Curriculum Vitae
PHILIPPE JACQUES MOURRAIN Ph.D.
Stanford University, School of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Beckman Center, 279 Campus Drive, Room B201
Stanford, CA 94305
Office phone: 650-724-3871
Laboratory phone: 650-725-6204
mou****ain@stanford.edu
http://med.stanford.edu/mourrainlab.html
Education
1996-2000 Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI)
Program in Genetics and Epigenetics, Ph.D. Summa cum laude
1994-1995 Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI)
Program in Cellular and Molecular Genetics, M.Sc. Summa cum laude
1992-1994 Denis Diderot University (Paris VII)
Program in Genetics and Molecular Biology, B.Sc.
1990-1992 Le Havre University
Program in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Mathematics, and Physics, B.Sc.
Positions Held
2011-present Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
2005-2011 Visiting Faculty
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
2011-present Research Director INSERM (Honorific Position)
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ulm, Paris
2001-2011 Chargé de recherche INSERM/Assistant Professor
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ulm, Paris
2000-2001 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biology
Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ulm, Paris
Most Significant Achievements
• Biochemical characterization of the ActA protein, published in PNAS. Pasteur Institute – 1997
• Cloning of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, RdRp gene, published in Cell. INRA – 2000
My work in epigenetics led to Post Transcriptional Gene Silencing / RNAi discovery. This field
was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2006. Prof. Andrew Fire is one of my main references.
• Cloning of the Casanova gene critical for endoderm/gut development published in Genes And Development.
Ecole Normal Superieure – 2001
• Inserm Junior Faculty, nationwide competition in Genetics, ranked 1rst out of >100 – 2001
I was recruited at 28-year old, 5 years younger than the national average for such a faculty position.
• Characterization of the Argonaute gene invoved in PTGS/RNAi, published in Pant Cell – 2002
SNOOZE
REPORT Neural signals
reveal the shared
nature of fish and
human sleep
PAGE 198
SPECIAL SECTION
WALKING ON
THE MOON
Lunar science 50 years
after the Apollo landing
PAGES 145, 163, 167 & 170
BIOMECHANICS
FEET OF
ENDURANCE
Calluses offer protection and
maintain sole sensitivity
PAGES 176 & 261
GENETIC ENGINEERING
CRISPR
INSERTIONS
Gene editing that doesn’t
break DNA’s double strands
PAGES 180 & 219
NATURE.COM
11 July 2019 £10
Vol. 571, No. 7764
THE INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
• First enhancer trap screen in zebrafish (> 800 transgenic lines isolated) and identification of genomic
regulatory blocks, published in Genome Research. Bergen, Norway – 2007
• Characterization of a behavioral sleep state and underpinning brain nuclei in zebrafish, published in Plos
Biology. Stanford – 2007 I pioneered the use of zebrafish for sleep neuroscience.
• Cloning of the genuine Melanin-Concentrating Hormone gene in zebrafish ending 36 years of debate,
published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology. Stanford – 2009
• Characterization of the hypocretin-pineal neural network coupling sleep and circadian regulation, published in
PNAS. Stanford – 2009
• First demonstration of a role for sleep in synaptic remodeling, published in Neuron. Stanford – 2010
• Super-resolution array tomography analysis of over 1 million synapses in the normal and Fragile X brain,
published in Neuron. Stanford – 2014.
• First Cichlid fish CRISPR/Cas9 mutant, published in Current Biology. Stanford – 2016
• Characterization of microRNA 9 roles in retinal stem cell control and angiogenesis, published in Cell Report
and Nucleic Acid Research. Stanford – 2017 & 2018
• Development of zebrafish as a model for brain state transition study, published in Cell. Stanford – 2019
• Discovery of NREM and REM sleep states in zebrafish, published in Nature. Stanford – 2019
Research Interests & Current Programs
Neurobiology of Sleep and associated behaviors (zebrafish and mouse models)
Sleep functions on synaptic remodeling and DNA repair (zebrafish and mouse models)
Developmental syndromes -FXS, Autism- and synaptic deficit (mouse model and human tissue)
Sleep disruptions, Aging -Alzheimer’s- and synaptic deficit (mouse model and human tissue)
Gene cis-regulation by human non-coding SNPs associated to nervous system diseases (zebrafish, mouse)
Brain/Retina regeneration and Müller stem cell reprogramming (zebrafish, mouse models)
Past Research and Training
Developmental Biology, 2001-2005, Post-Doctoral training, Advisor: Dr. Frédéric Rosa
Nodal signaling pathway. Endoderm and gut formation in vertebrate zebrafish Danio rerio.
