Johan AuwerxJohan Auwerx is Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he occupies the Nestle Chair in Energy Metabolism. Dr. Auwerx has been using molecular physiology and systems genetics to understand metabolism in health, aging and disease. Much of his work focused on understanding how diet, exercise and hormones control metabolism through changing the expression of genes by altering the activity of transcription factors and their associated cofactors. His work was instrumental for the development of agonists of nuclear receptors - a particular class of transcription factors - into drugs, which now are used to treat high blood lipid levels, fatty liver, and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Auwerx was amongst the first to recognize that transcriptional cofactors, which fine-tune the activity of transcription factors, act as energy sensors/effectors that influence metabolic homeostasis. His research validated these cofactors as novel targets to treat metabolic diseases, and spurred the clinical use of natural compounds, such as resveratrol, as modulators of these cofactor pathways.
Johan Auwerx was elected as a member of EMBO in 2003 and is the recipient of a dozen of international scientific prizes, including the Danone International Nutrition Award, the Oskar Minkowski Prize, and the Morgagni Gold Medal. His work is highly cited by his peers with a h-factor of over 100. He is an editorial board member of several journals, including Cell Metabolism, Molecular Systems Biology, The EMBO Journal, Journal of Cell Biology, Cell, and Science. Dr. Auwerx co-founded a handful of biotech companies, including Carex, PhytoDia, and most recently Mitobridge, and has served on several scientific advisory boards.
Dr. Auwerx received both his MD and PhD in Molecular Endocrinology at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium. He was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Denis DubouleDenis Duboule est né en 1955. De Nationalités Suisse et Française, il étudie la biologie à lUniversité de Genève où il reçoit un PhD dans le domaine de lembryologie des mammifères en 1984. Il passe ensuite 10 ans à létranger, dabord comme post-doc et group leader à la faculté de Médecine de Strasbourg (CNRS), puis au Laboratoire Européen de Biologie Moléculaire, à Heidelberg (Allemagne). En 1993, il est nommé Professeur ordinaire à lUniversité de Genève, où il dirige le département de Génétique et Evolution depuis 1997. En 2001 il prend la direction du pôle dexcellence NCCR aux Frontières de la Génétique et celle de la division médecine-Biologie du FNS en 2012. En 2006, il est nommé Professeur ordinaire à lEPFL, Lausanne, où il dirige le laboratoire de Génomique du Développement (UpDUB).
Ses activités de recherche sexercent dans le domaine de lembryologie, de la génétique et de la génomique du développement des mammifères, dans le contexte général de lEvolution des structures et des organes. En particulier, son laboratoire a été associé à de nombreuses recherches dans le domaine de lanalyse structurelle et fonctionnelle des gènes architectes (Hox) et de leur régulation transcriptionnelle pendant le développement précoce. Denis Duboule est également actif dans le domaine de la communication de la science. Il est membre de lAcademia Europea ainsi que dautres académies. Il est également membre de lInstitut de France (Académie des Sciences), de la Société Royale (UK) et de lAcadémie des Sciences Américaine (NAS). Il a reçu plusieurs prix et distinction, notamment le Prix Marcel Benoist, le Prix Louis-Jeantet de Médecine en 1998 et le Prix international de lINSERM en 2010. Voir également https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Duboule. Didier TronoAprès des études de médecine à l’Université de Genève et une formation clinique en pathologie, médecine interne et maladies infectieuses à Genève et au Massachusetts General Hospital de Boston, Didier Trono s’engage dans une carrière scientifique au Whitehead Institute du MIT. En 1990, il est recruté par le Salk Institute de San Diego pour lancer un centre de recherche sur le SIDA. Il rentre en Europe sept ans plus tard, avant de prendre en 2004 les rênes de la toute nouvelle faculté des Sciences de la Vie de l’EPFL, dont il orchestre le développement et qu’il dirige jusqu’en 2012. Il participe aujourd’hui activement à la coordination des efforts de la Suisse en vue de l’intégration des nouvelles technologies dans le domaine de la médecine de précision et de la santé personnalisée.
Felix NaefFelix Naef studied theoretical physics at the ETHZ and obtained his PhD from the EPFL in 2000. He then received postdoctoral training at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at the Rockefeller University (NYC) under the guidance of Prof. Magnasco. His research focuses on the modeling and interpretation of high-throughput functional data and the study of biomolecular oscillators. He joined ISREC as an associate scientist in early 2004 and is currently Associate Professor in the Institute of Bioengineering (IBI).
