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.
Florian Frédéric Vincent BreiderFlorian Breider obtained his PhD in the field of the stable isotope biogeochemistry from the University of Neuchatel in 2013. This was followed by seven months of postdoc at EPFL in the Atmospheric Particles Research Laboratory and two years as research associate at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) where he conducted studies on nitrous oxide biogeochemistry in oceans. From 2015 to 2018, he was research scientist in the Laboratory for Water Quality and Treatment at EPFL where he conducted research on disinfection by-products and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Since May 2018, he is director of the Central Environmental Laboratory at the Institute of Environmental Engineering of EPFL.
Harm-Anton KlokExpertise
Polymer design at nanoscaleBiologically-inspired polymers
Mission
Research at the Laboratory of Polymer (LP) focuses on the development of novel advanced polymeric materials with potential applications in optics, electronics or medicine. The philosophy is that precise control over nanoscale structure is an important prerequisite to tailor polymer properties. To this end, a “bottom-up” approach is followed, which starts with designing a new material at the molecular level, in order to be able to pr
Francesco StellacciFrancesco Stellacci graduated in Materials Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano in 1998 with a thesis on photochromic polymers with Prof. Giuseppe Zerbi and Mariacarla Gallazzi. In 1999 he moved to the Chemistry Department of the University of Arizona for as a post-doc in the group of Joe Perry in close collaboration with the group of Seth Marder. In 2002 he moved to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. He was then promoted to associate without (2006) and with tenure (2009). In 2010 he moved to the Institute of Materials at EPFL as a full Professor. He holds the Alcan EP Chair. Francesco was one of the recipients of the Technology Review TR35 "35 Innovator under 35" award in 2005, and the Popular Science Magazine "Brilliant 10" award in 2007. He has been a Packard Fellow starting 2005.
Fabien Sorin Sep 2002-Oct 2007
Ph.D., Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, USA.
Supervisor: Prof. Yoel Fink; Thesis: Multi-material, Multifunctional Fiber Devices.
After graduating with an engineering degree and a Master of Science in Physics from the Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, Prof. Sorin joined the department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA for his graduate studies. He worked as a research assistant in the Photonic Bandgap Fibers and Devices Group of Professor Yoel Fink and graduated with a PhD in 2008. His PhD thesis led to the development of a new class of fiber material and devices and he was a pioneer of the field of multi-material fibers.
Mar 2008-Oct 2010
Postdoctoral Associate and Research Scientist, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT.
He then joined the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT as a Postdoctoral Associate, and continued as a Research Scientist associate, where he conducted independent research in the emerging field of multi-material fibers and was involved and led a variety of projects in fundamental research as well as in collaborations with local start-ups.
Apr 2011 Feb 2013
Research Engineer, Saint-Gobain Recherche, Aubervilliers, France.
Surface du Verre et interface Group
In 2011, prof. Sorin returned to Europe and joined the company Saint-Gobain in the Saint-Gobain Recherche center, its biggest research center located near Paris in France. As a research engineer, he developed a new research thrust investigating new photonic materials and nanostructures for the energy and building industries. In particular, he and colleagues developed innovative processing approaches to deploy photonic nanostructures for light management over large area substrates, for applications in energy harvesting and saving, and for building materials and windows.
Mar 2013 Present
Assistant Professor tenure-track, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
Head of the Photonic materials and fibre devices laboratory (FIMAP)
Since March 2013, he is in the department of Materials Science (IMX) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as an assistant professor tenure-track. He is starting a research group on photonic materials and fiber devices (FIMAP), continuing on developing innovative materials processing approaches and photonic device architectures to develop new solutions in energy harvesting, saving and storage, in sensing and monitoring, health care and smart fabrics.
Véronique MichaudBackground:
1994 Habilitation à diriger des recherches ( INPG, France)
1991 PhD in Materials Engineering ( MIT, USA)
1987 Ingénieur Civil des Mines ( Ecole des Mines de Paris, France)
Activities:
Since January 2018: Associate Dean of Engineering, in charge of Education
June 2012-Dec.2017: Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Section
Since April 2017: Associate Professor at EPFL
2009-2017 : Professeur Titulaire at EPFL
1997-2009: Researcher at EPFL
1994-1997 : Chef de Travaux au laboratoire MSS-MAT, Ecole Centrale Paris (France)
1991-1994 : Post-doctoral research associate, MIT (USA)
Author of about 300 publications of which 140 in peer-reviewed journals
Patrick Daniel BarthProfessor Patrick Barth is Associate Professor at EPFL and Adjunct Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA. He received training in Physics, Chemistry and Biology (University of Paris, ENS) in France and performed his PhD at the Commissiariat a l'Energie Atomique in Saclay, France on structure/function studies of membrane proteins (photosystem I) using biochemical and biophysical experimental techniques. He carried out postdoctoral studies at University of California at Berkeley with Tom Alber on computational development for calculating protein electrostatics and designing de novo selective peptide inhibitors of cellular protein interactions. He then went to the University of Washington as a postdoctoral fellow and instructor in David Baker's laboratory to develop computational techniques in the software Rosetta for predicting and designing membrane protein structures. He started his independent career and received tenure at Baylor College of Medicine. He will continue at EPFL to marry computation and experiment for understanding the molecular determinants of signal transduction, as well as modeling and designing membrane proteins with novel functions for various synthetic biology and therapeutic applications.
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