Raphaël Mercier receives the prestigious VinFuture prize for his work on crops that seed their own clones
Former leader of the MeioMe team and now Director at the Max Planck Institute, Raphaël Mercier receives the 2025 VinFuture Special Prize for Innovation for a work initiated at the IJPB
This distinction from the VinFutur Foundation was awarded to him on 5 December 2025 in Hanoi (Vietnam) during a ceremony honouring scientific and technological advances capable of simplifying the propagation of elite crop varieties, thereby revolutionising agriculture and contributing significantly to global food security.
An innovation: crop plants capable of producing their own clones
Raphaël Mercier and four other researchers, Delphine Mieulet, Emmanuel Guiderdoni, Imtiyaz Khanday, and Venkatesan Sundaresan, were recognised for introducing asexual seed reproduction (apomixis) into rice, a staple food for more than 3.5 billion people.
Hybrid vigour gives the offspring of two distinct lines superior performance: greater robustness, faster growth, higher yields, and increased resistance to disease. Yet these advantages disappear when hybrids reproduce sexually, as meiosis reshuffles genetic material. Farmers must therefore produce new hybrid seeds each year through controlled crosses — a costly and labour-intensive process. The strategy developed by Raphaël Mercier and his collaborators now makes it possible to preserve hybrid vigour through clonal seed reproduction, making this approach more accessible and economically viable.
From meiosis to mitosis: the creation of the MiMe system
At the IJPB, Raphaël Mercier and the "Meiosis Mechanisms" MeioMe team used the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to study meiosis in depth, a key stage of sexual reproduction:
> genetic exchanges between chromosomes generating diversity
> reduction of chromosome number by half in gametes
Drawing on this knowledge, the team created targeted mutations that blocked the key features of meiosis, including genetic exchange. As a result, meiosis was converted into mitosis, producing gametes genetically identical to the mother plant. This system, named MiMe (Mitosis instead of Meiosis), is one of the major breakthroughs underlying synthetic apomixis.
Introducing MiMe into rice and inducing parthenogenesis
In collaboration with Delphine Mieulet and Emmanuel Guiderdoni (CIRAD Montpellier, link), MiMe was introduced into rice, producing gametes containing the full genetic information of the parental plant. This was an essential step, but not sufficient to achieve apomixis. To obtain true clonal reproduction, parthenogenesis — the development of an embryo without fertilisation — also had to be induced. At the University of California Davis - UC Davis, Imtiyaz Khanday and Venkatesan Sundaresan were working precisely on this process. They showed that parthenogenesis can be triggered by expressing the gene BBM1 (BABY BOOM1) in the female gamete — a gene normally activated only after fertilisation. The transatlantic collaboration between the five scientists combined MiMe with parthenogenesis, resulting in rice capable of reproducing clonally through seeds: a genuine synthetic apomixis.
Raphaël Mercier and INRA
> Crossing over with Raphaël Mercier: the mechanics of meiosis, news INRA 17/04/16
> News on the subject of his INRA Laurel "Scientific challenge" 2016, actu IJPB:
Raphaël Mercier, delving into the heart of cell division, actu 13/12/16
> INRA press releases (PR):
- Crop plants could now reproduce clonally through seeds, PR 10/01/19
- L'inactivation du gène RECQ4 permet d'augmenter la recombinaison génétique chez les plantes cultivées, CP 26/11/18
- Les plantes peuvent-elles se passer de sexe ?, CP 18/02/11
In connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.
An innovation: crop plants capable of producing their own clones
Raphaël Mercier and four other researchers, Delphine Mieulet, Emmanuel Guiderdoni, Imtiyaz Khanday, and Venkatesan Sundaresan, were recognised for introducing asexual seed reproduction (apomixis) into rice, a staple food for more than 3.5 billion people.
Hybrid vigour gives the offspring of two distinct lines superior performance: greater robustness, faster growth, higher yields, and increased resistance to disease. Yet these advantages disappear when hybrids reproduce sexually, as meiosis reshuffles genetic material. Farmers must therefore produce new hybrid seeds each year through controlled crosses — a costly and labour-intensive process. The strategy developed by Raphaël Mercier and his collaborators now makes it possible to preserve hybrid vigour through clonal seed reproduction, making this approach more accessible and economically viable.
From meiosis to mitosis: the creation of the MiMe system
At the IJPB, Raphaël Mercier and the "Meiosis Mechanisms" MeioMe team used the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to study meiosis in depth, a key stage of sexual reproduction:
> genetic exchanges between chromosomes generating diversity
> reduction of chromosome number by half in gametes
Drawing on this knowledge, the team created targeted mutations that blocked the key features of meiosis, including genetic exchange. As a result, meiosis was converted into mitosis, producing gametes genetically identical to the mother plant. This system, named MiMe (Mitosis instead of Meiosis), is one of the major breakthroughs underlying synthetic apomixis.
Introducing MiMe into rice and inducing parthenogenesis
In collaboration with Delphine Mieulet and Emmanuel Guiderdoni (CIRAD Montpellier, link), MiMe was introduced into rice, producing gametes containing the full genetic information of the parental plant. This was an essential step, but not sufficient to achieve apomixis. To obtain true clonal reproduction, parthenogenesis — the development of an embryo without fertilisation — also had to be induced. At the University of California Davis - UC Davis, Imtiyaz Khanday and Venkatesan Sundaresan were working precisely on this process. They showed that parthenogenesis can be triggered by expressing the gene BBM1 (BABY BOOM1) in the female gamete — a gene normally activated only after fertilisation. The transatlantic collaboration between the five scientists combined MiMe with parthenogenesis, resulting in rice capable of reproducing clonally through seeds: a genuine synthetic apomixis.
Raphaël Mercier and INRA
> Crossing over with Raphaël Mercier: the mechanics of meiosis, news INRA 17/04/16
> News on the subject of his INRA Laurel "Scientific challenge" 2016, actu IJPB:
Raphaël Mercier, delving into the heart of cell division, actu 13/12/16
> INRA press releases (PR):
- Crop plants could now reproduce clonally through seeds, PR 10/01/19
- L'inactivation du gène RECQ4 permet d'augmenter la recombinaison génétique chez les plantes cultivées, CP 26/11/18
- Les plantes peuvent-elles se passer de sexe ?, CP 18/02/11
In connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.
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