Éric Karsenti (in French pronounced as /eʁik kaʁsɑ̃ti/; born 10 September 1948 in Paris)[1] is a French biologist. Research Director at the CNRS, he was the scientific director of the Tara Oceans expedition.
After a thesis at the Pasteur Institute (1979), he worked as a researcher on the molecular mechanisms that govern the cell cycle. He created the Department of Cellular Biology and Biophysics of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).[2]
As the main scientist on the Tara Oceans expedition, he collected plankton samples from many parts of the oceans to conduct an important genomic analysis of plankton diversity.[3]
He is a recipient of the CNRS gold medal and was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences in 2017[4] (after having been a correspondent since 1999[5]).