Jean-Marie Bassot (1933–2007): a life of unquenched curiosity

✍ Scribed by Professor Anthony K. Campbell

• Book ID: 101714188
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 208 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1522-7235
• DOI: 10.1002/bio.1048

✦ Synopsis

Jean-Marie Bassot (1933-2007): a life of unquenched curiosity

Obituary Sometimes in one's life one is lucky enough to get to know someone whose curiosity and strength of intellect shines so bright that it can be dazzling! Jean-Marie Bassot was such a man. Although born in Paris on 2 April 1933, he was really a passionate Burgundian throughout his life. For him the Pinot Noir grape of a Mercurey was infinitely superior to a Cabernet Sauvignon of Bordeaux or the Grenache-Syrah blend of Côtes du Rhône. Inheriting an estate, run-down after the Second World War, he transformed it into a nature reserve and personal sabbatical centre for his family and friends. All who visit Le Marteau (trans. The Hammer) always leave with inspiration and energy.

In the early 1960s, Jean-Marie studied as a student in natural sciences at L'Université de Paris, in the Sorbonne, and then obtained his doctorate in 1967, studying 'The Histology, Histochemistry and Ultrastructure of Some Luminous Organs' , under the direction of Professor P. Drach. This study included the photocytes of Pholas, euphausiids such as Meganyctiphanes, polynoid worms, teleost stomiatoids, such as the hatchet fish, Argyropelecus, and bacterial light organs. Hooked on bioluminescence from an early age, he spent his professional life searching the world for anything and everything that flashed or glowed in the dark. His anecdotes included the largest glow-worm in the world in Asia, several cm long, and large numbers of small luminous millipedes in the USA, distinct from the famous giant millipede Luminodesmus. He told me of the only known luminous sea anemone he found in the Pacific. Synchronous fireflies and flash-light fish in south-east Asia captured his curiosity, particularly when he studied them during the famous NSF Alpha Helix south-east Asian expedition to Papua-New Guinea, led by John Buck, with his wife Elizabeth, in 1969, and including Jim Case. The main firefly here was Pteroptyx cribellata, with an astonishing 5 second light period. His diving experiences with bioluminescence began on the famous Calypso with Jacques Cousteau. During the SE Asia expedition we see examples of his risk-taking, deciding to sit under water in the river to watch the flashlight fish Anomalops and Photoblepharon for hours on end.

Jean-Marie was a true naturalist, with a huge knowledge of living things. He realized, like Darwin and Lamarck, that the key problem in biology was the origin of living processes. We had many late night discussions about this, particularly the greatest puzzle in bioluminescence-what was the evolutionary origin of a luminous species and its light organ? Even Darwin knew that this did not fit his small-change-by-small-change concept. Jean-Marie and I would try to identify the Rubicon that was crossed by a bioluminescent system, only after which the light emission became susceptible to natural selection. But first and foremost Jean-Marie was a structural biologist, and a superb histologist. His passion was the intricate ultrastructure of the photocyte, only observable in detail via the electron microscope. It was the extraordinary diversity of the intracellular structures that he found in photocytes that excited Jean-Marie's curiosity. To hear his enthusiasm, as he described his latest finding of the wondrous shapes inside a luminous organ, was inspiring. He believed, rightly, that if we were to understand how an animal produces a flash or a glow then the structures of the photocytes and the surrounding cells were critical. Knowing the fascinating chemistry and biochemistry was all very well, but it rarely told us how a firefly flashes and a glow-worm glows.

His studies and publications, many in French, include luminous bacteria, dinoflagellates, fireflies, the luminous midge Platyura, flash-light and pony fish, stomiatoid fish, the siphonophore Hippopodius, Pholas, the syllid worm Pionosyllis, and his last exploration into the extraordinary structures responsible for Obituary