Jean-Pierre Lecocq

Jean-Pierre Lecocq died at age 44 in the crash of Air Inter Flight 148 on 20 January 1992 at Mont Sainte-Odile, Alsace. He is survived by his wife Mireille and two children.

To honor the achievements and the person, in 1992 the Fondation Jean-Pierre Lecocq was created, which since 1994 (and until the year 2020) awards a bi-annual prize for "new and significant research achievements in molecular biology and their application".

After Transgène was acquired in 1991 by the Mérieux group, Lecocq also became Corporate Director of Research and Development of the Pasteur-Merieux-Connaught Group, based in Lyon.

In 1980 he was appointed Scientific Director of Transgène, one of the first biotechnology companies in France, that was founded in Strasbourg in 1979 at the initiative of Prof. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Philippe Kourilsky, the goal being to develop new technologies in biomedical research for industrial applications. In 1984, Lecocq became Vice President and in 1990 President of Transgène.

From 1980 until 1992 Lecocq established French and international collaborations between Transgène, academic institutions and industry. Under his leadership secretory and non-secretory expression systems for the production of recombinant proteins in E. coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Baculovirus and mammalian cells in cell culture were developed and recombinant virus technology was established. A Hybridoma Laboratory provided for the development of monoclonal antibodies for analyses (ELISA) and immunoaffinity chromatography. Conventional as well as HPLC methods for downstream purification and analysis of the produced peptides, proteins and glycoproteins were established. These technologies have been applied, among others, to the following projects: a new concept based on vaccinia virus for a rabies vaccine in the wild (Raboral, in November 1991 awarded with the Rhone Poulenc Prize for Innovation and used in several countries for the vaccination of foxes, and raccoons), recombinant versions of Factor VIII and Factor IX for the treatment of hemophilia A on behalf of the French blood transfusion service CNTS; vaccine candidates for schistosomiasis, toxoplasmosis and babesia canis; recombinant hirudin, α-1-antitrypsin, gamma-interferon and interleukins, and variants thereof, construction of virtually all recombinant proteins of HIV-1, HIV-2 and SIV for mechanistic studies and applications in diagnosis, and immunization; characterization of α-thrombin receptor, mechanisms of cystic fibrosis.

From 1977 to 1980, in the early years of the rapidly developing field genetic engineering, Lecocq was project manager in the Department of Genetics of the pharmaceutical company SmithKline RIT, in Rixensart, Belgium, where he set up a molecular biology laboratory and directed the research on vaccines against enteropathogenic E. coli strains, and hepatitis B virus.

Between 1970 and 1991 Jean-Pierre Lecocq published 130 papers, 15 additional publications about subjects and projects initiated by Lecocq appeared from 1992 onwards. The following is a selection of representative publications:

Lecocq was born in Gosselies/Charleroi but grew up in Nivelles. In 1965 he received a scholarship to study Chemistry at the Free University of Brussels. In 1969 he graduated with honors (avec grande distinction). Starting in 1969, he worked on his doctoral thesis in the laboratory of Prof. René Thomas, Département de Biologie Moléculaire, on the interactions between a prokaryote (Escherichia coli) and a virus (bacteriophage lambda). He identified new bacterial genes influencing the decision between the lysogenic cycle and lysis and he analyzed mutants of RNA polymerase. From 1974 to 1975 Lecocq was drafted into the military, but returned to research to finish his PhD in 1975 with summa cum laude (la plus grande distinction). Until early 1977, he continued working at the Free University in Brussels as a post-doc (Chargé de Recherche) with short research stays in the USA (Madison, Wisconsin) and Canada (Laval University, Quebec).

Jean-Pierre Lecocq (17 July 1947 – 20 January 1992) was a Belgian molecular biologist and entrepreneur.