Gerardo TurcattiSenior scientific level (R&D) with extensive experience in the management of multidisciplinary technological projects. Prof. Gerardo Turcatti, directs the academic technological platform, Biomolecular Screening Facility (BSF) at the EPFL he created in 2006. In the framework of the NCCR-Chemical Biology, he is project leader of the program ACCESS (An Academic Chemical Screening Platform for Switzerland). Previously he co-founded and acted as CTO of Manteia S.A., a Swiss-based company that developed high throughput DNA sequencing technologies currently owned by Illumina and used in the ‘Next Generation Sequencing’ instruments. Prior to this experience, Prof. Turcatti had a long multidisciplinary career in R&D divisions of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical companies with extensive expertise in several Chemical Biology-related disciplines such as Drug Screening, Chemical Biology, Bio-analytical Chemistry, DNA and Protein Chemistry. Prof. Turcatti earned his Master in Chemical Engineering at the University of Geneva and his PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the EPFL where he received the award for the best doctoral thesis of the year.
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.
Maria del Carmen Sandi PerezACADEMIC POSITION:
Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
EDUCATION:
BS MS Salamanca, Spain, 1984
PhD Cajal Institute, CSIC, and University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, 1988
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Postdoc at INSERM, Bordeaux, France, and Cajal Institute Madrid, Spain, 1989-1990
Postdoc at the Open University, UK, 1991-1992, 1996
Research Associate, Cajal Institute, CSIC, Madrid, 1993-1995
Associate Professor Tenured, UNED University, Madrid, 1996-2003
Sabbatical Professor, University of Bern, Switzerland, 2002-2003
Assistant Professor Tenure-Track, EPFL, 2003-2007
Associate Professor Tenured, EPFL, 2007-2012
Full Professor, EPFL, 2012-
Director, Brain Mind Institute, EPFL, 2012-
PRINCIPAL BOARDS:
President, European Brain and Behavior Society (EBBS), 2009-2012
Editor-in-Chief Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Member of Scientific Advisory Panel, European College Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP)
Member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB)
Associate Editor Frontiers in Neuroscience
Editorial Board Member Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Editorial Board Member Journal of Psychiatry Research
Editorial Board Member Stress
Editorial Board Member Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders
Editorial Board Member Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
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.
Yann BarrandonYann Barrandon graduated in Medicine in Paris where he also trained as a dermatologist and completed his PhD on the long term cultivation of human haematopoietic stem cells in 1982 under the direction of Dr. Catherine Dresch (Centre Hayem, St Louis Hospital). He worked as a post-doctoral fellow (1982-1983) with Pr. Marvin Karasek in the Department of Dermatology at Stanford University CA, and then with Pr. Howard Green, a pioneer in cell therapy, in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Harvard Medical School (1983-1990). During this period, he participated in the world's first transplantations of epidermal stem cells on extensive third degree wounds and contributed several seminal findings including the demonstration of stem cells in cultures of human keratinocytes (PNAS 1987), and that human keratinocyte stem cells could be efficiently transduced by retroviral vectors (Science 1987), in collaboration with Richard Mulligan at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (Massachussets Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA). He has also participated to the transfer of the stem cell technology from Harvard University to a spin off biotechnology company, now part of Genzyme Corp.
He returned to France in 1990 as Director of Research at the INSERM and Head of Lab at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. During this period, he demonstrated the presence of multipotent clonogenic stem cells in hair follicles (Cell 1994, 2001) and successfully brought stem cells from bench to bedside demonstrating the usefulness of a fibrin matrix to transplant epidermal stem cells. (Transplantation, 2000). Following his move to Lausanne, Yann Barrandon has shown that oligopotent stem cells are present in the mammalian cornea (Nature 2008), challenging previous dogma. He has also contributed to the characterisation of several skin diseases (Nature Genetics, 1993a, 1993b, 2000, 2005) and towards gene therapy of dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. He is a partner in several EEC stem cell consortia (FP6: Therapeuskin and EuroStemCell, FP7: EuroSyStem, OptiStem, BetaCellTherapy).
