Alfio QuarteroniOf italian nationality, Alfio Quarteroni was born on May 30th 1952. He pursued his studies in mathematics at University of Pavia and at University of Paris VI. In 1986 he was nominated full professor at Catholic University of Brescia, later professor in mathematics at University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and professor in numerical analysis at Politecnico di Milano. He is designated full professor in 1997 and enters into service with EPFL in 1998. At EPFL, he teaches numerical analysis to engineers and mathematicians and holds specialized courses about mathematical modelling and scientific computing for master and PhD students. He had been scientific director of CRS4, plenary speaker of more than two hundred international conferences; he is member of the European Academy of Sciences, the Italian Academy of Sciences, the Lombard Academy of Science and Letters. He is Editor in Chief of two book series (MS&A and Unitext) by Springer, associate editor of 25 international journals. He has been plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians ICM2006. He had been responsible of several European research networks. His team has carried out the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic simulations for the optimization of Alinghi, the Swiss sailing yacht that has won two editions of the America's Cup in 2003 and 2007.
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.