Profile of Christine Petit

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, geneticist and neurobiologist Christine Petit has written the canticle of the cochlea from scratch, revealing the long-shrouded machinery of the auditory system molecule by molecule. Along the way, she has identified more than 20 genes responsible for hearing impairments, with each of these cochlear deficits accounting for the observed sensory impairment, a succinct story that seemed to stop at the cochlea (1, 2). As Petit, a professor at the College de France and Institut Pasteur in Paris, explains, “the proteins encoded by these deafness genes were therefore implicitly considered as nonessential for the central auditory system.” In her Inaugural Article (3), Petit, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, challenges this view by looking deep into the brain and demonstrating that two adhesion proteins at the heart of the mechanoelectrical transduction machinery of the auditory apparatus also play a role in the embryonic migration of neurons to the auditory cortex. This discovery suggests that treating or compensating for hearing impairment with cochlear interventions, like implants, stem cells, or gene therapy, may not be sufficient to restore optimal hearing. Christine Petit. Image courtesy of Tina Merandon/Signatures. Petit was born in 1948 in Laignes, in the Burgundy region of France. She grew up in a family with strong winemaking roots and with a father who, as an engineer, was “always talking about new scientific discoveries and technological advances,” she recalls. “I grew up with a strong interest in science.” In 1967, Petit entered the faculty of medicine of Paris VI University with the aim of becoming a medical doctor. However, medicine did not fully satisfy her interest in science. “I quickly realized that I wanted to get more deeply into the science than medicine would allow.” She began taking biochemistry and genetics classes at …