Hélène Bergès

The research conducted at the CNRGV presented at the French Academy of Agriculture

Added on : 23 November 2015

Seminar “on Frontiers of Knowledge”, by Hélène Bergès, Wednesday 2th 2015 in Paris


Seminar on Frontiers of Knowledge

Hélène Bergès (INRA, Toulouse) – The research conducted at the National Center for Plant Genomic Resources (CNRGV)

Moderator: Jean-Claude Mounolou
Library of the Academy (10h45-12h)

Born in 1966, Hélène Bergès holds a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology. She is director of the National Center for Plant Genomic Resources (CNRGV) at the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) since 2003. She is also a member of the scientific council of the Parliamentary Office for Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Options (OPECST). She is considered a person of reference in the field of genomic resources at national and international level.

Hélène Bergès created ex nihilo a unique structure in France managing such heritage for plant genomics. She has contributed significantly in this context to research programs on genome sequencing in wheat and positional cloning of several genes of agronomic interest in this species, including several disease resistance genes. With her team, she has also used these approaches to the structural and functional characterization of genomes of tomato, Medicago truncatula, sunflower, sugar cane, chicory or Arabidopsis. Hélène Bergès is a member of several international consortia to sequence the genomes of plants (IWGSC for wheat, SUGESI for sugarcane, IBSC for barley, sunflower ...). Finally, she has recently (2015) started a structural and functional genomics work on processionary caterpillar, the Asian lady beetle.

Hélène Bergès will present, during her seminar, the research conducted at CNRGV.

She received in 2012 the INRA Engineer Laurel and in 2015 the Vermeil Medal of the French Academy of Agriculture.

Most representative publications

  • Durand et al. (2014) Dominance hierarchy arising from the evolution of a complex small RNA regulatory network. Science 346 1200-1205
  • Choulet et al. (2014) Structural and functional partitioning of bread wheat chromosome 3B. Science 345, 1249721
  • Philippe et al. (2013) A high density physical map of chromosome 1BL supports evolutionary studies, map-based cloning and sequencing in wheat. Genome Biology 14, R64
  • The International Barley Sequencing Consortium (2012) A physical, genetic and functional sequence assembly of the barley genome. Nature 491, 711-716
  • The tomato Genome Consortium (2012). The tomato genome sequence provides insights into fleshy fruit evolution. Nature 485, 635-641
  • Souza GM, Bergès H, Bocs S, Casu R, D’Hont A, Ferreira JE, Henry R, Ming R, Potier B, Van Sluys MA, Vincentz M and Paterson AH (2011) The Sugarcane Genome Challenge: Strategies for Sequencing a Highly Complex Genome. Tropical Plant Biology 4, 145-156
  • Young et al. (2011) The Medicago genome provides insight into the evolution of rhizobial symbioses. Nature 480, 520-524
  • Kane et al. (2011) Progress towards a reference genome for sunflower. Botany 89, 429-437
  • Paux et al. (2008) A physical map of the 1-gigabase bread wheat chromosome 3B. Science 322, 101-104