Current research targets the role of small microenvironmental variations on stem cell behavior, and exploring the potency of stem cells of stratified epithelia (skin, esophagus, ocular surface) and of thymic epithelial cells. The lab is also involved in understanding the factors that regulate stem cell engraftment to improve epithelial cell therapy. An important aspect of the research aims at setting up a pilot clinical trial to demonstrate the feasibility of ex vivo gene therapy to treat Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare but horrendous congenital disease of the skin that results in continuous blistering of the skin, chronic wounds, fusion of fingers and development of carcinoma.
Yann Barrandon was a member of the Faculty Council of the EPFL School of Life Sciences 2006-2008, of the Board of Swiss Stem Cell Network, 2004-2009, and is a member of the EPFL Ethics Committee since 2008. He is a reviewer for major scientific journals and for major granting agencies abroad. He is a member of the board of Directors of the International Society for Differentiation (ISD) and of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) and was a Member of the Board of Directors of the European Tissue Repair Society, 1990-1995. He was elected as EMBO member in 2009.
He has given over 300 invited conferences and seminars worldwide on the biology and the therapeutic use of cutaneous stem cells including:
Gordon Research Conferences, Tissue Repair and Regeneration, June 2005, New London, USA,
Keystone Symposia on Stem Cells, April 2006, Whistler, Canada
Keystone Symposia, Stem Cell Interactions with their Microenvironmental Niche, March 2007, Keystone, USA
Keystone Symposia, Stem Cell Niche Interactions, April 2009, Whistler, Canada
Gordon Research Conferences, Epithelial Stem Cells, June 2009, Les Diablerets, Switzerland
7th Meeting of the International Society Stem Cell Research, July 2009, Barcelona, Spain
16th International Society for Developmental Biologists, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, Sept 2009
Yann Barrandon has given multiple media interviews and participated to different reportages:
LCI, TF1, France 2, France 3, RSR (Radio Suisse Romande), TSR (Television Suisse Romande), and articles in newspapers: Figaro, La Croix, Le Temps, LHebdo, Le Nouvelliste, etc. He was also a participant in the movie A Stem Cell Story, EuroStemCell, Best TV/video production, Tromsø Science Media Festival; Best short film, Scinema (Australia); In competition, Science Film Festival (Bangkok), BaKaFORUM 2007, Vedere la Scienza
He organized the second EuroStemCell international conference Advances in Stem Cell Research supported by the EMBO and held in Lausanne 8-10 September 2006. He regularly participates as faculty to the EEC funded Stem Cell Summer School held in Hydra Greece since 2005.
Freddy RadtkeFreddy Radtke obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Zürich in 1994. In 1995, he started his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Michel Aguet at Genentech, Inc. (San Francisco, USA). In 1997, he returned to Switzerland with Michel Aguet and finished his postdoctoral fellowship at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne. From 1999‑2005, he was a group leader and Associate Member at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Freddy Radtke then joined ISREC in January 2006 as a senior scientist and in July 2006, he was appointed Associate Professor at the EPFL School of Life Sciences
Urs von GuntenURS VON GUNTEN
born in Baden (Switzerland) on 20/10/1959
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Drinking water quality and water treatment. Unit processes and process combinations (adsorption processes, membrane processes, oxidation processes). Chemical oxidation and advanced oxidation processes: kinetics and mechanisms of formation of disinfection by-products and degradation of micropollutants. Assessment of toxicology of of transformation products. Biogeochemical processes in riverbank filtration systems. In situ and out-of-ground treatment of groundwaters
EDUCATION
Diploma Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Department of Chemistry,Switzerland, 1983
Ph.D.Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland, 1989.
AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher
2015 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher
2015 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2015 of the International Ozone Association
2015 Professorship under the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative for Distinguished Scientists
2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher
2013 Distinguished Lecturer for AEESP at the American Water Works Association Annual Conference, Denver, June 10, 2013
2012-to date Adjunct Professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
2011 Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL)
2010 Adjunct Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic
Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2010 Adjunct Professor at the Curtin University of Technology, Perth,
Australia
2007 Honorary Professorship at the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
China
2007 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2007 of the International Ozone
Association
2007 Environmental Science and Technology Excellence in Review Award
2006 Professor title at ETHZ, Department of Environmental Sciences
2001 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2001 of the International Ozone
Association
1999 Recipient of the Marteen Schalekamp Award 1999 of the IWSA
1993 Recipient of a short-term fellowship of the Swiss National Science
Foundation in 1993 and 1994
1993 EERO short-term fellowship-holder
PROFESSIONAL RECORD
2013-2016 Head of transdisciplinary project “Regional Water Supply Basel Country 21”, Eawag
2010-2017 Head of Competence Center for Drinking Water, Eawag
2008/2009 Visiting Professor at the Curtin Water Quality Research Centre,
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
2004-to date Deputy head of department Water Resources and Drinking Water,
Eawag
2004-2008 Head of the cross-cutting project Drinking water for the 21st
century, Eawag
2000 2004 Head of department Water Resources and Drinking Water, Eawag
2000/2001 Sabbatical at University of Colorado, Boulder
1998 - 1999 Head of department of Chemistry, Eawag
1995 - 2011 Lecturer at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich,
Switzerland.
1995- to date Group leader of the drinking water group of the chemistry
department at Eawag
1994/93 Visiting Scientist at the International Research Center for
Water and Environment of Lyonnaise des Eaux (8 months),
CIRSEE, Le Pecq, France
since 1992 Research Scientist at Eawag
1989 - 1991 Postdoctoral Researcher at Eawag
1984 - 1989 Research Assistant, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,
Zürich
EDITORIAL ACTIVITIES
Associate Editor Environmental Science and Technology (2010/2011)
Guest Editor Water Research for special issue on Emerging
Contaminants (2010)
Guest Editor Journal of water supply: Research and
Technology-Aqua for a special issue on Oxidation Processes (2008)
Member of the editorial board of the journal Ozone: Science and Engineering.
Member of the editorial board of Journal of water supply: Research and Technology-Aqua.
FORMER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
2016 Co-organizer of PEAK seminar ”Neue Herausforderungen und Lösungsansätze in der Wasserversorgung – Fallbeispiele aus dem Kanton BL”. Dübendorf, November 11, 2016
2015 Organizer of PEAK seminar “Micropollutants in drinking water”, Dübendorf, October 30
2014 Co-organizer of the Eawag Infotag “Wasserversorgung und Uferfiltration – ein System unter Druck?” Dübendorf, September 9, 2014
2014 Co-organizer of a Symposium “Advanced oxidation processes for water treatment” 5th EuCheMS Chemistry Congress 2014, Aug. 31 – Sept. 4, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014
2013 Co-Organizer of PEAK seminar on “Oxidation and Disinfection Processes”, Aug. 30, Dübendorf
2013 Co-Organizer of the Micropoll & Ecohazard Conference, Zürich, June 17-19, 2013
2013 Co-Organizer of the session “Advanced Oxidation – Technologies and Applications, Leading Edge Technology (LET) Conference, Bordeaux, June 2-6, 2013
2011 Co-Organizer of Korean-Swiss Science Days in Zürich “Water for the Future”, ETHZ, November 9-10, 2011.
2010 Co-Organizer of an international symposium “Oxidation processes in natural and technical aquatic systems” in honour of Jürg Hoigné’s 80 birthday, Eawag, May 21, 2010.