Stewart ColeProfessor Stewart Cole is an international authority in bacterial molecular-genetics and genomics. He has made outstanding contributions in several fields including: bacterial anaerobic electron transport; genome analysis of retroviruses and papillomaviruses; antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and the molecular microbiology of toxigenic clostridia. His studies on isoniazid and multidrug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, together with his pioneering work on the pathogenicity, evolution and genomics of the tubercle and leprosy bacilli, have made him an undisputed leader in the field of mycobacterial research. The findings of his research are of direct relevance to public health and disease-control in both the developing world and the industrialised nations. He has published over 250 scientific papers and review articles, and holds many patents.
Andrew Charles OatesAfter an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Adelaide with Honours in Robert Saint’s lab, Andrew Oates received his Ph.D. at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Melbourne in the lab of Andrew Wilks. His postdoctoral time was at Princeton University and the University of Chicago in the lab of Robert Ho, where his studies on the segmentation clock in zebrafish began in 1998. In 2003 he moved to Germany and started his group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. In 2012 he accepted a position at University College London as Professor of vertebrate developmental genetics and moved his group to the MRC-National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill in London. From April 2015, he became a member of the Francis Crick Institute in London. In September 2016, he joined École polytechnique fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland as a Professor, where he is the head of the Timing, Oscillation, Patterns Laboratory. From April 2018 he served as Director of the Institute of Bioengineering, and from January 2021 became the Dean of the School of Life Sciences.
The Timing, Oscillation, Patterns Laboratory is composed of biologists, engineers, and physicists using molecular genetics, quantitative imaging, and theoretical analysis to study a population of coupled genetic oscillators in the vertebrate embryo termed the segmentation clock. This system drives the rhythmic, sequential, and precise formation of embryonic body segments, exhibiting rich spatial and temporal phenomena spanning from molecular to tissue scales.
Florian Maria WurmFlorian Wurm received his academic training as a Biologist and Molecular Geneticist at the University of Giessen. He joined the Hoechst AG (Behringwerke) in Marburg as head of a laboratory in Virology. Working with immortalized mammalian cells for the establishment of production processes for alpha-interferons provided the first opportunity to combine basic research with medical application. In 1984 he joined Harvard Medical School in Boston as a Research Fellow in Molecular Biology. 1986 he took an offer from Genentech Inc. in San Francisco to work in Process Sciences on the development of large scale manufacturing processes for recombinant proteins. There he has held a number of leading positions and has acquired intimate knowledge in the generation of protein pharmaceuticals in mammalian cells in bioreactors (a number of which are now marketed products). In 1995 he joined the EPFL as a Professor for Biotechnology. Wurm has published more than 250 scientific papers and holds more than 20 patents/patent-applications. His H-index stands at 60 in 2021. He was Chairman (2005-2009) and is member of the Executive Board of the European Society of Animal Cell Technology (ESACT). He serves as a consultant to the pharmaceutical Biotech Industry, mainly in the fields of animal cell technology for recombinant protein production and in regulatory affairs. He works as a scientific reviewer and editior/asscciate editor for a number of international journals in the Biotech field. F.M. Wurm teaches classes to pre- and postgraduate students in the fields of Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology.
He was founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ExcellGene SA, a 2001 established company in Monthey, Switzerland. He took the position of President and CEO of ExcellGene in 2015. He retired from the CEO position in 2017 and continues to be President and Chief Scientific Officer of ExcellGene.
In 2008 Dr. Wurm was appointed Visiting Professor for Biotechnology at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China. He retired from his position at the EPFL in 2015. His laboratory is closed. With his team at ExcellGene and in collaboration with Dr. Paco Pino, Director of R&D, he continues to explore manufacturing sciences with animal cells in bioreactors.
Vassily HatzimanikatisDr. Vassily Hatzimanikatis is currently Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Vassily received a PhD and an MS in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the University of Patras, in Greece. After the completion of his doctoral studies, he held a research group leader position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. Prior to joining EPFL, Vassily worked for three years in DuPont, Cargill, and Cargill Dow, and he has been assistant professor at Northwestern University, at Illinois, USA.
Vassilys research interests are in the areas of computational systems biology, biotechnology, and complexity. He is associate editor of the journals Biotechnology & Bioengineering, Metabolic Engineering and Integrative Biology, and he serves on the editorial advisory board of the journals Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, and Industrial Biotechnology. He has written over 70 technical publications and he is co-inventor in three patents and patent applications.
