Professor Jean Pierre Changeux MAE, recipient of Academia Europaea’s Erasmus medal, shares what the award means to him and discusses key aspects of his research.
About Jean-Pierre Changeux MAE
Professor Jean-Pierre Changeux MAE is a leading figure in the fields of neuroscience and molecular biology, known for his ground-breaking contributions that span over five decades. His pioneering work includes dissecting the intricate nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, introducing the concept of allostery in membrane proteins, and proposing theories about brain development and cognition. Due to his pioneering and seminal activities, Changeux is one of the key founders of modern molecular pharmacology and neuroscience.
Beyond his scientific achievements, Professor Changeux has actively engaged in ethical discussions surrounding the impact of neuroscience on society. As a founding member of Academia Europaea, his contributions extend to shaping European scientific culture.
Professor Changeux received Academia Europaea’s Erasmus Medal and delivered the accompanying Academia Europaea – Heinz-Nixdorf Erasmus Lecture at AE’s Annual Conference, Building Bridges, in Munich on 10th October 2023. The laudation was given by Professor Ole Peterson MAE, Director of the Academia Europaea Cardiff Knowledge Hub.
Read the interview
Congratulations on receiving the Academia Europaea Erasmus Medal! What does this award mean to you?
“For me, it’s a major recognition of decades of work, of struggles, failures and successes – but always with passion. The fact that the decision comes from Academia Europaea adds a supranational dimension of scientific recognition, far beyond common politics and lobbying. Indeed, it is the voice of a broad assembly of respected colleagues who share a common culture of democracy (which originates from ancient Greece), and the humanism of Erasmus. What could be more complimentary? I feel deeply touched.”
Receiving the Erasmus Medal recognises your contributions to the scientific community in Europe. As a founder member of AE, how do you see organisations like Academia Europaea promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across Europe?
“In my view, Academia Europaea has contributed strongly to the excellence of science within Europe. Academia Europaea offers the opportunity to meet colleagues in my discipline and talk business with them in-person, at meetings. For me, it is an especially rewarding experience to discover and meet scientists from other disciplines, for instance from the humanities (which in France have their own academy). It is an inspiring way to establish authentic multidisciplinary projects, particularly in neuroscience. In addition, the abundant electronic information we receive from Academia Europaea points to broad scientific and societal issues, and encourages us to take up our responsibilities as scientists, thereby contributing to the opening of science to society.”
Can you tell us how your research in neuroscience and receptors might have practical benefits for everyday life or healthcare?
“Ever since the late sixties, I have been concerned by the mode of action of the drug nicotine – the isolation of its receptor, its molecular properties and contribution to addiction. The practical benefit is to understand better the mode of action of drugs in general, and the fight against drug addiction; a plague on our societies.
Another important issue for healthcare is drug discovery. In the course of my PhD studies with Jacques MonodI, I found that drugs may act in a manner which differs from the classical competition with a biological ligand for a single rigid site. The proposal was that they may act on topographically distinct sites, establishing an indirect interaction named ‘allosteric’ with the biologically active. This led to the discovery (or reassignment) of many medicaments as ‘allosteric drugs’. More than 80 of them are currently in clinical use. The important advantage is that they exhibit little, if any, analogy with biological ligands and thus are expected to show less toxicity and secondary effects. They include, for instance, Ivacaftor (a drug recently designed against cystic fibrosis), carbamazepine, ivermectin, general anaesthetics, benzodiazepines, and even monoclonal antibodies against cancer.”
Your research spans from molecules to brain functions. How do these different areas of research connect, and what have they taught us about brain development and cognition?
“This deals with a most important theoretical issue for our understanding of the brain. Too often the areas of research concerned are partitioned in a damaging way. My view is that neuroscience should obligatorily include the molecular level and build on top of the higher levels, up to conscious processing. It is not a reductionist approach, but a ‘constructionist’ one. The molecular level imposes insurmountable constraints upon higher levels, such as the speed of information processing (and its plasticity), which are slower than the speed of sound (mainly because of the allosteric transitions dynamics of the channels and receptors) compared to the speed of light of our computers. This approach also tells us, via model building, what the necessary and possibly sufficient biological components are and their organisation, to build up a ‘machine’ able to pass an effortful cognitive task (like the Wisconsin card sorting task.)
Lastly, a most pressing question for us as humans is our evolutionary origins. Again, it is necessary to link the molecular evolution of the genome with that of the connective organisation of our ancestors’ brains. There’s still a lot to do!”
Apart from your research, you’ve discussed the ethics of neuroscience’s impact on society. How do you think ethics is changing as neuroscience advances, and what should scientists do to be part of these discussions?
“This is a major issue that is difficult to summarise briefly. The only thing I may say is that our brain is not only conscious and rational, but also social. This is a dimension much forgotten in our contemporary neuroscience. Thanks to its epigenetic postnatal development (selection of synapses), our collective brain builds up social rules and elaborate culture in general. Our brain possesses the capacities of empathy and sympathy, which are essential for the quality of life of human beings, but forgotten too frequently at the international level and missing in the AI business which invades our lives. Altogether, our brains should be able to anticipate a peaceful and environmentally acceptable society at a world-human species scale. Are we doing that?”
About the Erasmus Medal
The Erasmus Medal is awarded to a European scholar who has maintained, over a sustained period, the highest level of international scholarship. The medallist is invited to give the annual Erasmus Lecture during the opening session of the Annual Meeting of the Academia. The Medal and Lecture are currently sponsored by The Heinz-Nixdorf Foundation.
Posted 10th October 2023. For further information please contact AECardiffHub@cardiff.ac.uk
