Born in Geneva in 1955, Denis Duboule holds both French and Swiss nationalities. He is Honorary Professor of Genetics at the University of Geneva, where he headed the Department of Genetics and Evolution and the Centre National de Compétence en Génétique. He is also Professor Emeritus at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Denis Duboule received his doctorate from the University of Geneva in 1984 and went on to work in Professor Pierre Chambon's LGME laboratory in Strasbourg, where he headed a research group until 1988. His group then moved to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. In 1992, he was recruited as a full professor at the University of Geneva, and in 2006, he was also appointed professor at the École Polytechnique de Lausanne. Since 1985, his work has focused on the function and regulation of Hox genes (architect genes) during vertebrate animal development. Denis Duboule is also interested in the politics of science, its funding and communication to the general public. He joined the Collège de France on an international chair in 2018, and has held a statutory chair since 2022.