Arnold Munnich

Arnold Munnich is a French paediatrician-geneticist. He is the creator and head of the department of medical genetics at the Necker-Enfants malades hospital in Paris. He was an advisor to the President of the Republic from 2007 to 2012 and a member of the Scientific Council of the AMMi Association.

Scientific background

After a doctorate in medicine and a science thesis at the Institut Cochin in the U129 unit then headed by Axel Kahn, he was appointed Professor of Genetics at the University of Paris-Descartes in 1989. He has been head of the Inserm unit "Genetic handicaps of the child" since 1990, succeeding Jean Frézal, where he had done his clinic at the Necker Hospital in Paris.
After Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of the French Republic, Arnold Munnich was appointed Advisor to the President for Biomedical Research and Health.
Arnold Munnich has tried to use molecular genetics in paediatrics and to reconcile clinical and molecular genetics. He is the co-founder and current president of the Imagine Institute of Genetic Diseases and a member of the Scientific Council of the AMMi Association.

1994: Jean Hamburger Prize of the City of Paris
1999: Jean-Pierre-Lecocq Prize from the French Academy of Sciences
1999: Eloi-Collery Prize of the National Academy of Medicine
2000: Grand Prix de l'Inserm
2001: Jean Bernard Prize from the Fondation pour la recherche médicale
2003: Member of the Institut Universitaire de France
2004: Member of the French Academy of Sciences
2007: Winner of the European Society of Human Genetics Award
2009: Winner of the Gagna & Van Heck Award of the Belgian National Research Fund
2012: Winner of the British Society of Human Genetics Carter Award
2013: Officier of the Légion d'Honneur
2014: Jean-Bernard Grand Prize of the City of Paris

A 2021 publication found Munnich to be a central researcher for describing rare genetic diseases.

He is the author or co-author of more than 700 scientific publications.