Dominique PiolettiDominique Pioletti received his Master in Physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in 1992. He pursued his education in the same Institution and obtained his PhD in biomechanics in 1997. He developed original constitutive laws taking into account viscoelasticity in large deformations. Then he spent two years at UCSD as post-doc fellow acquiring know-how in cell and molecular biology. He was interested in particular to gene expression of bone cells in contact to orthopedic implant. In April 2006, Dominique Pioletti was appointed Assistant Professor tenure-track at the EPFL and is director of the Laboratory of Biomechanical Orthopedics. His research topics include biomechanics and tissue engineering of musculo-skeletal tissues; mechano-transduction in bone; development of orthopedic implant as drug delivery system. Since 2013, he has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
Francesca RodinoExpertise
Electrochemical BiosensorsSensors and Biosensors interfaces | front-end electronicsBiomedical circuits and systems
Francesca Rodino received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, in 2019 and 2022, respectively. She developed her Master's project in the field of cortical neuroprosthesis devices for artificial vision in collaboration with the Integrated Circuits Laboratory (ICLAB) at école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Swit
Henry MarkramHenry Markram started a dual scientific and medical career at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. His scientific work in the 80s revealed the polymodal receptive fields of pontomedullary reticular formation neurons in vivo and how acetylcholine re-organized these sensory maps.
He moved to Israel in 1988 and obtained his PhD at the Weizmann Institute where he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by being the first to show that acetylcholine modulates the NMDA receptor in vitro studies, and thereby gates which synapses can undergo synaptic plasticity. He was also the first to characterize the electrical and anatomical properties of the cholinergic neurons in the medial septum diagonal band.
He carried out a first postdoctoral study as a Fulbright Scholar at the NIH, on the biophysics of ion channels on synaptic vesicles using sub-fractionation methods to isolate synaptic vesicles and patch-clamp recordings to characterize the ion channels. He carried out a second postdoctoral study at the Max Planck Institute, as a Minerva Fellow, where he discovered that individual action potentials propagating back into dendrites also cause pulsed influx of Ca2 into the dendrites and found that sub-threshold activity could also activated a low threshold Ca2 channel. He developed a model to show how different types of electrical activities can divert Ca2 to activate different intracellular targets depending on the speed of Ca2 influx an insight that helps explain how Ca2 acts as a universal second messenger. His most well known discovery is that of the millisecond watershed to judge the relevance of communication between neurons marked by the back-propagating action potential. This phenomenon is now called Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP), which many laboratories around the world have subsequently found in multiple brain regions and many theoreticians have incorporated as a learning rule. At the Max-Planck he also started exploring the micro-anatomical and physiological principles of the different neurons of the neocortex and of the mono-synaptic connections that they form - the first step towards a systematic reverse engineering of the neocortical microcircuitry to derive the blue prints of the cortical column in a manner that would allow computer model reconstruction.
He received a tenure track position at the Weizmann Institute where he continued the reverse engineering studies and also discovered a number of core principles of the structural and functional organization such as differential signaling onto different neurons, models of dynamic synapses with Misha Tsodyks, the computational functions of dynamic synapses, and how GABAergic neurons map onto interneurons and pyramidal neurons. A major contribution during this period was his discovery of Redistribution of Synaptic Efficacy (RSE), where he showed that co-activation of neurons does not only alter synaptic strength, but also the dynamics of transmission. At the Weizmann, he also found the tabula rasa principle which governs the random structural connectivity between pyramidal neurons and a non-random functional connectivity due to target selection. Markram also developed a novel computation framework with Wolfgang Maass to account for the impact of multiple time constants in neurons and synapses on information processing called liquid computing or high entropy computing.
In 2002, he was appointed Full professor at the EPFL where he founded and directed the Brain Mind Institute. During this time Markram continued his reverse engineering approaches and developed a series of new technologies to allow large-scale multi-neuron patch-clamp studies. Markrams lab discovered a novel microcircuit plasticity phenomenon where connections are formed and eliminated in a Darwinian manner as apposed to where synapses are strengthening or weakened as found for LTP. This was the first demonstration that neural circuits are constantly being re-wired and excitation can boost the rate of re-wiring.
At the EPFL he also completed the much of the reverse engineering studies on the neocortical microcircuitry, revealing deeper insight into the circuit design and built databases of the blue-print of the cortical column. In 2005 he used these databases to launched the Blue Brain Project. The BBP used IBMs most advanced supercomputers to reconstruct a detailed computer model of the neocortical column composed of 10000 neurons, more than 340 different types of neurons distributed according to a layer-based recipe of composition and interconnected with 30 million synapses (6 different types) according to synaptic mapping recipes. The Blue Brain team built dozens of applications that now allow automated reconstruction, simulation, visualization, analysis and calibration of detailed microcircuits. This Proof of Concept completed, Markrams lab has now set the agenda towards whole brain and molecular modeling.
With an in depth understanding of the neocortical microcircuit, Markram set a path to determine how the neocortex changes in Autism. He found hyper-reactivity due to hyper-connectivity in the circuitry and hyper-plasticity due to hyper-NMDA expression. Similar findings in the Amygdala together with behavioral evidence that the animal model of autism expressed hyper-fear led to the novel theory of Autism called the Intense World Syndrome proposed by Henry and Kamila Markram. The Intense World Syndrome claims that the brain of an Autist is hyper-sensitive and hyper-plastic which renders the world painfully intense and the brain overly autonomous. The theory is acquiring rapid recognition and many new studies have extended the findings to other brain regions and to other models of autism.
