Grégoire Courtine (born 1975 in Dijon), neuroscientist

Presented in Le Monde in 2013 as an “extraterrestrial in scientific research,” this Dijon native with a passion for climbing studied sports science in the 90s. After his doctoral thesis: “How do cosmonauts from the Mir station walk again once they are back on earth? How do their brains readapt?” defended in Dijon in 2003, he began research in Los Angeles where he was awarded the title of “best researcher” in 2007. Back in Europe, Grégoire Courtine moved to the EPFL in Lausanne and set up the Re-Walk project… where he managed to make a paralyzed rat walk again! His publication in Science in June 2012 brought hope to victims of a spinal cord injury.