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FEBS Journal Editor, André Ménez

It is with the greatest of sadness that we have to report the death of Dr André Ménez, a member of our Editorial Board, on 2 February 2008. He had been unwell for sometime but characteristically continued with his editorial work for FEBS Journal until a few days before his untimely death from cancer.

André was a very fine scientist, a good friend, and a wonderful Editor, judicious and efficient, for FEBS Journal. We shall miss him sorely.

The following obituary has been prepared by Dietrich Mebs and Reto Stöcklin, and will be published in FEBS News issue 2, 2008.

André Ménez (1943-2008)

André Ménez, Member of the Editorial Board of FEBS Journal and President of the French Museum of Natural History in Paris, died on February 2, 2008. As a pioneer in molecular and structural biology of animal venoms and toxins, he left an indelible mark.

André Ménez was born in Vire (France) on September 12, 1943. He studied chemistry at the University of Brest in Brittany and in 1968 joined the Commission of Atomic Energy (CEA) in Saclay near Paris where he completed his PhD (University Paris VII). He started his scientific career at the Department of Biology in the Life Science Division. André Ménez published his first important paper on a technique for tritium labelling snake venom neurotoxins, which did not affect the activity of the toxins, in FEBS Letters (17, 333-335, 1971). It was a major breakthrough that enabled the group of Jean-Pierre Changeux at the Pasteur Institute in Paris to elucidate the molecular architecture of the acetylcholine receptor from Electrophorus electricus electroplax.

During two research visits to the laboratory of Prof. Nobuo Tamiya, Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, André Ménez continued his studies on snake venom neurotoxins. By means of chemical modification he characterized the active site responsible for toxicity and binding to the receptor and he studied the various epitopes of the toxins and their interaction with antibodies. When molecular biology opened up new perspectives in biochemical research, André Ménez quickly introduced the new techniques into his chosen field. He was the first to clone a gene encoding a snake venom neurotoxin (FEBS Letters 266, 87-90, 1990), which provided a number of opportunities to study the toxin´s effect on nervous structures. This was also an important step in establishing and expanding the field of protein engineering to study toxin folds, which he developed to modulate the activity of what he loved to call “mini-proteins” towards targets of major human health diseases.

In 1991, André Ménez founded the Protein Engineering Department (DIEP) of CEA, where he served as director till his retirement in 2006. Since 2002, he was an advisor to the cabinet of the High Commission for Atomic Energy. In 2006, he became President of the French Museum of Natural History in Paris. Teaching at the University of Paris XI, at the Museum of Natural History, and giving lectures at the University of Singapore, were some of his many academic engagements.

In 1994, he became professor at the National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology. As well as being a dynamic, open-minded and extremely charismatic person, André Ménez was a man of innovative ideas. His latest endeavour was the ambitious Venomics project that aims to elucidate the venomous function through genome sequencing of venomous animals (Toxicon, 47, 255-259, 2006). Despite the long illness that he bravely fought, he was very active and devoted his full energy to this project until early 2008. It is now our duty to complete his vision.

He published more than 300 scientific papers and his book: “The Subtle Beast: Snakes, from Myth to Medicine” (Taylor and Francis, London, 2003) is an excellent introduction to the emerging discipline of toxinology. André Ménez was an inspirational leader in this field and initiated numerous scientific projects. Among the various scientific awards that André Ménez received, which included the Redi-Award of the International Society on Toxinology and the Dr. and Madame Labbé Prize of the French Academy of Science, he was Officer of the National Order of Merit and Knight of the Legion of Honour.

André Ménez was highly committed to his family and enjoyed very much spending weekends and holidays in Brittany, from where he would return to Paris with new ideas and plans for projects, publications and other activities. Many of us will remember the wonderful evenings with wine, good food, jokes and laughter we spent in his company and that of his wife Renée.

We will miss his scientific excellence and sharp mind, but also his warm personality. His legacy will guide scientists who try to understand one of the most fascinating areas in biology: the function of venoms.

Our deepest sympathy goes to his wife Renée with whom he shared everything, to their two children Christophe and Cécile, to their “third” child Fabien (Cécile’s husband), as well as to his brother Jacques.

Dietrich Mebs (mebs@em.uni-frankfurt.de) is a retired professor of the Center of Legal Medicine, University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Reto Stöcklin (reto.stocklin@atheris.ch) is the head of Atheris Laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland.

Note: The family also contributed to this obituary: Renée Ménez (renee.menez@wanadoo.fr) is a research engineer in Paris, France; Cécile (pharmacist) and Christophe Ménez (Head of Engineering Department, BEA, Civil Aviation, France).