I was trained both at the Medical School of Lille (France) and at the Department of Physics of the University of Calgary (Canada), before graduating in 1986. My PhD work concerned the excitation-contraction coupling of cardiac cells. Soon after graduating, I became a lecturer at the University of Science and Technology of Lille (France), teaching animal physiology and doing research on voltage-dependent calcium channels. Then, I moved for a few years to the University of Bordeaux (France) to study smooth muscle calcium channels, in the early days of the patch clamp method. In 1989, I joined the team of Pr. Michel Lazdunski at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology in Nice (France) and became interested in the molecular physiology of potassium channels. Next, I was a visiting scientist at the Rockefeller University (New York City, USA) for two years, where I studied molecular embryology and axonal guidance in the team of Pr. Ali Brivanlou. Then, I started my own research group at the IPMC, focusing on polycystic kidney disease and associated arterial anomalies. My most recent work concerns the role of mechanosensitive ion channels in renovascular physiopathology, with a special focus on Piezo1. Our group has demonstrated that opening of Piezo1 contributes to the arterial remodelling of small arteries in the course of hypertension. A major objective of the team is now to investigate the mechanobiology of obesity. In summary, using a combination of transdisciplinary approaches combining mechanics, biophysics, cell biology, integrative physiology, and clinical studies our group is studying how changes in force affect biological systems. This work will contribute to solve unexplored important questions of physiology and hopefully will yield new valuable translational perspectives for the fight against obesity and the metabolic syndrome.