Prof. Nico de Rooij is professor and head of the Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Laboratory of EPFL (EPFL STI IMT SAMLAB). He is also vice-president of CSEM SA, where he is responsible for the EPF CSEM coordination. His research activities include the design, microfabrication and application of miniaturized silicon based sensors, actuators, and microsystems. He has authored and coauthored over 300 published journal papers in these areas. Nico de Rooij is a Fellow of both the IEEE and the Institute of Physics (UK).

He received the IEEE Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Gold Medal and Schlumberger Prize. He was also awarded a Visiting Investigatorship Program (VIP) in MEMS/NEMS Systems by A*STAR’s Science and Engineering Council (SERC), Singapore, hosted by SIMTech.

 

Dr. Markus Ehrat has a long standing and successful career in life sciences, substantiated in start-up companies as well as in multinational enterprises. Markus was the Head of Department Bioanalytical Research at Ciba-Geigy/Novartis Pharma Basel. He was a founder, the CEO and a member of the board of directors of Zeptosens and, as head of the Division Zeptosens, a member of the management board of Bayer (Schweiz) AG. Since 2012 Markus has a mandate of the Commission of Technology and Innovation (CTI) as head innovation mentor.

Markus holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in natural sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETHZ). Markus is author or coauthor of more than 70 scientific publications and contributed as inventor to 18 patent families.

 

Prof. Hans Peter Herzig is professor and head of the Optics & Photonics Technology Laboratory of EPFL (EPFL IMT OPT) and Past President of the European Optical Society (EOS). His current research interests include refractive and diffractive micro-optics, nano-scale optics, and optical microsystems. He started his career 1978 in industry with the company Kern, Aarau, Switzerland, before entering the University of Neuchâtel in 1983. In 2009, he joined the faculty with the EPFL.

Dr. Herzig served as the Conference Chairman for international conferences of EOS, IEE, IEEE/LEOS, OSA, and SPIE. He is the Editor of a well-known book on micro-optics (published in English and Chinese), author of 14 book chapters and over 150 journal papers.

 

Prof. Dr. Per Magnus Kristiansen is deputy head of the Institutes of Polymer Nanotechnology (INKA) and Polymer Engineering (IKT) at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), co-founder of the Swiss Plastics network and expert committee member of the Swiss NTN Innovative Surfaces. He completed his studies in Materials Sciences (2000) as well as his PhD in Polymer Technology (2004) at ETH Zürich. In 2004, he joined Ciba Specialty Chemicals working first on supramolecular additives for breathable films, and electret filters and later focusing on stabilizers, functional additives and nanoparticles.

Since 2009, he is Professor in Polymer Nanotechnology at FHNW. His research focuses on the functionalization of polymers by micro/nanostructuring, surface grafting and bulk modification for life science and optics applications. Per Magnus Kristiansen is author/co-author of 17 papers and 5 patent applications.

 

Prof. Daniel Lew, MD, is clinical infectious diseases physician and President of the Clinical Ethics Committee of the Geneva University Hospitals as well as Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Geneva Medical School. He is President of the Swiss Academic Foundation for Education in Infectious Diseases and member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences. He obtained his MD degree from Geneva University in 1976 and specialized in infectious diseases both in Geneva and then subsequently at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA. In the past he served as Chief of the Service of Infectious Diseases, and Chief of the Academic Department of Internal Medicine at the Geneva University Hospital.

He is a recipient of numerous scientific awards and grants for his research work. Professor Lew lectures widely, acts both as reviewer and editor for several major scientific journals, and is author of many publications on neutrophil function, bacterial pathogenesis and drug resistance. Prof. Daniel Lew is past President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID).

Vladimir Velebit, MD, is a Swiss board specialist in General Surgery and Swiss board specialist in Cardiac and Thoracic Vascular surgery. He has a cardiac and vascular surgery practice at the Hôpital de la Tour, Meyrin-Geneva, Switzerland. Vladimir has been the vice-president (2009) and president (2010) of the Medical Society of Geneva. He is the president of the Foundation Surgical Overseas Services, Geneva. He is a member of the board of the Frederic and Jean Maurice Foundation, Geneva.

He has been involved in cardiac surgery in former Yugoslavia since 1998 as the Head of Clinical Services Open Heart Clinic, Tbilisi, Georgia and the Primarius Department of Cardio-vascular Surgery, University Hospital, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Benjamin Crocker, MD, is a general internist and serves as Medical Director of the Ambulatory Practice of the Future (APF) at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Since the opening of APF, Ben has been intimately involved in the hiring and development of the APF team, building and implementing the practice’s strategic plan of operations, developing practice guidelines and policies, expanding urgent care services, and designing team building activities and team development processes.

He received two additional Winickoff fellowship awards to examine point-of-care testing in primary care, and the use of practice-based health coaching in exercise wellness. Ben is a co-developer of the Innovation Learning Program and has collaborated on APF practice evaluation projects with graduate students from both Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management.

Kent Lewandrowski, MD, is an Associate Chief for Laboratory and Molecular Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School with research interests in pancreatic pathology and the evaluation of point-of-care technologies.

Dr. Lewandrowski was trained in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has been on the staff of the department of Pathology since 1991. He is also editor in chief of the medical journal “Point of Care: The Journal of Near Patient Testing Technology”.