After obtaining his Ph.D. in molecular genetics and immunology from the University of Cologne, Dirk joined QIAGEN, a global leader in Life Sciences and Molecular Diagnostics products.

He has a proven track record in building high growth profitable product portfolios having managed development programs and employees internationally across sites in the US, Germany and Switzerland.

He was instrumental in building several new product portfolios at QIAGEN, such as QIAGENs enzyme and assay product portfolios. He represented in his former function at QIAGEN global product development as VP, Global Head of Product Development in QIAGEN’s Life Sciences Business Area team that steers QIAGEN’s global Life Sciences business.

Previously, he was CEO of FlexGen (Leiden, the Netherlands) where he spearheaded a commercialization strategy resulting in a successful financing and launch of new, revenue-generating products.

Prior to FlexGen, Fred was CEO and co-founder of RSP Technology BV, a world-leading supplier of aluminum superalloys to the defense, automotive, aerospace and electronics industries based on a proprietary process exclusively licensed from Delft University.

Fred began his career at Rijnvelden BV, focusing on investment in early stage technology companies. Fred chairs the Dutch grant advisory committee to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship (total budget € 80 million) and he is a member of the "Regiegroep"—14 industrial and academic thought leaders in Dutch Life Science industry. This high profile group is appointed by the Minister of Economic Affairs, to develop a new industry vision and recommend new policies to support the Dutch Life Science & Health industry (Topsectorplan). Fred holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Erasmus University.

He started his carreer in business develoment positions in multibillion, global agro-chemical and fine chemical companies, such as Amylum NV, Albemarle Corp.

In the 90s he became the global business director of a fine chemical company in France, which he grew from loss-making to sustainable profitability in three years. Since 2000, he has founded, co-founded and invested in several leading European fine chemical and biotech companies.

The last 10 years were focused on bringing technology based companies during their critical transition to value-generating organisations. Lieven brings with him a vast experience in dealing with the different stakeholders in an international operational, business and financial environment. He also Board and StAB-member of Cycladex Inc., Algenex SA, and BioFilmControl SAS.

He started his carreer in business develoment positions in multibillion, global agro-chemical and fine chemical companies, such as Amylum NV, Albemarle Corp.

Jean-Marc is an engineer in agronomy and biotechnology and holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology. He worked from 1989 to 1998 as an academic scientist in France and Canada, in the field of plant molecular response to abiotic stress.

He joined Bayer CropScience in 1998 in Germany where he held various managerial positions in green biotechnology and crop improvement R&D until 2012.

He was a member of the QIAGEN supervisory board and Chairman of this board from 1999 to 2014. He was also a member of the supervisory boards of NewLab Bioquality AG, Direvo AG and Alantos AG. and is currently a member of the supervisory board of ACImmune S.A. and of the advisory board of evoXX GmbH. Prof. Riesner has also served as a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Friedrich Löffler-Institute, Isle of Riems, PrioNet and APRI. Furthermore, he received the Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation and the German Federal Cross of Merit, first class from the Federal President of Germany.

During his academic career, Prof. Riesner held the Chair of Biophysics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1980 until his retirement in 2006. He also held the positions of Dean of the Science Faculty and Vice President of Research. In 2007, he became a member of the university’s board of trustees. Prior to that, he was Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at the Darmstadt Institute of Technology and, from 1975 to 1977, Lecturer of Biophysical Chemistry at Hanover Medical School. Prof. Riesner has also held guest professorships at the Institute of Microbiology, Academia Sinica, Beijing, and at the department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his M.S. in Physics from Hanover Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the University of Brunswick, with post-graduate work at Princeton University, NJ.

He is currently a professor at the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is the Chair and a member of the steering committee of the MIT-Broad foundry.

Prof. Voigt obtained his Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics at the California Institute of Technology. He continued his postdoctoral research in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His academic career commenced as an Assistant and Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California-San Francisco. Chris Voigt joined the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT in 2011.

He has published more than 60 scientific publications and is editor-in-chief of ACS Synthetic Biology. Prof. Voigt has received numerous honors and awards and serves on many scientific advisory boards in industry and academia.

Novo Industri is now two companies: Novo Nordisk and Novozymes—with Novozymes being the largest global company in the industrial enzymes market. Poul B. Poulsen has held positions as Director in research and development, marketing and cross-functional fields. He was a member of the founding assembly of the European Federation of Biotechnology in 1978, was founder and chairman (1980-84) of the European Section of Applied Biocatalysis and was appointed as an honorary member in 2010. He is a consultant to the Danish National Innovation Foundation.

