Jean-Jacques MeisterCitoyen suisse, Jean-Jacques Meister est né en 1950. Il est titulaire d'un diplôme d'ingénieur en électronique et d'un diplôme d'ingénieur physicien, obtenu en 1979 à l'Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Il poursuit sa formation à l'Institut des techniques biomédicales de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich et obtient son doctorat ès sciences en 1983. De 1984 à 1990, il travaille dans différents domaines de la physique biomédicale. Ses principales réalisations portent sur le développement de méthodes non-invasives utiles à la prévention et au diagnostic des maladies cardio-vasculaires: caractérisation des propriétés biomécaniques des artères, hémodynamique cardio-vasculaire, échographie Doppler ultrasonore. En 1990, il est nommé professeur de physique expérimentale à l'EPFL où il dirige le Laboratoire de génie médical jusqu'en 2001, puis le laboratoire de biophysique cellulaire. Ses activités de recherche concernent principalement la biophysique cellulaire: dynamique du cytosquelette, motilité & adhésion cellulaire et dynamique du calcium dans les muscles lisses. Lors d'un congé sabbatique en 2000, il complète sa formation en biologie moléculaire et cellulaire au célèbre Marine Biological Laboratory de Woods Hole, dans le Massachusetts, USA. Il enseigne la physique générale, la mécanique générale, le génie biomédical et la biophysique aux étudiants de diverses sections de l'EPFL. Il est auteur ou coauteur de plus de 230 publications scientifiques et chapitres de livres et titulaire de 8 brevets internationaux
Cathrin BriskenCathrin Brisken, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Life Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Dr. Brisken is internationally recognized for her work on endocrine control of mammary gland development and breast carcinogenesis.
Dr. Brisken received her MD and her PhD degree in Biophysics from the Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany. She completed her postdoctoral work in cancer biology with Dr. R.A. Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, USA. She previously held appointments at the Cancer Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston and the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC).
Research in Dr. Brisken’s laboratory focuses on the cellular and molecular underpinnings of estrogen and progesterone receptor signaling in the breast and the respective roles of these hormones and hormonally active compounds in carcinogenesis. The aim is to understand how recurrent exposures to endogenous and exogenous hormones contribute to breast carcinogenesis in order to better prevent and treat the disease. The laboratory has pioneered in vivo approaches to genetically dissect the role of the reproductive hormones in driving mouse mammary gland development and shown how they control intercellular communication. Dr. Brisken’s group has developed ex vivo and humanized mouse models using patient samples to study hormone action in human tissues in normal settings and during disease progression.
Dr. Brisken is member of the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) Biological Protocol Working Group. She served as Dean of EPFL Doctoral School (more than 2000 PhD students in 18 PhD programs), as member of the Hinterzartener Kreis, the oncology think-tank associated with the German Science Foundation, and numerous Swiss, European, and AACR committees. She co-founded the International Cancer Prevention Institute.
Michael GraetzelProfessor of Physical Chemistry at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Michael Graetzel, PhD, directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their use to generate electricity and fuels from sunlight. He invented mesoscopic injection solar cells, one key embodiment of which is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). DSCs are meanwhile commercially produced at the multi-MW-scale and created a number of new applications in particular as lightweight power supplies for portable electronic devices and in building integrated photovoltaics. They engendered perovskite solar cells (PSCs) which turned into the most exciting break-through in the history of photovoltaics. He received a number of prestigious awards, of which the most recent ones include the RusNANO Prize, the Zewail Prize in Molecular Science, the Global Energy Prize, the Millennium Technology Grand Prize, the Marcel Benoist Prize, the King Faisal International Science Prize, the Einstein World Award of Science and the Balzan Prize. He is a Fellow of several learned societies and holds eleven honorary doctor’s degrees from European and Asian Universities. His over 1500 publications have received some 220’000 citations with an h-factor of 218 (SI-Web of Science) demonstrating the strong impact of his scientific work.
Graham KnottGraham Knott received his degree in physiology from the University of Southampton, UK, in 1990, and his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Tasmania, Australia, in 1995. He moved to the University of Lausanne in Switzerland in 1999 where he researched the plasticity of neuronal connectivity in the adult brain, developing correlative light and electron microscopy methods for the analysis of in vivo imaged neurons. In 2006 Graham joined the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, establishing the Bio Electron Microscopy Facility and has continued his research interests in brain plasticity and 3D electron microscopy.
