- Activités professionnelles :
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- Michel Georges is Professor in Genetics and Genomics at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Liège in Belgium. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1959. He obtained his DVM degree at the University of Liège in 1983, followed by a degree in Molecular Biology at the Free University of Brussels in 1985. From 1985 to 1988 he worked in the laboratories of Gilbert Vassart at the Free University of Brussels and Roger Hanset at the University of Liège. He obtained is habilitation from the University of Liège in 1991. From 1989 to 1993 he was senior scientist, then director of research at Genmark Inc. and adjunct professor in the Department of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since 1994 he has been heading the Unit of Animal Genomics at the University of Liège. He played an instrumental role in establishing the GIGA Research Institute, and is its Director since January 1st, 2016. Georges was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2007, the Francqui Prize in Bi
- Michel Georges devoted his scientific carrier to the development and use of genomic tools for the identification of genes and mutations underlying complex traits of agronomic and medical importance. He participated in the very first genome scans for QTL in the rat, and then conducted many such scans in livestock. His laboratory is known for pushing these studies down to the identification of causative genes and variants (or QTN). His team has discovered polar overdominance, identified the "double-muscling" gene, identified several regulatory QTN including some that perturb miRNA-mediated gene regulation, and discovered a novel CNV generating mechanism underlying the inheritance of colour-sidedness. He made important contributions to the "genomic selection (GS) revolution" in livestock.
- More recently, Georges' team has been involved in the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease and has contributed to the identification of novel risk loci, genes and variants as an active contributor to the international IBD genetics consortium (IIBDGC). His laboratory performed one of the very first GWAS studies for Crohn's disease resulting in the identification of a novel risk locus on chromosome 5 encompassing variants modulating the expression of PTGER4. His laboratory then contributed to all follow-up meta-analyses generating a long series of publications in high profile journals. Georges' team then realized one of the first post-GWAS studies by applying high throughput sequencing on positional candidate genes from GWAS studies resulting in the identification of rare protective variants in the IL23R gene. In the last few years, Georges' team is focusing on the molecular dissection of GWAS identified risk loci with the aim to identify causative variants and genes. Efforts to
- In 2018, Michel Georges was awarded a China's Thousand Talents Program Award, which allowed him to take a leading role in collaborative studies on the genetics of microbiota composition in unique porcine populations developed by Professor Lusheng Huang at the National Key Laboratory for Swine Genetic Improvement and Production Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Jiangxi Agricultural University, in Nanchang, China. This work has resulted in a recent Nature paper on which Michel Georges is co-lead and co-corresponding author.
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- Expérience(s) professionelle(s) :
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- 1983 - 1988 : Assistant Professor ("Assistant"), Genetics (Prof. R. Hanset), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège.
- 1989 - 1993: Senior Scientists, then Director of Research, Genmark Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah.
- 1991 - 1993: Associate Professor (Adjunct), Department of Human Genetics (Prof. R. White & R. Gesteland), University of Utah.
- 1994 - 2000: Associate Professor ("Chargé de Cours"), Genetics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège.
- 2001 - present: Full Professor ("Professeur ordinaire"), Director of the Unit of Animal Genomics, GIGA-R & Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège.
- 2016 -2023: Director of GIGA, University of Liège (http://www.giga.ulg.ac.be/)
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