Françoise Gisou van der Goot GrunbergGisou van der Goot est responsable du Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire et Membranaire et co-fondatrice de l'Institut dInfectiologie, à la Faculté des Sciences de la Vie de l'EPFL.Depuis 2021, Prof. van der Goot est Vice-présidente pour la transformation responsable, moteur du changement de l’EPFL vers une culture inclusive et un campus durable. De 2014 à 2020, Prof. van der Goot a occupé la fonction de Doyenne de cette même Faculté.Avant sa nomination à l'EPFL, en 2006, elle était Cheffe de Groupe à la Faculté des Sciences de lUniversité de Genève (UNIGE), puis Professeure Associée à la Faculté de Médecine. Prof. van der Goot a d'abord obtenu un diplôme dIngénieur de l'Ecole Centrale de Paris avant dentamer une thèse en Biophysique Moléculaire au CEA de Saclay (Université de Paris VI), suivie dun séjour postdoctoral au Laboratoire Européen de Biologie Moléculaire (EMBL) à Heidelberg (Allemagne). Différentes distinctions lui ont été décernées, dont, en 2001, le Prix Young Investigator de l'EMBO (Organisation européenne de Biologie Moléculaire), puis, en 2005, le soutien par le programme international du Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI, Etats-Unis); en 2009, elle a été la première femme à obtenir le Prix Marcel Benoist. La même année, elle est élue membre de lEMBO. Les domaines dexpertise du Prof. van der Goot incluent les mécanismes moléculaires et cellulaires des toxines bactériennes, l'organisation des membranes (des mammifères) et la biologie des organelles. Prof. van der Goot est membre du conseil scientifique de diverses organisations telles que le Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique (SNF), le Conseil Suisse de la Science et de la Technologie (CSST) et le Conseil Européen de la Recherche (ERC).
Vassily HatzimanikatisDr. Vassily Hatzimanikatis is currently Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Vassily received a PhD and an MS in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the University of Patras, in Greece. After the completion of his doctoral studies, he held a research group leader position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. Prior to joining EPFL, Vassily worked for three years in DuPont, Cargill, and Cargill Dow, and he has been assistant professor at Northwestern University, at Illinois, USA.
Vassilys research interests are in the areas of computational systems biology, biotechnology, and complexity. He is associate editor of the journals Biotechnology & Bioengineering, Metabolic Engineering and Integrative Biology, and he serves on the editorial advisory board of the journals Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, and Industrial Biotechnology. He has written over 70 technical publications and he is co-inventor in three patents and patent applications.
Vassily is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2010), he was a DuPont Young Professor (2001-2004), and he has also received the Jay Bailey Young Investigator Award in Metabolic Engineering (2000), and the ACS Elmar Gaden Award (2011).
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.