Edith Heard

Edith Heard (born 1965) FRS is a British researcher in epigenetics. She is a Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory, and the Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) since January 2019. From 2010 to 2018, Heard was the Director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology department at the Curie Institute (Paris), France. Heard is noted for her studies of X chromosome inactivation.

Heard graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences (Genetics) from the University of Cambridge as a student of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating in 1986. She was awarded a PhD from Imperial College London for research investigating gene amplification in rat cells in 1990 while working at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratory in London, UK.

Heard's main areas of research include genetics, epigenetics and developmental biology, in particular focussing on X-chromosome inactivation, which occurs when one of the two copies of the X chromosomes in female mammals is inactivated. Heard and her colleagues confirmed that X-chromosome inactivation happens not once, but twice, during development: first in all cells designated to building the placenta, then again in some cells sent off to build the embryo.

Heard has been a Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory, and since 2010 has been director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology department at the Institut Curie in Paris, France.

In June 2017, Heard's appointment as the fifth Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory was announced, with her term scheduled to begin in January 2019.

Honours and awards

Edith Heard has been an EMBO Member since 2005. That same year, Heard was a laureate of the FSER award.

In 2009, Heard received the Prix Jean Hamburger and the Grand Prix de la Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale in 2011.

In 2013, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in recognition for her discoveries in epigenetics.Her nomination reads:

Heard has made several groundbreaking discoveries in epigenetics, through her studies on X-chromosome inactivation, the process of dosage compensation in mammals. Heard developed powerful single-cell techniques enabling the analysis of fixed and living embryos and embryonic stem cells. These led to one of her major discoveries, showing that X-inactivation is a highly dynamic process during early embryogenesis and revealing major differences in X-inactivation strategies in different mammals, from mouse to man. Heard has also performed pioneering work revealing that in addition to epigenetic modifications, chromosome organization and nuclear compartmentalization are important players in the initiation and maintenance of X inactivation.

In 2017, Heard was awarded the Inserm Grand Prix for her work on epigenetics.