Pierre Monsan


Pierre Monsan is a French biochemist and entrepreneur. He is currently Professor emeritus at the Institut national des sciences appliquées de Toulouse and the founding director of the pre-industrial demonstrator Toulouse White Biotechnology.
Monsan's scientific interests include biocatalysis, biochemical and enzyme engineering. Beyond his academic work, Monsan is co-inventor on numerous patents and co-founded several industrial biotechnology companies.
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Education and career

Monsan was educated at INSA Toulouse and the University of Toulouse where he graduated with an engineer degree in Biological Chemistry in 1969. He was then awarded his Doctor-Engineer Degree in 1971 and his PhD degree in 1977 from INSA Toulouse for research on enzyme immobilization. He served as lecturer in the Department of Biochemical Engineering at INSA Toulouse from 1969 and was later promoted to Assistant Professor and then Professor.
In 1984, Monsan took a leave from Academia and co-founded BioEurope, a startup company specialized in industrial biocatalysis. There he served as CSO from 1984 to 1989, CEO from 1989 to 1993 and CSO again from 1993 to 1999 after the acquisition of the company by the Solabia Group. In 1993, Monsan returned to INSA Toulouse to lead a research group focusing on the discovery, characterisation and molecular engineering of enzymes, including glucansucrases and lipases. He was also appointed Professor at Ecole des Mines-ParisTech in 1993. From 1999 to 2003 he served as head of Department of Biochemical Engineering at INSA Toulouse. In 2012, he founded the pre-industrial demonstrator "Toulouse White Biotechnology" with a €20M grant within the framework of the Investing for the Future'' national program and served as its founding director until 2019.
Monsan is presently Professor emeritus at INSA Toulouse and the CEO of Cell-Easy, a start-up specializing in the production of stem cells.

Scientific work

Research by Monsan and his collaborators has focused on biocatalysis, biochemical engineering and enzyme engineering, published in over 230 articles. His fundamental includes investigation of structure-activity relationships of enzymes,, and enzyme discovery by functional metagenomics. His more applied research involves biocatalysis in non-conventional media for the synthesis of chemicals, protein engineering, methods for enzyme immobilization, and bioreactor design and development.

Technology transfer and entrepreneurship

Monsan has been heavily involved in technology transfer throughout his career and is co-inventor of over 60 patents. He has developed several industrial biocatalytic processes for the production of polysaccharides, oligosaccharides and amino acid derivatives. Companies he has co-founded include BioEurope, Biotrade and Genibio. He is and has been member of the scientific advisory board of several companies, including Danisco Venture, PCAS,
or Deinove.
In 2012, Monsan founded the pre-industrial demonstrator Toulouse White Biotechnology, an original institute dedicated to technology transfer through a consortium of public and industrial partners. TWB promotes industrial biotechnology and biobased economy through collaborative public/private research and development projects and the creation of startups such as EnobraQ or Pili.

Awards and memberships