Tribute to Michel Robert-Nicoud

We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Professor Michel Robert-Nicoud on July 19, 2025. Michel Robert-Nicoud was a professor of biology from 1991 to 2010 at Joseph Fourier University, now known as Grenoble Alpes University. An internationally renowned specialist and pioneer in the use of confocal microscopy, he contributed greatly to its development, particularly in its quantitative aspects, and to its dissemination within the scientific community. After starting his career in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen in Tom Jovin's laboratory, he collaborated with the best laboratories in his field.

In Grenoble, he led the “Genome Organization Dynamics” team at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences (IAB) with the aim of understanding structure-function relationships in the nucleus. In 1999, he founded the Microcell platform at the IAB and, in 2008, he was the driving force behind the Grenoble Life Sciences Imaging Federation (ISDV), promoting unprecedented links between biology, imaging, and computer science. A visionary, he recognized early on the importance of quantitative approaches in linear and nonlinear fluorescence microscopy and helped position Grenoble as an international center of excellence.

He helped establish a biophotonics community within a GDR in France in the 2000s, driven by his commitment and the interdisciplinary culture of the IAB.

He cultivated a wide network of international contacts and was one of the initiators of interdisciplinary projects at the European level in the field of studying the functional organization of the nucleus. From 1996 to 1999, he led a pioneering European project on intranuclear imaging in living cells.

Fleeing honors but deeply committed to passing on his knowledge, Michel Robert-Nicoud trained many scientists and played a central role in structuring the Grenoble community in biology and imaging. Beyond his scientific and institutional achievements, Michel Robert-Nicoud was able to bring together researchers, teacher-researchers, ITA staff, and students, with an attentive ear and a kindness that will leave a lasting impression on those who worked alongside him.

He was director of the Biology Department at Joseph Fourier University between 2007 and 2009, then, between 1998 and 2006, director of the Doctoral School of Chemistry and Life Sciences, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

All the staff of the Chemistry and Biology Department, as well as his former students, colleagues, and collaborators, join his family in mourning his loss and will cherish the memory of a remarkable colleague and mentor, who was both a visionary researcher and teacher, and a deeply humane man.