The Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology was created in 1930 by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation. At the time, the IBPC was the only scientific institution to employ full-time researchers, biologists, physicists and chemists, dedicated exclusively to the advancement of knowledge. This concept, designed by Jean Perrin, Nobel Prize in Physics 1926, fore-shadowed what would become the National Centre for Scientific Research, created ten years later. The various departments and laboratories that initially composed the IBPC evolved during the twentieth century into research units involving the CNRS and the Universities. In January 1997, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation transferred scientific and administrative responsibility for IBPC to the CNRS. Today, the IBPC is managed by a research federation, the FRC 550, and hosts five research units under the umbrella of the Institute of Biological Sciences (INSB) or the Institute of Chemical Sciences (INC) of the CNRS. These units are associated with the Universities Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) and Paris-Diderot. The IBPC remains faithful to its vocation to promote multidisciplinary research in all fields of biology. The structural, genetic and physico-chemical bases of living organisms are explored to different levels of integration, from the molecule to the whole organism. The IBPC is a place of research open to the international scientific community, which promotes studies guided by scientific curiosity and performed in a free intellectual atmosphere. The IBPC is a member of the Foundation Pierre Gilles de Gennes and active partner of all research institutions of the Montagne Ste Geneviève.