BLIGNY† Richard

Richard BLIGNY (1945-2024) was Research Director of the CNRS. Its activity took place at the Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Végétale (LPCV) of CEA-Grenoble (Joint Unit CNRS, CEA, INra and Université Grenoble Alpes) and focused mainly on studying the role of metals, carbonaceous nutrition and the response to various deficiencies in plant cells. The study of carbon stress led him to propose and develop the concept of autophagy in plants and to analyse certain aspects of their energy metabolism, particularly with regard to the renewal of ATP. In order to carry out physiological and biochemical analyses that disturb cellular functioning as little as possible, he made extensive use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) in vivo, helping to develop this technique, and in 1989 he created a laboratory at the Col du Lautaret to study the functioning of mountain plants and their ecology. From 2000 to 2005, he managed the Joseph Fourier alpine station in Lautaret, which brings together this laboratory and a century-old alpine garden open to the general public.