2010 Co-Organizer of 23. Mülheimer Wassertechnisches Seminar “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von oxidativen Prozessen in der Wasserreinhaltung”, March 11, 2010, IWW, Mülheim an der Ruhr
2008 Co-Organizer of the Eawag Infotag 2008 “Vom Gewässer ins Glas”, Sept. 12, 2008, Eawag, Dübendorf
2008 Organizing committee of Leading Edge Technology Conference (LET), Zürich, June 1-4, 2008.
2008 Co-organizer of Sino-Swiss workshop “Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Quality”, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, January, 2008
2007 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New insights in the field of drinking water treatment”, Dübendorf, Sept. 14, 2007.
2007 Co-organizer of a symposium entitled “Sustainability in Water Supply: Advances in Oxidation Processes for Water Treatment” at ACS Spring conference, Chicago, March 25-29, 2007.
2006 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New developments of analytical methods for drinking water analysis”, Dübendorf, Sept. 15, 2006,
2005 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New applications of ozone in water treatment”, Sept. 23, 2005, Dübendorf
1999 Co-organizer of 200th Anniversary Symposium in honor of Ch. F. Schönbein - the discoverer of ozone, October 1999, Basel.
1995 Organizer of a symposium in honor of J. Hoigné, June, 1995, Dübendorf, Switzerland
1991 Co-organizer of the workshop "Chemodynamics of Groundwaters", November, 1991, Mont Sainte-Odile, France
Rolf GruetterAwards:
1999 Young Investigator Award Plenary Lectureship
, International Society for Neurochemistry
2011 Fellow
, ESMRMB
2011 Teaching Award
, Section Sciences de la Vie, EPFL
Anton SchleissProf. Dr. Anton J. Schleiss graduated in Civil Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1978. After joining the Laboratory of Hydraulic, Hydrology and Glaciology at ETH as a research associate and senior assistant, he obtained a Doctorate of Technical Sciences on the topic of pressure tunnel design in 1986. After that he worked for 11 years for Electrowatt Engineering Ltd. (now Pöyry) in Zurich and was involved in the design of many hydropower projects around the world as an expert on hydraulic engineering and underground waterways. Until 1996 he was Head of the Hydraulic Structures Section in the Hydropower Department at Electrowatt. In 1997, he was nominated full professor and became Director of the Laboratory of Hydraulic Constructions (LCH) in the Civil Engineering Department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). The LCH activities comprise education, research and services in the field of both fundamental and applied hydraulics and design of hydraulic structures and schemes. The research focuses on the interaction between water, sediment-rock, air and hydraulic structures as well as associated environmental issues and involves both numerical and physical modeling of water infrastructures. In May 2018, he became Honorary Professor at EPFL. More than 50 PhD and Postdoc research projects have been carried out under his guidance. From 1999 to 2009 he was Director of the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Water Resources Management and Hydraulic Engineering held in Lausanne in collaboration with ETH Zurich and the universities of Innsbruck (Austria), Munich (Germany), Grenoble (France) and Liège (Belgium). From 2006 to 2012 he was the Head of the Civil Engineering program of EPFL and chairman of the Swiss Committee on Dams (SwissCOLD). In 2006, he obtained the ASCE Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Price as well as the J. C. Stevens Award. He was listed in 2011 among the 20 international personalities that “have made the biggest difference to the sector Water Power & Dam Construction over the last 10 years”. Between 2014 and 2017 he was Council member of International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) and he was chair of the Europe Regional Division of IAHR until 2016. For his outstanding contributions to advance the art and science of hydraulic structures engineering he obtained in 2015 the ASCE-EWRI Hydraulic Structures Medal. The French Hydro Society (SHF) awarded him with the Grand Prix SHF 2018. After having served as vice-president between 2012 and 2015 he was president of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) from 2015 to 2018. On behalf of ICOLD he his the coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020 project "Hydropower Europe". With more than 40 years of experience he is regularly involved as a consultant and expert in large water infrastructures projects including hydropower and dams all over the world. Awards (besides those mentioned above): ASCE-Journal of Hydraulic Engineering Outstanding Reviewer Recognition 2013 ASCE-EWRI-Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 2014 Best Technical Note