Chantal Abergel
Information Génomique & Structurale, Université Aix-Marseille, France
Title: Twenty years of research on giant viruses
Bio Sketch
Chantal Abergel is CNRS Research Director and Director of the Information Génomique et Structurale (IGS) laboratory in Marseille, France. She received a Ph.D. in Materials Science before moving into structural biology during a five-year postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1995, she joined the CNRS, where she co-founded the IGS laboratory with Jean-Michel Claverie. IGS was the first French laboratory to integrate computational biology with experimental structural biology and biochemistry, an interdisciplinary approach that remains at the core of its research.
Originally trained as a structural biologist, her research took a decisive turn following the discovery of Mimivirus, the first recognized giant virus. Since then, she has played a leading role in establishing giant virus biology as a new field of research at the interface of virology, evolutionary biology, and environmental microbiology. Her work has contributed to the discovery and characterization of several new families of giant viruses, including viruses revived from more than 30,000-year-old Siberian permafrost, providing unique insights into viral evolution and long-term environmental persistence. By combining structural biology, cell biology, genomics, and evolutionary analyses, her research has revealed the remarkable complexity of giant viruses and fundamentally expanded our understanding of the diversity and evolution of the virosphere. Her work has helped redefine the place of viruses in the living world and established giant viruses as a major model for investigating the origins, evolution, and diversification of biological complexity.