Denis Duboule is born in 1955 and is both swiss and french national. He studied biology at the university of Geneva, where he obtained a Ph.D. in mammalian embryology in 1984. He then spent 10 years abroad, first in the medical faculty in Strasbourg (France), then at the european laboratory for molecular biology (EMBL) in Germany as a group leader. In 1993, he was appointed full professor at the university of Geneva, where he chairs the dept of zoologie and animal biology since 1997. Since 2001, he chairs the national center of research ‘Frontiers in Genetics’ and is also full professor at the federal institute of technology (EPFL) in Lausanne since 2006. His research activities are in the fields of embryology, genetics and developmental genomics of mammals, in an evolutionnary context. Duboule is member of several academies and has received various scientific prizes and awards. He is married and has between two to four children, two bikes and a Gibson 355 stereo.