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.
Joachim LingnerPhD at the Biocenter, University of Basel 1989-1992 (Supervisor: Walter Keller). Postdoc at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder 1993-1997 (Supervisor: Thomas Cech). Junior group leader at ISREC 1997-2001. Senior group leader at ISREC since 2002. Associate Professor at EPFL 2005-2008. Full Professor at EPFL since 2009. Honors: START-fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation in 1997; Friedrich Miescher Prize from the Swiss Society of Biochemistry in 2002; EMBO member in 2005; ERC advanced investigator grant in 2008.
Johannes GräffAcademic appointments
2013- Tenure Track Assistant Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, School of Life Sciences, Brain Mind Institute.
2009-2013 Postdoctoral fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
2009 Postdoctoral associate, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), Zürich, Switzerland, Brain Research Institute.
Education
2009 PhD in Neurosciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), Zürich, Switzerland, Department of Biology, Brain Research Institute.
2005 Diploma (M.Sc. equivalent) in Biological Sciences, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, Department of Ecology and Evolution.
1998 Matura, Gymnasium Type B, Kantonsschule am Burggraben St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Martinus GijsMartin A.M. Gijs received his degree in physics in 1981 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and his Ph.D. degree in physics at the same university in 1986. He joined the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 1987. Subsequently, he has worked there on micro-and nano-fabrication processes of high critical temperature superconducting Josephson and tunnel junctions, the microfabrication of microstructures in magnetic multilayers showing the giant magnetoresistance effect, the design and realisation of miniaturised motors for hard disk applications and the design and realisation of planar transformers for miniaturised power applications. He joined EPFL in 1997. His present interests are in developing technologies for novel magnetic devices, new microfabrication technologies for microsystems fabrication in general and the development and use of microsystems technologies for microfluidic and biomedical applications in particular.
