Jacques FellayJacques Fellay is a medical scientist with expertise in infectious diseases and human genomics. He obtained his MD from the University of Lausanne in 2002 and his PhD from University of Utrecht. After a clinical training in infectious diseases in Switzerland and a 4-years postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, he joined the EPFL in April 2011 with an SNF Professorship.
On top of his EPFL affiliation, Jacques is also Head of Precision Medicine at the University Hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne, Group Leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, and Co-director of the Health2030 Genome Center at Campus Biotech in Geneva.
Stewart ColeProfessor Stewart Cole is an international authority in bacterial molecular-genetics and genomics. He has made outstanding contributions in several fields including: bacterial anaerobic electron transport; genome analysis of retroviruses and papillomaviruses; antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and the molecular microbiology of toxigenic clostridia. His studies on isoniazid and multidrug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, together with his pioneering work on the pathogenicity, evolution and genomics of the tubercle and leprosy bacilli, have made him an undisputed leader in the field of mycobacterial research. The findings of his research are of direct relevance to public health and disease-control in both the developing world and the industrialised nations. He has published over 250 scientific papers and review articles, and holds many patents.
Cyril CayronMes recherches: J'ai travaillé comme microscopiste/cristallographe/métallurgiste sur des projets très variés comme les aciers pour le nucléaire, les alliages titane et nickel pour l'aéronautique, les interconnections en cuivre pour la microélectronique, les piles à combustible haute et basse température, le silicium photovoltaïque hétérojonction et monolike, les batteries au lithium à base de LiFePO4 et silicium. Derrière la plupart de ces sujets de recherche appliquée se cachent des problèmes de recherche fondamentale comme celui lié aux transformations de phases. J'ai donc été amené à travailler sur ce sujet passionnant et j'ai pu démontrer que les variants cristallographiques générés par des transitions structurales forment une structure algébrique de groupoïde. Ces travaux ont mené au développement du logiciel de reconstruction des grains parents à partir de données EBSD appelé ARPGE et distribué dans plus de 20 pays. En 2013-2015 j'ai proposé un nouveau modèle cristallographique pour les transformations martensitiques fcc-bcc dans les aciers, comme une alternative à la théorie phénoménologique de la transformation martensitique. Ce modèle a été depuis étendu aux transformations fcc-hcp (type cobalt), bcc-hcp (type titane) et bcc-fcc (type laiton), ainsi qu’à differents modes de maclage mécanique dans les métaux fcc et hcp. Ce modèle à sphères dures montre que la transformation implique une «distorsion angulaire», forme plus générale que le cisaillement. Le modèle prévoit la possibilité que le plan d’interface de certaines macles mécaniques ne soit pas un plan invariant. Un tel cas de maclage « exotique » a été observé expérimentalement par EBSD en 2017 dans un monocristal de magnésium pur. Je travaille maintenant à définir de manière algébrique les concepts de variants (orientation, distortion, correspondance), et sur les types de macles mécaniques (I, II, et d'autres oubliés des théoriques classiques). Mon parcours : 2014-maintenant: Collaborateur scientifique à l'EPFL/LMTM, Neuchâtel, Suisse. J'aide le professeur Roland Logé dans ses travaux de recherche sur les liens entre les fortes déformations, les textures, les tailles de grains et les transformations de phases (diffusives et displacives). Je suis en charge de la salle de métallographie et des caractérisations SEM, EDS, EBSD, TEM, HRTEM. Je codirige trois thèses (Annick Baur, Margaux Larcher, Céline Guidoux). Je suis reviewer pour Acta Mater., Scripta Mater., Acta Cryst., J. Appl. Cryst., Mater. Charact., etc. 2000-2014: Ingénieur de recherche et responsable du groupe Nanocaractérisation, CEA/LITEN, Grenoble, France. 2012 : Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR). 1996-2000: Thèse sur l'étude par microscopie électronique de composites à matrice aluminium. Directeur de thèse Philippe Buffat, CIME, EPFL, Lausanne, Suisse. J'ai pu montrer un lien cristallographique entre différentes phases des alliages 2xxx et 6xxx et proposer pour la première fois une structure complète pour la phase beta prime des nanoprécipités. 1995-1996: Scientifique du contingent, travail sur les écrans électrochromes, COGIDEV, Rueil-Malmaison, France, fondé par M. André Giraud, ancien ministre de la défense et ancien ministre de l’industrie. 1992-1995: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy, France
Dario FloreanoProf. Dario Floreano is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Since 2010, he is the founding director of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Robotics, a research program that brings together more than 20 labs across Switzerland. Prof. Floreano holds an M.A. in Vision, an M.S. in Neural Computation, and a PhD in Robotics. He has held research positions at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, at Caltech/JPL, and at Harvard University. His main research interests are Robotics and A.I. at the convergence of biology and engineering. Prof. Floreano made pioneering contributions to the fields of evolutionary robotics, aerial robotics, and soft robotics. He served in numerous advisory boards and committees, including the Future and Emerging Technologies division of the European Commission, the World Economic Forum Agenda Council, the International Society of Artificial Life, the International Neural Network Society, and in the editorial committee of several scientific journals. In addition, he helped spinning off two drone companies (senseFly.com and Flyability.com) and a non-for-profit portal on robotics and A.I. (RoboHub.org). Books
Manuale sulle Reti Neurali, il Mulino (in Italian), 1996 (first edition), 2006 (second edition)Evolutionary Robotics, MIT Press, 2000
Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, MIT Press, 2008
Flying Insects and Robots, Springer Verlag, 2010
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.