Department of Biology. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Gene Silencing and Epigenetics, 1996-2000, Doctoral training, Advisor: Dr. Hervé Vaucheret
Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Gene Silencing (cosuppression, RNAi) in plants Arabidopsis
thaliana & Nicotiana tabaccum.
Department of Cell Biology, INRA, Versailles, France.
Molecular Genetics, 1994-1996, Pre-Doctoral training, Advisors: Drs. Monique Fukuhara and Pascale
Cossart. Molecular genetics of bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and yeasts S. cerevisiae and S. pombe.
CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette and Pasteur Institute, Paris, France.
Publications (~7,300 citations)
1. Pelayo R. & Mourrain P. Retrospective William C. Dement (1928-2020), Father of sleep
medicine. Science 2020 July 31; 369(6503):512
2. Leung LC, Wang GX, Madelaine R, Skariah G, Kawakami K, Deisseroth K, Urban
AE, Mourrain P. Neural signatures of sleep in zebrafish. Nature. 2019 Jul;571(7764):198-
204.
3. Mourrain P, Wang GX. Sleep: DNA Repair Function for Better Neuronal Aging? Current Biology. 2019
Jun 17;29(12):R585-R588.
4. Andalman AS, Burns VM, Lovett-Barron M, Broxton M, Poole B, Yang SJ, Grosenick L, Lerner TN, Chen
R, Benster T, Mourrain P, Levoy M, Rajan K, Deisseroth K. Neuronal Dynamics Regulating Brain and
Behavioral State Transitions. Cell. 2019 May 2;177(4):970-985.e20.
5. Leung LC, Mourrain P. Sleep: Short Sleepers Should Keep Count of Their Hypocretin Neurons. Current
Biology. 2018 May 7;28(9):R558-R560.
6. Madelaine R, Notwell JH, Skariah G, Halluin C, Chen CC, Bejerano G, Mourrain P. A screen for deeply
conserved non-coding GWAS SNPs uncovers a MIR-9-2 functional mutation associated to retinal vasculature
defects in human. Nucleic Acids Research. 2018 Apr 20;46(7):3517-3531.
7. Madelaine R, Mourrain P. Endogenous retinal neural stem cell reprogramming for neuronal regeneration.
Neural Regeneration Research. 2017 Nov;12(11):1765-1767.
8. Madelaine R, Sloan SA, Huber N, Notwell JH, Leung LC, Skariah G, Halluin C, Paşca SP,
Bejerano G, Krasnow MA, Barres BA, Mourrain P. microRNA-9 couples brain
neurogenesis and angiogenesis. Cell Reports. 2017 Aug 15;20(7):1533-1542.
9. Chiou SH, Risca V, Wang G, Yang D, Grüner B, Kathiria A, Ma R, Vaka D, Chu P, Kozak
M, Castellini L, Graves E, Kim G, Mourrain P, Koong A, Giaccia A, and Winslow M.
Blimp1 induces transient metastatic heterogeneity in pancreatic cancer. Cancer Discovery. 2017
Oct;7(10):1184-1199.
10. Madelaine R*, Lovett-Barron M*, Halluin C, Andalman A, Burns VM, Skariah GM, Leung LC, Liang J,
Leung LC, Burns V, Mourrain P. The hypothalamic NPVF circuit modulates ventral raphe activity during
nociception. Scientific Reports. 2017 Jan 31;7:41528.
11. Elbaz I, Zada D, Tovin A, Braun T, Lerer-Goldshtein T, Wang G, Mourrain P, and Appelbaum L. Sleep-
Dependent Structural Synaptic Plasticity of Inhibitory Synapses in the Dendrites of Hypocretin/Orexin
Neurons. Molecular Neurobiology. 2016 Oct 12; 1,17.
12. Wang GX, Smith SJ, and Mourrain P. Wide-field, sub-synaptic analysis of synaptic proteins reveals
FXR2P localization deficits in Fmr1 KO synapses. eLife. 2016 Oct 22;5.
13. Leung LC and Mourrain P. Drug discovery, zebrafish uncover novel anti-psychotics. Nature Chemical
Biology. 2016 Jun 17;12(7):468-9.
14. Mourrain P. What lies sleeping. The Scientist - Thought experiment. Solving Sleep's Mysteries special
issue. 2016 March 1;30(3):27-9.
15. Juntti, SA, Hilliard AT, Kent KR,1 Kumar A, Nguyen A, Jimenez MA, Loveland JL, Mourrain P*, and
Fernald RD. A Neural Basis for Control of Cichlid Female Reproductive Behavior by Prostaglandin F2