Olivier Voinnet, French geneticist and plant scientist. Voinnet's early research from 1996 to 2002 was at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK. Appointed CNRS research director at the Institut de Biologie Moleculaire des Plantes, Strasbourg, France, he is also Chair of RNA Biology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. His pioneering work on RNA gene silencing in plants won him the 2009 EMBO Gold Medal. Photographed at the 'Epigenetics, Reprogramming and Development' conference hosted by the French Academy of Sciences at the Institut de France, Paris, France, from 14-15 September 2010.