European Symposium “Hormones and Cell Regulation”  
                     
In Memoriam: Jacques E. Dumont (1931-2023)

The Scientific Council of the Symposium Hormones and Cell Regulation:
D. Carling, P. De Meyts, V. Flockerzi, T. Gudermann, V. Haucke, I. Huhtaniemi, A. Maggi, B. Payrastre, J.P. Pin, M. Sibilia.

        Jacques graduated as M.D. from the ULB in 1956. After a NIH fellowship with John B. Stanbury at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a residency in Internal Medicine at the University Hospital Saint-Pierre, he obtained a Belgian certification in Clinical Biochemistry and a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the ULB School of Medicine in 1965. He became an established investigator of the Belgian Scientific Research Fund (FNRS) and was appointed professor in 1971. Jacques was also visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas (Houston). He was extremely active at developing research, innovation, teaching and applications of medical research. As a physician, Jacques kept seeing patients in clinical endocrinology throughout his career, helping him to make important clinical discoveries. These included the identification of somatic gain-of-function mutations of the TSH receptor as a cause of hyperfunctioning thyroid adenoma, loss-of-function mutations of this receptor as a cause of congenital hypothyroidism, and a mutation altering the recognition specificity of a GPCR in hCG-dependent hyperthyroidism during pregnancy. His ULB team made important achievements such as the identification of the tumorigenic potential of cyclic AMP, explaining thyroid adenoma and congenital hyperthyroidism; the characterization of the mechanism of action of iodide in controlling the thyroid gland; the structure of thyroglobulin and the use of ‘low-stringency’ PCR to clone a number of GPCRs, including the TSH receptor. His entrepreneurial spirit drove Jacques to create several start-up companies. His awards and honors include many important prizes and he was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine since 1992. 
       Jacques Dumont was always eager to promote collaboration in biomedical research in order to foster scientific progress. As such, he organized a number of international meetings. Importantly, in 1976, he founded the European Symposium on Hormones and Cell Regulation. He presided the scientific committee until his death and never failed to participate in these symposia. These highly popular and successful symposia, taking place each year in Mont Saint-Odile (Alsace), were setup by Jacques to strengthen European scientific relationships. The symbolic choice of the venue, close to the Franco-German border, was no coincidence; Jacques was particularly attentive to the Franco-German reconciliation.