Eörs Szathmáry is a fellow at Parmenides Foundation and professor of Biology at Eötvös University (Budapest, Hungary). His main expertise is in the field of theoretical biology. His focal interest is the major evolutionary transitions about which he wrote two books with the late John Maynard Smith (altogether published in almost a dozen editions and several languages). Models of the transitions from replicators to compartments to chromosomes and to the genetic code are due to him. He was among the first to suggest the method of in vitro genetics for ribozyme and aptamer selection (1990).
Jérôme Bibette holds in this school the chair of Colloids and Divided Materials (1 full and 2 associate professorship, 1 permanent research positions, currently 6 postdocs, 6 PhD students, and 3 undergraduates). The Bibette group has been involved for many years in the physic and chemistry of colloids and emulsions, applied to biophysic, and biotechnologies.
Prof. Andrew Griffiths has received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry (University of Sheffield, 1985) and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (University of Leicester, 1988). He was working with Greg Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Cambridge, on developing phage-display for the selection of human antibodies for therapy. This work has lead to 23 granted US Patents, on which AG is an inventor, and directly to the creation of two Companies, Cambridge Antibody Technology (recently acquired by AstraZeneca for $1.32 billion) and Domantis (recently acquired by GSK for $0.45 billion). Phage-display was used by Cambridge Antibody Technology create the blockbuster drug Humira® for Abbott, which is used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and which had sales of $1.4 billion in 2005.
Phil Husbands is Professor of Computer Science and AI in the department of Informatics, Sussex University. He is head of the Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems research group and co-director of the CCNR. His expertise is in the area of evolutionary and adaptive systems, including evolutionary computing, evolutionary robotics (a field he was one of the founders of), artificial life, computational neuroscience – including pioneering work on modelling the role of volume signalling by freely diffusible neurotransmitters, and machine learning.
Arjan de Visser’s group (presently 1 postdoc and 3 PhD students) has extensive experience with the general approach of experimental evolution and involves the use of microbes (bacteria and fungi) and isolated enzymes (β-lactamases) in controlled evolution experiments to address the evolutionary role of recombination and increased mutation rates in asexual populations, the evolutionary consequences of spatial structure, the causes and consequences of genetic robustness, and the factors underlying parallel evolutionary outcomes.
Mauro Santos is professor of genetics in the Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia (9 professors, 27 associate professors, >50 postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates) at the Facultat de Biociències. Members of the Grup de Biologia Evolutiva (GBE; also including professors from the Universitat de Barcelona) have been working for many years in the study of evolution at different levels: from the origin of life to the molecular, chromosome and phenotypic level.
Elias Zintzaras is the head of the Biomathematics Laboratory (1 associate professor, 2 lecturers, 4 research associates and 1 technician). Dr Zintzaras and his Lab are involved in the development mathematical and statistical models applicable in biomedical research. In particular, Dr Zintzaras is involved in the development of dynamical and stochastic models describing the dynamics of genetic evolution of prebiotic systems such as hypercycles, stochastic correctors and the genetic code. Dr Zintzaras has also developed methodologies for meta-analyzing whole gene searches in complex diseases, microarrays data and genome-wide association studies. In addition, he has proposed algorithms for comparing and predicting protein structures.
