Jean-paul Behr

Biography

Dr. Jean-Paul Behr served as Directeur de Recherche Classe Exceptionnelle at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and was elected as a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2008. Jean-Paul graduated at the head of his class from the University of Strasbourg’s School of Chemical Engineering and subsequently joined Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn in 1969 to study for his Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry which was awarded in 1973. Following postdoctoral work with Dr D. Chapman in Sheffield (UK), where Jean-Paul developed a triplet-triplet annihilation technique for the measurement of lateral diffusion in biological membranes, J-P rejoined Prof. Lehn (1987 Chemistry Nobel Prize Laureate) at the University of Strasbourg to work on the development of Supramolecular Chemistry. In 1989 J-P moved to the Faculty of Pharmacy (Univ. Strasbourg) to set up the Laboratoire de Chimie Génétique where the focus of his research centered on DNA-binding molecules relevant to biotechnology and gene therapy. Pioneering work from Prof. Behr’s laboratory led to the commercialization of well-known transfection reagents such as Transfectam®, Lipofectamine™ and Polyethylenimine (PEI). J-P’s « proton sponge » paradigm for intracellular delivery of nucleic acid-based drugs (more than 2600 citations for a single paper in PNAS) is recognized as a seminal work in supramolecular galenics.

Research Interest

Transfection Supplies, Biochemistry