Alain Pompidou

He was rapporteur of the subcommission on ethics of outer space activities of the World Commission on Ethics (COMEST) of the UNESCO, and he became a member, then vice-chair of COMEST in 2004. From 1999 to 2004, he served as a spokesman on research and space policy on the French Economic and Social Council. In 1999, he authored the joint report of UNESCO and the European Space Agency (ESA) about The Ethics of Space Policy.

In 2004, he was elected by the Administrative Council of the EPO as a result of a compromise. Although former presidents of the EPO held their post for at least seven years, Alain Pompidou was president for three years. He was succeeded by Alison Brimelow for an equal term. Alain Pompidou was the first Frenchman to hold the post of President of the EPO.

On 30 June 2004, the day before becoming president of the EPO, he and Albert-Claude Benhamou were granted .mw-parser-output .citation{word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}EP 1358481 , filed on 16 March 2001, for a "Device for in situ analysis and/or treatment consisting of a flexible rod and a micro-system fixed at one end of said flexible rod".

From 1994 to 1999 he was president of the European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment, as well as President of the "Intergroupe Ciel et Espace Européen".

From 1990 to 2004, he was a member and founder of the French Academy of Technologies.

He is also the author of Souviens-toi de l'homme: l'éthique, la vie, la mort (Payot, Paris, 1990).

Between 1990 and 2004 he was professor in charge of a number of medical services at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital, in Paris, where in 2005 a collection of 351 foetuses and still-born babies was discovered.

As a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999, he was particularly concerned with the EU Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, with the preparation of the Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions ("gene patent directive"), and with bioethical issues as well as in innovation policy.

Between 1986 and 1997 he acted as a special adviser to the French prime minister, the minister of research and higher education and the minister of health.

He took doctorates in medicine, biology and science. From 1974 to 2004, he was professor of histology, embryology and cytogenetics in the medical faculty of the University of Paris. Until 2004 he was also director of the laboratory of the Cochin – St Vincent de Paul – La Roche Guyon Hospital in Paris, head of the cytogenetics and pathology department, and chairman of the hospital group's advisory board. He hold tenures at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Alain Pompidou (born 5 April 1942) is a French scientist and politician. A former professor of histology, embryology and cytogenetics, he was the fourth president of the European Patent Office (EPO) from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2007. He is the adopted son of Georges Pompidou, former President of France.