
French Nobel laureates
Luxembourgian Nobel laureates
University of Strasbourg alumni
French people of Luxembourgian descent
People from Echternach
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur
Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research