Christian Cambillau (born February 22, 1951) is a French scientist for the CNRS (French National Scientific Research Centre) in Structural Biology. He received the CNRS Silver Medal for his work on structural biology, especially the structures of human lipase/colipase, lectins and the development of moleculargraphics software. Early life Christian Cambillau was born in Perpignan to Madeleine Cambillau a social worker and August Cambillau an officer of the French airforce. He studied part of his childhood in different places (including Perpignan) and later in Paris when his family moved there. He obtained his Master in biology and chemistry at the University of Orsay, then continued on to do a Ph.D. at the same university in bio-mimetic chemistry (crown-ether and cryptates). Career After his Ph.D. (1978) he spent one year at ONERA for his military service. He was then hired by CNRS in the chemistry department (January 1, 1980). In 1982 he moved to Sweden to begin a two-year post-doc in the lab of Prof. Carl-Ivar Bränden, a pioneer of protein crystallography. Whilst there he worked to develop the TOM option in FRODO software, producing an automatic flexible protein-ligand docking software. He also participated to different works on protein crystallography and modelling. After Sweden he returned to France to work in the relatively new field of structural biology, joining a group in the CRMC2 laboratory located in Marseille on the Luminy Campus (Marseille University of science). He worked there for four years and developed a new molecular graphics program TURBO-FRODO. He then moved with the protein crystallography group when it was relocated to the Marseille North University Department. It's at the North University Department that he led his first team at the LCCMB lab (Laboratory of Crystallography and Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules) with this becoming one of the key points of his career. Whilst director he moved in 1995 to the Campus of Joseph Aiguier, where LCCMB became AFMB (Architecture et Fonction de Macromolecule Biologiques). He resigned the direction of the AFMB in 2004, with AFMB moving to the Luminy Campus in 2005. Since 2008 he is Head of Marseille-Nice Génopole. • Direction: - Director of the Laboratory of Crystallography and Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules, URA 1296: 07/01/1990 to 12/31/1995 - Laboratory Director "Architecture and Function of Biological Macromolecules" (UPR9039 and UMR6098): 1996-2004. • Research management - Member of the Section 21 of the National Committee (1995–2000) - Member of the Jury