SPOTLIGHT 599

Development 138, 599-600 (2011) doi:10.1242/dev.060228 © 2011. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

An interview with Margaret Buckingham: President of the French Society of

Margaret Buckingham is Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at the in and she is also the current President of the French Society of Developmental Biology (Société Française de Biologie du Développement, SFBD). We spoke with her about the role of the SFBD and about ongoing changes in the French research system.

continues today. The actual French systems to eukaryotic systems. I joined the developmental biology society was set up in group of François Gros, who had been the 1980s. involved in the messenger RNA story, and we begun to work on as a What does the SFBD do for its model system. At that time, it was a very members? nice model system because the cells would One of our main activities is the annual differentiate on a Petri dish. As the meeting, which is very important and which techniques improved, it became possible to brings together all of the developmental move in vivo, which we did as rapidly as we biology community in France. We very could. But it wasn’t really until the often hold that annual meeting as a joint beginning of the eighties that it became meeting with another developmental possible to look at what was going on in the biology society. For example, next year our embryo. annual meeting will be in Nice with the British Society for Developmental Biology, French science has suffered this year it was in Paris with the Japanese society, last year it was in Toulouse with the from being stuck in a rigid What is your laboratory currently Spanish society. So this is tradition. system…now there are working on? We also have smaller meetings like one signs that the system is We work on skeletal and with the French Genetics Society on cardiogenesis. The skeletal myogenesis microRNAs in plant and animal beginning to become more research involves studying regulatory development in December 2010. supple networks that govern cell fate choices and the entry into the myogenic programme Why do you collaborate with so many So, you moved to France because at in the embryo, as well as satellite cell other countries? What do you hope to that time the research environment in behaviour during muscle regeneration in the get out of bringing them to France? biology was very advanced there. adult. For cardiogenesis, work involves I think that to have a bilateral meeting What is the situation in France today? examining the second field and each year establishes possibilities for You asked me why I stayed in France. In the lineages that contribute to different parts of collaborative contacts and widens the eighties, it was a very good place to be as a the heart. We’re also interested in cardiac horizons of our members. young researcher, with many possibilities morphogenesis, and how the chambers of for setting up ones own group and for doing the heart are shaped as development How many members does the SFBD what one wanted. At that time the situation proceeds. have? in Britain was less favourable. The number of people who paid a As far as the situation now is concerned, How long have you been President of subscription this year is 225, but the number I would say that French science has suffered the SFBD? of people who come to meetings is from being stuck in a rigid system with I’ve been President since 2006; the term is considerably more than that. I would say the many people in permanent positions and not for 3 years, renewable once, so that after 6 size of the community, including tenured enough money to finance research. Now years somebody else should take over. scientists, postdocs and students, is probably there are signs that the system is beginning around 750. to become more supple, and from the How old is the society? French perspective that is certainly good. There was originally a much older society in You did your DPhil at Oxford – what There’s now a national research agency France called the Société de Biologie, that made you decide to move to France [l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche], was founded in the 19th century and still after that, and then stay there? independent of the big state organizations – Well, that was quite a long time ago. I the CNRS and Inserm – and this national moved to France in the early seventies, research agency gives out grants with when the impact of Jacob and Monod’s money for temporary salaries, among other Interview by Eva Amsen* work on messenger RNA was still very high things, which introduces much needed Development Online Editor, profile, and people in the Pasteur [Institute] flexibility. Of course within Europe things

*Author for correspondence ([email protected]) were just moving from working on bacterial have changed too, with the new European DEVELOPMENT 600 SPOTLIGHT Development 138 (4)

Research Council, for example, which is young people who want to continue in meeting of the International Society for also very positive. In the longer run, I hope science in France depend on having a Developmental Biology, which will be held these initiatives will continue to expand. permanent position in the CNRS or Inserm, in Mexico in 2013. or in the university, and that is still One of our main activities is complicated. What do you see the SFBD doing in the next few years? running an annual meeting, Does the SFBD do anything to support Obviously we want to continue doing what but we also give out young scientists who are just starting we’re doing. I think that, like everyone, fellowships to young their career? we’re becoming much more web-based Yes. I told you that one of our main now, so we’re setting up a new website and developmental biologists in activities is running an annual meeting, but we hope that it will become a really France we also give out fellowships to young interactive forum that young French developmental biologists in France. developmental biologists will be able to use In France now, if you’re a young person Because we unfortunately don’t have to communicate with each other and to and you’re good, you have a chance of enough money to do more, those are mainly learn about what’s going on. The website setting up your own group and getting travel fellowships, provided to fund people will also facilitate labs registering their financed. This said, the situation is very to attend developmental biology meetings in students as SFBD members as they enter competitive, and the problem is that there is Europe or in the US, Japan, etc. We also the lab. It also interfaces with the site of the still not a good structure to permit people to hope that we’ll be able to finance a number International Society of Developmental have rolling salaries, for example. So really, of young French people to go to the next Biology. DEVELOPMENT