Draft:Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas

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Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas
Nationality	French, Moroccan
Citizenship	French, Moroccan
Alma mater	Paris Cité University
Occupation(s)	Neuroscientist, CNRS research director
Scientific career
Fields	Neuroscience
Institutions	French National Centre for Scientific Research
Website	https://neurodiderot.u-paris.fr/en/research-teams/neurokines/zebrafish/

Biography

Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas is a French neuroscientist and geneticist renowned for her research into the molecular and cellular basis of normal neurodevelopment and brain pathologies, particularly childhood epilepsy. She is a senior research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). In 2024, she was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite award in recognition of her major contributions to neuroscience research.

Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas completed her secondary education in Safi, Morocco and her postgraduate studies at the Université Paris Cité in Paris. In 1991, she defended her thesis on the differentiation of human skeletal muscle during development at the Université Paris Cité under the supervision of Gillian Butler-Browne. She then carried out postdoctoral research in the laboratory of François Gros at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where she cloned and characterised the multigene complex comprising several genes encoding the different isoforms of human myosin heavy chain. She went on to do a second postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Jean Weissenbach and then Christine Petit, also at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. There she demonstrated the functions of anosmin-1, a protein encoded by the KAL1 gene, which is responsible for the X-linked form of Kallmann de Morsier syndrome. She was recruited to the CNRS in 1994. In 2005, as a winner of the ATIP-Avenir programme, she set up her own team at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, where she introduced the use of the zebrafish model in biomedical research in this side.

Between 2005 and 2024, she studied a number of neurological diseases, including Kallmann syndrome, spastic paraplegia, spinocerebellar ataxia type 7, tauopathies, childhood epilepsy, the role of certain pesticides in neurodevelopment and the transgenerational effects of antiepileptic drugs. In 2018, she was promoted to directeur de recherches de deuxième classe and then to directrice de recherches première classe at the CNRS in 2023.

Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas has been awarded the insignia of Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite in recognition of her years of service as a neuroscientist and her contribution to the scientific community.

Nadia Soussi-Yanicostas is pilot scientific advisor for neurosciences and disorders of the nervous system at the High Council for Research and Higher Education (HCERES).

Honours and Awards

• 2005: Prize of the ATIP Inserm Avenir programme
• 2005: Fondation pour la recherche médicale Programme Prize
• 2024: Institut pour la Recherche en Santé Publique Programme Prize
• 2024: Knight of the National Order of Merit

Publications

• Brenet A, et al. Organophosphorus diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) intoxication in zebrafish larvae causes behavioral defects, neuronal hyperexcitation and neuronal death (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33154418/). Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 9;11(1):5917.
• Brenet A, et al. Bixafen, a succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor fungicide, causes microcephaly and motor neuron axon defects during development. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33153847/). Chemosphere. 2021 Feb;265:128781.
• Swaminathan A, et al. ‘Non-canonical mTOR-Independent Role of DEPDC5 in Regulating GABAergic Network Development’. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29861134/). Curr Biol. 2018 Jun 18;28(12):1924-1937.
• Naini SMA, et al.’ Surfen and oxalyl surfen decrease tau hyperphosphorylation and mitigate neuron deficits in vivo in a zebrafish model of tauopathy’. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29568517/). Transl Neurodegener. 2020 Dec 20;9(1):45.
• Sepulveda-Diaz JE, et al. ‘HS3ST2 expression is critical for the abnormal phosphorylation of tau in Alzheimer's disease-related tau pathology’. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25842390/). Brain. 2015 May;138(Pt 5):1339-54.
• Van Steenwinckel J, et al. ‘ Decreased microglial Wnt/β-catenin signalling drives microglial pro-inflammatory activation in the developing brain’. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31665242/) Brain. 2019 Dec 1;142(12):3806-3833.
• Mairesse J, et al. ‘Oxytocin receptor agonist reduces perinatal brain damage by targeting microglia’. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30506969/). Glia. 2019 Feb;67(2):345-359.

References

Category:Living people Category:French neuroscientists Category:French biologists Category:Moroccan neuroscientists Category:Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research Category:French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists Category:French National Centre for Scientific Research awards Category:21st-century French scientists Category:21st-century French women scientists Category:21st-century French biologists Category:Paris Diderot University alumni Category:French women biologists Category:Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite