Adamala, Kate
Kate received a MSc in chemistry from the University of Warsaw, Poland, studying synthetic organic chemistry. In grad school, she worked with professor Pier Luigi Luisi from University Roma Tre and Jack Szostak from Harvard University. She studied RNA biophysics, small peptide catalysis and liposome dynamics, in an effort to build a chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. Kate's postdoctoral work in Ed Boyden's Synthetic Neurobiology group at MIT focused on developing novel methods for multiplex control and readout of mammalian cells. (http://protobiology.org/people.php)

Bastiaens, Philippe
Philippe Bastiaens is Director of the Department of Systemic Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology and a Professor at the Technische Universitat Dortmund. Bastiaens and his colleagues have developed special fluorescence microscopy techniques such as FLIM and FRET, and use them to explore protein signaling pathways. He is currently focused on the interdependence of membrane dynamics and early growth factor signal processing in cells. In this context, he investigates how the interaction of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), small GTPases and Src family kinases with membrane systems affects the dynamics of signaling networks and thereby change the cell’s perception of the environment. He has started a new synthetic biology research line reconstituting biochemical building blocks a trinity of signaling, cytoskeletal dynamics, and membrane shape that interact within a closed-loop causality to give rise to a self-organized morphogenic system. (https://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de/research-groups/bastiaens)

Bodenschatz, Eberhard
He received his doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Bayreuth in 1989. In 1991, during his postdoctoral research at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he received a faculty position in experimental physics at Cornell University. From 1992 until 2005, during his tenure at Cornell he was a visiting professor at the University of California at San Diego (1999-2000). In 2003 he became Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization. He continues to have close ties to Cornell University, where he is Adjunct Professor of Physics and of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (since 2005). (https://www.ds.mpg.de/en/bodenschatz)

Carothers, James
James is a Dan Evans Career Development Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Adjunct Associate Professor of Bioengineering, and Member of the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute (MolES) and Center for Synthetic Biology (CSB) at the University of Washington. Previously, James was a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist with Jay D. Keasling at UC Berkeley and the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute. James was a graduate student at Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. with Jack W. Szostak. James has a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale. He has received the University of Washington Presidential Innovation Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. (http://carothersresearch.com/)

Devaraj, Neal
A native of Southern California, he attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he performed research in the lab of Prof. Moungi Bawendi. He earned his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University in the labs of Profs. James Collman and Christopher Chidsey. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School in the lab of Prof. Ralph Weissleder, he joined UCSD. His research interests are in bioconjugation, chemical biology, and bottom-up synthetic biology. Recent awards for Prof. Devaraj are the 2017 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 2016 NIH Pathfinder Award, the 2016 National Fresenius Award and the 2016 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. (http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/faculty/faculty_bios/findprofile.sfe?department=BENG&fmp_recid=441)

Dietz, Hendrik
Inspired by the rich functionalities of natural macromolecular assemblies such as enzymes, molecular motors, and viruses, Dietz investigates how to build increasingly complex molecular structures. The goal is to build molecular devices and machines that can execute user-defined tasks. Molecular self-assembly with DNA is one of the main routes currently pursued toward achieving this goal. In the long term Professor Dietz hopes to make a significant contribution to the creation of a molecular machines and systems with practical benefits for everyday life. This includes uses in medicine – for diagnosis and therapy – and synthetic enzymes for biologically inspired chemistry. Prof. Dietz studied physics in Paderborn, Saragossa (Spain) and at the LMU Munich. After completing his doctorate at TUM (2007), he worked at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. Dietz has been a professor of Experimental Biophysics at TUM since 2009. (http://www.professoren.tum.de/en/dietz-hendrik/)

Ellington, Andrew
Dr. Andrew Ellington received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard in 1988. His post-doctoral work was with Dr. Jack Szostak at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he developed methods for the in vitro selection of functional nucleic acids and coined the term 'aptamer.' He has previously received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator, Cottrell, and Pew Scholar awards. Dr. Ellington's lab works centers on the development of nucleic acid circuitry for point-of-care diagnostics, on accelerating the evolution of proteins and cells through the introduction of novel chemistries, and using orthogonal control systems to engineer complex organisms.

Erb, Tobias
Tobias J. Erb is a microbial biochemist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany. His research centers on the discovery, the function and the design of novel CO2 converting enzymes from microorganisms, algae and plants and their use in engineered and artificial photosynthesis as well as synthetic chloroplasts and cells. Tobi studied Chemistry and Biology and did his PhD at the University of Freiburg (Germany) and the Ohio State University. After a postdoc at the University of Illinois, he headed a Junior Group at ETH Zürich (Switzerland) before he became a Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute in Marburg, where he was promoted to Director in 2017. Tobi’s work received numerous awards, among them the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize in 2016 and the Otto Bayer Award in 2018. He was named as one of 12 up- and coming scientists by C&EN of the American Chemical Society in 2015 and elected to the Young Academy at the National Academy of Science in 2013. (https://www.aiche.org/sbe/community/bio/tobias-erb)

Garcia Quiroz, Felipe
Felipe trained as a biomedical engineer in his native Colombia before obtaining a PhD from the Biomedical Engineering department of Duke University in the laboratory of Ashutosh Chilkoti. There he focused on the engineering of self-assembling, protein-based materials for biomedical applications. An important outcome of his PhD work was the elucidation of sequence rules that rationalize the ability of intrinsically disordered proteins to phase separate into membraneless compartments in the cell. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Elaine Fuchs at Rockefeller University, he has taken his interests in self-assembly, phase behavior and protein engineering to address pressing questions about how skin stem cells build the so-called skin barrier. This work led to the discovery that gigantic repeat proteins in skin assemble a surprisingly extensive network of membraneless organelles with unique liquid-like properties that are crucial to the process of skin barrier formation. Felipe is the recipient of a career award at the scientific interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. (https://quirozlab.bme.gatech.edu/people/pi-profile/)

Golestanian, Ramin
Ramin Golestanian (born on 26 February 1971) obtained his BSc from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, and his MSc and PhD from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) in Zanjan. His PhD work was conducted under the remote supervision of Mehran Kardar from MIT, and was followed by an independent postdoctoral research fellowship at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has held academic positions at IASBS, the University of Sheffield, and Oxford University, and risen through the ranks until he became a Full Professor in 2007. He has a broad interest in various aspects of nonequilibrium statistical physics, soft matter, and biological physics. Golestanian is distinguished for his work on active matter, and in particular, for his role in developing microscopic swimmers and active colloids. Ramin Golestanian is elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, and recipient of the Holweck Medal of the Société Française de Physique and the Institute of Physics, EPJE Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Lecture Prize, Martin Gutzwiller Fellowship of the MPI-PKS, Nakamura Lecturer Award of UCSB, and 50th-Anniversary Most Distinguished Alumni Award of Sharif University of Technology. (http://www.ds.mpg.de/golestanian/en)

Göpfrich, Kerstin
Kerstin Göpfrich is leading the Max Planck Research Group Biophysical Engineering at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, exploring de novo approaches to create synthetic cells from the bottom up. In particular, her work focusses on DNA nanotechnology as a tool to arrange components inside synthetic cells in space and time or to construct functional units from scratch. She studied physics and molecular medicine at the University of Erlangen. As a Gates Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, she worked in the group of Ulrich Keyser and received her PhD in 2017. Until September 2019, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart in the department of Prof. Joachim Spatz.

Hutchison, Clyde
Clyde Hutchison, III, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, California, where he is a member of the Synthetic Biology Group. He is also a consultant for Synthetic Genomics, Inc. In 1995 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. He graduated from Yale University in 1960, with a BS in Physics. His graduate studies were in the laboratory of Robert L. Sinsheimer at Cal Tech where he finished his PhD in 1968. He was a member of the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1968 until 2005, where he now holds the title Kenan Professor Emeritus. He has worked on the molecular genetics of bacteriophage, bacteria, and mammals. In Fred Sanger's lab (1975-6) he helped determine the first complete sequence of a DNA molecule (phiX174). He developed site-directed mutagenesis with Michael Smith (1978). In 1990 he began work with mycoplasmas as models for the minimal cell. This led to collaboration with Smith and Venter, and his current work on synthetic genomics. (https://www.jcvi.org/about/chutchison)

Jewett, Michael
Michael Jewett is the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and director of the Center for Synthetic Biology at Northwestern University. He is also an Institute Fellow at the Northwestern Argonne Institute for Science & Engineering. Dr. Jewett’s lab seeks to re-conceptualize the way we engineer complex biological systems for compelling applications in medicine, materials, and energy by transforming biochemical engineering with synthetic biology. Dr. Jewett is the recipient of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award in 2009, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering in 2011, the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2011, the Agilent Early Career Professor Award in 2011, the 3M non-tenured faculty grant in 2012, the Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2015, the ACS Biochemical Technologies Division Young Investigator Award in 2017, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award in 2018, and was a Finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, Life Sciences Category in 2019. He received his PhD in 2005 at Stanford University, completed postdoctoral studies at the Center for Microbial Biotechnology in Denmark and the Harvard Medical School, and was a guest professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). (http://jewettlab.northwestern.edu/team-members/michael-c-jewett/)

Kamat, Neha
Neha Kamat joined Northwestern's Biomedical Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor beginning January 2017. She joined Northwestern after completing postdoctoral studies as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Jack Szostak’s laboratory at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. As a postdoctoral fellow, she worked towards developing a simple, artificial cell, developing methods to localize RNA to vesicle membranes and studying how RNA could be non-enzymatically replicated within these membranes. She received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 where she worked with Prof. Daniel Hammer and was a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipient. As a graduate student, she worked on designing photoresponsive block copolymer vesicles and using microfluidic techniques for vesicle construction. She received her undergraduate degree in Bioengineering from Rice University in 2008, where she worked in the lab of Prof. Jennifer West and was a Beckman Scholar recipient. She was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. (https://www.nehakamat.com/about-neha)

Lakin, Matthew
Matthew R. Lakin is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of New Mexico. He is also affiliated with the UNM Center for Biomedical Engineering. He conducts research on the design and experimental realization of nanoscale computing systems using biomolecules such as DNA. He builds software tools for the design of biomolecular computing networks, works on reasoning techniques to understand and verify their behavior, constructs experimental systems that exhibit novel dynamic behaviors, and works towards applications of biomolecular computers to monitor and control biological and chemical systems, for practical applications such as biomedical diagnostics. Lakin frequently collaborates with researchers in the UNM Health Science Center as well as with his former colleagues at Microsoft Research. (https://www.cs.unm.edu/directory/faculty-profiles/matthew-lakin.html)

Spatz, Joachim
Joachim Spatz will be recognised with the Leibniz Prize for his outstanding research at the boundaries of materials sciences and cell biophysics. His research is concerned with cell adhesion, that is, the adhesion and bonding of cells to one another and to surfaces. His exemplary experimental approach has garnered precise insights into the control of cell adhesion and indeed physiological processes. To achieve this, Spatz used artificial, molecularly structured boundary surfaces to reduce possible interactions to a minimum of molecular components. Joachim Spatz’ scientific achievement lies in the fact that he can study the communication mechanisms between cells in a new way with the help of concepts from materials science and physics. Using these resources, he was able to explain how the molecular mechanism of collective cell migration works in wound healing. Joachim Spatz studied physics in Ulm and at Colorado State University. He obtained his doctorate in macromolecular chemistry in Ulm, and it was also there that he completed his habilitation with a topic on cell mechanics. Since 2000 he has been a professor of biophysical chemistry in Heidelberg. In 2004 he was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, now the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, in Stuttgart. Since 2008 he has also held a visiting professorship in molecular cell biology at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. (https://www.mr.mpg.de/14056310/spatzcv)