Poul B. Poulsen received his M.Sc.biochem.eng at the Technical University of Denmark and a B.Business Administration at Copenhagen Business University.

Previously, he was director at the MPI for two decades and, prior to that, he served as Chair for Synthetic Organic Chemistry in Marburg. Reetz obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the U.S. in 1965 and 1967, respectively, and also a doctoral degree in organic chemistry under the guidance of U. Schöllkopf at Göttingen University in 1969.

Over the last two decades, his group has helped to shape the emerging field of directed evolution, specifically in the quest to evolve stereo- and regioselective enzymes as catalysts in organic chemistry and biotechnology. The primary focus has been on lipases, epoxide hydrolases, Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases and P450 monoxygenases, focusing on reactions that are difficult if not impossible using state-of-the-art chiral transition metal catalysts or organocatalysts. He has received numerous prestigious international honors and awards and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is the co-director of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard, co-director of the Harvard Kavli Institute for BioNano Science & Technology and director of the Harvard Materials Research Science & Engineering Center. Dave is best known for his work in the areas of diffusing-wave spectroscopy, microrheology, microfluidics, rheology, fluid mechanics, interface and colloid science, colloid chemistry, biophysics, complex fluids, soft condensed matter physics, phase transitions, the study of glass and amorphous solids, liquid crystals, self-assembly, surface-enhanced light scattering, and diffusion-limited aggregation.

He received his Ph.D. in superconductivity from Harvard and worked as a research physicist at Exxon Research and Engineering for nearly 18 years. After becoming a Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Harvard in 1999.

Dave is a Founder of RainDance Technologies, GnuBIO and Capsum. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is the co-director of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard, co-director of the Harvard Kavli Institute for BioNano Science & Technology and director of the Harvard Materials Research Science & Engineering Center. Dave is best known for his work in the areas of diffusing-wave spectroscopy, microrheology, microfluidics, rheology, fluid mechanics, interface and colloid science, colloid chemistry, biophysics, complex fluids, soft condensed matter physics, phase transitions, the study of glass and amorphous solids, liquid crystals, self-assembly, surface-enhanced light scattering, and diffusion-limited aggregation.

He received his Ph.D. in superconductivity from Harvard and worked as a research physicist at Exxon Research and Engineering for nearly 18 years. After becoming a Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Harvard in 1999.

Dave is a Founder of RainDance Technologies, GnuBIO and Capsum. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

After gaining a B.Sc. in Biochemistry (First Class) from the University of Sheffield in 1985 and a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, in 1988, he joined Greg Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Cambridge. While there, he co-developed phage display for the selection of human antibodies for therapy, first as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (1989-1990) and later as a Cancer Research Campaign Fellow (1991-1995).

This work led directly to the creation of two companies, Cambridge Antibody Technology (acquired by AstraZeneca for $1.32 billion) and Domantis (acquired by GSK for $0.45 billion), and several blockbuster drugs including Humira® and Benlysta®.

His current work is in the development of droplet-based microfluidic systems for directed evolution of enzymes and high-throughput screening for drug discovery and diagnostic applications. Andrew is a founder of RainDance Technologies.

He is the co-director of the Michelin Advanced Research Initiative at ESPCI. Jérôme is best known for his work in the areas of emulsions and superparamagnetic colloids, microfluidics, rheology, fluid mechanics, colloid chemistry, biophysics, complex fluids, soft condensed matter physics and phase transitions.

He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Bordeaux University and worked as an associate professor at Bordeaux, prior to joining the faculty at ESPCI.

Jerome is a Founder of RainDance Technologies, Ademtech and Capsum.

Under Rob’s guidance, the Technology Labs serve as an advanced R&D group within the institute integrating capabilities in molecular biology, bio-engineering, synthetic biology, microfluidics, bio-informatics and industrial process design to meet the needs of the Broad community. Rob is also co-founder of the MIT-Broad Foundry for Synthetic Biology. Rob joined the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research in 2001 to apply industrial process design to genome sequencing and directed the Sequencing Operations and Technology Development groups at the Broad Institute for over 12 years, designing and implementing multiple generations of high-throughput DNA sequencing processes.

Earlier, as an MIT Leaders for Manufacturing Fellow, Rob worked on production line optimization for Raytheon’s AMRAAM missile and Boeing’s 777. Rob previously worked as a project manager for Fluor Corporation, where he managed multiple, large-scale petrochemical design and construction projects.

Rob received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston, and an M.S. in chemical engineering, M.B.A. and Ph.D. in engineering systems from MIT.