Vassily is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2010), he was a DuPont Young Professor (2001-2004), and he has also received the Jay Bailey Young Investigator Award in Metabolic Engineering (2000), and the ACS Elmar Gaden Award (2011).
Lukas KühnLukas Kühn graduated in biochemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. He received his PhD in 1979 for a thesis with Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl at the University of Lausanne. After postdoctoral work in Lausanne and with Frank Ruddle at Yale University, USA, he became group leader at ISREC in 1984, was promoted senior scientist in 1988 and EPFL Adjunct Professor (professeur titulaire) in June 2008.
Freddy RadtkeFreddy Radtke obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Zürich in 1994. In 1995, he started his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Michel Aguet at Genentech, Inc. (San Francisco, USA). In 1997, he returned to Switzerland with Michel Aguet and finished his postdoctoral fellowship at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne. From 1999‑2005, he was a group leader and Associate Member at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Freddy Radtke then joined ISREC in January 2006 as a senior scientist and in July 2006, he was appointed Associate Professor at the EPFL School of Life Sciences
Patrick AebischerPatrick Aebischer a achevé une formation en Médecine (1980) et en Neurosciences (1983) aux Universités de Genève et de Fribourg en Suisse.
De 1984 à 1992, Patrick Aebischer a travaillé à Brown University (USA) au sein du Département des Neurosciences et au Département des Biomatériaux et des Organes Artificiels en tant que Professeur assistant, puis Professeur associé.
En 1992, Patrick Aebischer a été nommé Professeur de la Division Autonome de Recherche Chirurgicale et du Centre de Thérapie Génique (DARC) au Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) à Lausanne.
En 1999, Le Conseil Fédéral a nommé Patrick Aebischer en tant que Président de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Il a pris ses fonctions à la Présidence de lEPFL en mars 2000, position qu'il a occupée jusqu'au 31 décembre 2016.
Patrick Aebischer est membre de maintes sociétés professionnelles, tant en Europe quaux Etats-Unis.
Patrick Aebischer a fondé trois start-up de biotechnologies. Il siège au conseil d'administration de Lonza, de Logitech et de Nestlé. Il préside également l'advisory board du Novartis Venture Fund. Patrick Aebischer est membre du conseil de fondation du Festival de Jazz de Montreux, du Festival de Verbier et de la Fondation Jacobs.
Les recherches quil poursuit actuellement dans son laboratoire se concentrent sur le développement d'approches de thérapie cellulaire et de transfert génique pour le traitement des maladies neurodégénératives.
Maria del Carmen Sandi PerezACADEMIC POSITION:
Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
EDUCATION:
BS MS Salamanca, Spain, 1984
PhD Cajal Institute, CSIC, and University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, 1988
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Postdoc at INSERM, Bordeaux, France, and Cajal Institute Madrid, Spain, 1989-1990
Postdoc at the Open University, UK, 1991-1992, 1996
Research Associate, Cajal Institute, CSIC, Madrid, 1993-1995
Associate Professor Tenured, UNED University, Madrid, 1996-2003
Sabbatical Professor, University of Bern, Switzerland, 2002-2003
Assistant Professor Tenure-Track, EPFL, 2003-2007
Associate Professor Tenured, EPFL, 2007-2012
Full Professor, EPFL, 2012-
Director, Brain Mind Institute, EPFL, 2012-
PRINCIPAL BOARDS:
President, European Brain and Behavior Society (EBBS), 2009-2012
Editor-in-Chief Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Member of Scientific Advisory Panel, European College Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP)
Member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB)
Associate Editor Frontiers in Neuroscience
Editorial Board Member Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Editorial Board Member Journal of Psychiatry Research
Editorial Board Member Stress
Editorial Board Member Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders
Editorial Board Member Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
Julien Maillard2011 - present: Research associate at the Laboratory for Environmental Biotechnology (LBE, IIE-ENAC, EPFL)
2007 - 2010: Postdoctoral Fellow at the Laboratory for Environmental Biotechnology (LBE, IIE-ENAC, EPFL)
2005 - 2006: Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of East Anglia (UEA, Norwich, UK)
2000 - 2004: PhD thesis at the Laboratory for Environmental Biotechnology (LBE)
1995 - 2000: B.sc & M.sc at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology, Zurich (ETHZ)
