A VISIONARY PROJECT

«The goal of this Institute will be to uncover the physico-chemical mechanisms of life's processes. To this end, guided by the principles of Claude Bernard concerning the physico-chemical underpinning of life and in an endeavour to extend the work of this renowned physiologist, the new Institute will bring together physicists, chemists and biologists to study the problems posed by the many facets of physiological function. Such a collaboration, which has often been sought after, but, until now, never organized, will be the essential characteristic of the Edmond de Rothschild Institute.»

Extract from a communication to the French Academy of Sciences by P. Appell, M. Moureu and J. Perrin (1927).

The origins of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique (IBPC) lie with two men: Jean Perrin, Nobel laureate for physics in 1926 for his work on the atomic structure of matter and the Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a banker and a great philanthropist. Jean Perrin was a man with a broad vision whose interests ranged from cathode rays, Brownian motion and astrophysics to physical chemistry and biology. He founded the both the Science Museum (Palais de la Decouverte) and the Astrophysics Institute in Paris and was the father of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). The Baron Edmond de Rothschild was the benefactor who made possible the construction of the Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, completed in 1930 and then considered to be the most modern laboratory in France. The elegant style of the building is immediately apparent, notably in the library, which became an important asset for all the other institutes on the campus. The Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who was a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, was interested in science and particularly in biology, about which he had learnt from Claude Bernard. He was also fascinated by Brownian movement which Jean Perrin had shown him and he felt that more should be done to understand the physico-chemical basis of life.

At a time (the 1930's), when, for both technological and epistemological reasons, scientific domains were viewed in a segmented and hierarchical fashion, the creation of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique was a major event in the scientific world. It was also remarkably far-sighted, since interdisciplinarity has become one of today's keywords in the life sciences. This need is exemplified by the goal of deciphering genomes, where understanding the genetic message of an organism can lead to an understanding of physiology at the molecular level, but exploiting this mass of data, characterizing the objects and processes brought to light and linking them into integrated systems cannot be achieved without a multidisciplinary approach. Mathematics, computer science, physics and chemistry are as necessary as biology for studying living objects. Our Institute, which belongs to both the life sciences and chemistry departments of CNRS, has maintained the broad-mindedness of its founders and remains a privileged centre for multidisciplinary research. 

APPROPRIATE STRUCTURES

                        «There are at least three cases which justify the creation of a research institute; … the third case is when one wishes to bring together scientists from different disciplines to live and work side by side on problems which lie at inter-disciplinary boundaries, and it is this that the Baron Edmond de Rothschild wished to do in founding the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique ».

Extract from a speech made by A. Mayer, professor of the Collège de France, during the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Institute in 1953.

The audacity of Jean Perrin's project made it unlikely to succeed within the university system of that time and it is thanks to a private, philanthropic gesture, that of the Baron Edmond de Rothschild, that IBPC was created. Having overcome the barriers imposed by the university structures, the Institute's founders also invented a new mode of functioning.

Multidisciplinarity required the existence of autonomous scientific departments. In 1930, IBPC consisted of the Department of Physics directed by Jean Perrin, the Department of Chemistry directed by Georges Urbain, the Department of Physiology directed by André Mayer and the Department of Physico-Chemical Physiology directed by Pierre Girard. The staff of IBPC were paid by the Edmond de Rothschild foundation and had no teaching obligations.

«Along with the physiologists Pierre Girard and André Mayer and the chemists André Job and Georges Urbain, I had the honour to organize and direct this establishment. Naturally, we dreamed of generalising the principle and, during our weekly discussions, we established the project of a national research organisation, which I undertook to write up and publish »

Jean Perrin (1938), from a speech to the high council for scientific research.

IBPC was the test tube in which Jean Perrin prepared the future CNRS. This grand project maintained the three characteristics of the Institute: multidisciplinarity, the existence of independent research units and salaried staff for whom research was the main activity. Over the years, the task of running the Institute became too heavy for the Foundation and in 1997 the Institute became part of the CNRS. The organisation created by its founders was however retained and the departments, which became CNRS research units (either exclusively, "UPR", or in collaboration with Paris universities, "UMR") were grouped together within a Federated Research Institute of the CNRS (FRC). Each research unit is evaluated independently and the functioning of the Institute relies on a steering committee with participants representing both the life sciences and chemistry departments of the CNRS. The Edmond de Rothschild Foundation for Research Development maintains its interest in IBPC and continues to generously support the Institute.

While remaining faithful to its original spirit, IBPC has succeeded in evolving. Renovation of the buildings has been undertaken in order to adapt them to current standards for research and for security, without damaging their aesthetic qualities. A laboratory of crystallography is currently being set up. This laboratory will be a shared facility, enabling research units for whom structural biology is not a central activity, to obtain high resolution macromolecular structures. It therefore obeys the principal that modern molecular biology must encompass structural biology. The laboratories of Régulation de l'expression génétique chez les microorganismes and Biochimie théorique are developing collaborative projects on bacterial proteins that interact with RNA. The laboratory of Physico-chimie des membranes biologiques is currently developing a general programme for the crystallographic study of membrane proteins. The laboratory of crystallography is also open to the other institutions of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève site and such accessibility undoubtedly constitutes an important element in the development of this prestigious campus.