Markram aims to eventually build detailed computer models of brains of mammals to pioneer simulation-based research in the neuroscience which could serve to aggregate, integrate, unify and validate our knowledge of the brain and to use such a facility as a new tool to explore the emergence of intelligence and higher cognitive functions in the brain, and explore hypotheses of diseases as well as treatments.
César PulgarinProf. C. Pulgarin is Chemist from Lausanne University, Master in environmental chemistry from Geneva University, Ph D in synthesis bio-inspired of natural substances from Neuchâtel University. During his education he carried out several industrial trainings.
Since March 1989, he has been working at the EPFL where he is leader of the Advanced Oxidation Processes Group (GPAO) active in the development chemical, photochemical, electrochemical, ultrasonic processes, their coupling between them and with biological systems to degrade chemical and microbiological pollutants in water and air. He has an H index of 40 and he is the world most cited author in 1) TiO2 photo-assisted bacterial inactivation in water and 2) Coupling of photochemical and biological processes for pollutant degradation. He has been involved in ten African, South American and European international research projects. He has been Swiss representative in COST program 540.
Li TangEducation and Training Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013 - 2016 Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007 - 2012 B.S., Peking University, 2003-2007
Bruno LemaitrePersonal Webpage
http://brunolemaitre.ch
Personal Webpage http://brunolemaitre.ch
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Blandine Ribotta, Yao Tian, Désirée Popelka, Prince Kumar Sah, Siqi Wang, Kenan Krakovic, Nathan Alexandre Klotz Past EPFL PhD Students Sveta Chakrabarti, Olivier Binggeli, Jeremy Keith Herren, Juan Camilo Paredes Escobar, Alfred Chng, Maroun Bou Sleiman, Jan Paul Dudzic, Mario Gonzalo Garcia Arraez, Claudia Melcarne, Alice Marra, Bianca Marie Petrignani, Mark Austin Hanson, Alexia Laurie Carboni Nicolas Jean Philippe GuexTeaching & PhD Courses Bioinformatic Analysis of RNA-sequencing (Fall) BIO-693(a) Bioinformatic Analysis of RNA-sequencing (Spring) BIO-693(b) This course will take place at EPFL in June 2026, from 8th to 12th, in room AAC 137.It introduces the workflows and techniques that are used for the analysis of bulk and single-cell RNA-seq data. It empowers students to understand and analyze their own data. Methods: omics in biomedical research BIOENG-519 High-throughp
Maria BrbicMaria Brbic is an assistant professor in computer science at EPFL. Prior to joining EPFL, Maria was a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science at Stanford University working with Jure Leskovec. She received her PhD degree from University of Zagreb in 2019, while also researching at Stanford University and University of Tokyo. Her research was awarded with the Fulbright Scholarship, L’Oreal UNESCO for Women in Science Scholarship, Branimir Jernej award for outstanding publication in biology and biomedicine, and Josip Loncar Silver Plaque award for the best doctoral dissertation. She has been named a Rising Star in EECS by MIT in 2021. Her research is focused on developing new machine learning methods and applying her methods to advance biomedical research.
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.
Andrea AblasserTeaching & PhD PhD Students Ekaterina Gorbacheva, Iris Arianna Dorschel, Tieliang Gan, Yu Meng Past EPFL PhD Students Simone Margret Haag, Sélène Glück, Marilena Wischnewski, Sophie Rivara, Natasha Samson Courses Immunology - advances and therapeutic implications BIO-479 The students acquire advanced level knowledge regarding the functioning of the (vertebrate) immune system. A strong focus is placed on the molecular mechanisms underlying innate and adaptive immune responses and their impl
Sandra Eloise KjeldsenPositions
2008- : Laborantine (Laboratoire du Pr D. Trono), Laboratoire de virologie et génétique, EPFL, Suisse.
2004-2008: Laborantine (Laboratoire du Pr A. Trumpp), ISREC, Suisse.
2004: Assistante de recherche (Laboratoire du Pr G. Corradin), Institut de Biochimie, Université de Lausanne, Suisse.
Éducation
1999 - 2004:
Diplôme en Biologie (spécialités : Immunologie, Biochimie et Pharmacologie)
Université de Lausanne, Suisse.
Juin 1999:
Baccalauréat Scientifique, France. Gioele La MannoTeaching & PhD PhD Students Albert Dominguez Mantes, Xinyi Huang, Laura Lapeña Gil, Alessandro Valente, Luca Fusar Bassini, Hao-An Hsiung, Alireza Gargoorimotlagh, Morgane Alice Storey, Rosan Martine Hans, María Cristina Loureiro Casalderrey, Lada Polyakova Past EPFL PhD Students Alex Russell Lederer, Irina Khven Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Alexandre Coudray, Alex Russell Lederer, Halima Hannah Emilie Schede, Irina Khven Courses Biological data science I: statistical learning BIOENG-210
Quentin BarraudExpertise
Translational neuroscience · Neuromodulation · Spinal cord injury & Parkinson’s disease · Multi-omics (single-cell, spatial transcriptomics, 3D cleared-tissue imaging) · Preclinical platform management
Mission
To develop, coordinate, and supervise the preclinical activities of .NeuroRestore at EPFL, integrating innovative neuromodulation, gene therapy, and multi-omic strategies. To ensure regulatory compliance of all animal work, support scientific teams in experimental design, and build bridges b
