W. E. Moerner
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Nobel prize in Chemistry, 2014
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Wolf prize in Chemistry, 2008
The Moerner Laboratory utilizes laser spectroscopy and microscopy of single molecules to probe biological processes, one biomolecule at a time. Primary thrusts include development and application of fluorescence microscopy far beyond the optical diffraction limit by PALM/STORM and STED approaches, invention and validation of methods for precise and accurate 3D optical microscopy in cells, and trapping of single biomolecules in solution for extended study. These approaches are applied to explore protein localization patterns in bacteria, to measure structures of amyloid aggregates in cells, to define the behavior of signaling proteins in the primary cilium, to quantify photodynamics for photosynthetic proteins and enzymes, and to observe the dynamics of DNA and RNA in cells and viruses.
Invited speakers.
M. Hibert
Marcel HIBERT is professor and Director of the Laboratoire d’Innovation Thérapeutique at the University of Strasbourg, since 1997. In a former life in the industry, he contributed to the discovery and development of several clinical candidates whose one, AnzemetR, is on the market. In parallel he published the first detailed 3D models of GPCRs and of the binding sites of several neurotransmitters. He is currently involved in the development of generic methods to accelerate the discovery of ligands and drug candidates. He created and heads the French Academic Compound Collection (Chimiothèque Nationale). He is also particularly interested in vasopressin/ocytocin and chemokine receptors for drug development in the fields of attachment and inflammation, respectively.
He authored about 120 publications, 50 patents and gave more than 200 conferences. He obtained the Silver Medal of the CNRS in 2006.
G. Danger
Grégoire Danger is Associate Professor at the Aix-Marseille University in the laboratory Physic of Ionic and Molecular Interactions (PIIM - UMR7345). He obtained his PhD in 2006 at the University of Montpellier 2. He pursued his research activities by a first NASA post-doc at the NIST of Gaithersburg USA, in 2006, a second CNES post-doc at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, France in 2007, a third post-doc in 2008 at the University of Montpellier 2, France. He obtained in 2009 a position of Associate Professor in the PIIM laboratory.
A part of his researches focuses on the evolution of organic matter during the formation of planetary systems like the solar system, and to determine to what extend these changes can be universal. These studies are based on the development of experimental systems to simulate in laboratory the considered astrophysical environments. The experiments conducted are based on physico-chemical studies, and on the development of innovative analytical systems, as well as the use of advanced analytical techniques.
Next to these studies on the evolution of organic matter in astrophysical environments, he is interested in physicochemical processes that could have led to the emergence of biochemical systems at the surface of the early Earth. This research is based on the development of chemical reactors in prebiotic conditions. The objective here is to determine under what conditions a chemical system could evolve into far from equilibrium autocatalytic systems, a prelude to the emergence of biochemical systems.
By linking these two research subjects, he tries to estimate what role could have or could play the exogenous material in the emergence of a prebiotic chemistry, and to determine the conditions for the emergence of a such chemistry. Beyond the Solar System, the demonstration of the universality of these processes would greatly constrain the concept of livability.
