Bernard Henrissat

Bernard Henrissat | JRNLClub

Research Statement

AI generated · 3d ago

Bernard Henrissat's research centers on the sequence-based classification of carbohydrate-active enzymes, work anchored by the CAZy database he established and repeatedly updated as an expert resource for glycogenomics. His early classification of glycosyl hydrolases by amino acid sequence similarity, and subsequent additions of new families, laid the groundwork for organizing these enzymes into hierarchical families. Later work extended this framework to auxiliary redox enzymes and to a family classification for glycosyltransferases, while studies of the abundance and variety of carbohydrate-active enzymes in the human gut microbiota connected the classification effort to microbial ecology. Beyond these lead-author contributions, Henrissat participated as a middle author in large consortia, including the core gut microbiome comparison of obese and lean twins and the Populus trichocarpa genome, where his role likely involved carbohydrate-active enzyme annotation. His involvement in the gut microbiota transplants that modulated metabolism in mice reflects the same annotation expertise applied to host-microbe studies. No software, datasets, patents, or grants beyond the CAZy resource itself are indexed. Across these works, the through-line is a sustained effort to classify and catalogue carbohydrate-active enzymes, then apply that catalogue to genomes and microbiomes.

Most Cited Works

A core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins

Peter J Turnbaugh, Micah Hamady, Tanya Yatsunenko, Brandi L Cantarel, Alexis Duncan, Ruth E Ley, Mitchell L Sogin, William J Jones, Bruce A Roe, Jason P Affourtit, Michael Egholm, Bernard Henrissat, Andrew C Heath, Rob Knight, Jeffrey I Gordon

Nature2008

7,815Citations

The carbohydrate-active enzymes database (CAZy) in 2013

Vincent Lombard, Hemalatha Golaconda Ramulu,

Research Areas

Enzyme Production and CharacterizationGenomics and Phylogenetic StudiesPlant Pathogens and Fungal DiseasesFungal and yeast genetics researchBiofuel production and bioconversion

Affiliations & Education

Employment

2021–present· now
Technical University of Denmark(DK)
Professor · Bioengineering
2021–2026
Technical University of Denmark(DK)
CNRS Marseille(FR)
Emeritus Director of Research · AFMB

Loading ORCID activity...

Bernard Henrissat

Sources