Stefan Kaufmann is founding director and director of the Department of Immunology of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin and Professor for Microbiology and Immunology at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. He received his Ph.D. in biology (“summa cum laude”) from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and completed his habilitation in the field of immunology and microbiology at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1981. From 1987 until 1991, he was Professor for Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and from 1991 until 1998, he was Full Professor for Immunology at Ulm University.

Günter Stock is a german physiologist. He was Professor of Vegetative Physiology in Heidelberg from 1980 to 1983. From 1983 to 2005 he has worked at the Schering AG, from 1989 to 2005 as board member, with responsibility for research and development. From 2006 to 2015 he was the President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Since 2012 he has been serving as All European Academies (ALLEA) President since 2012. Since 2015 he is the chair of the Executive Board of the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

Hartmut Michel studied Biochemistry at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich. He completed his doctoral degree at the University of Würzburg in 1977 and habilitated in 1988 at the University of Munich. Since 1987 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics at Frankfurt/Main, where he leads the Department for Molecular Membrane Biology. In 1988, Hartmut Michel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, together with Johannes Deisenhöfer and Robert Huber, for their investigation of the molecular structure of the photosynthesis reaction center in the rhodopseudomonas viridis bacterium.

Bernard Meunier is currently Emeritus Director of Research at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS, Toulouse, and Distinguished Professor at the Chemistry Department of Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P. R. China (since 2012). He has been Chair in Technological Innovation Liliane Bettencourt at the Collège de France, Paris (2014–2015), President of the French Academy of Sciences (2015–2016), and President of the CNRS (2004–2006). His main interests in the field of bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry is the design and development of hybrid molecules as antimalarial or anti-schistosomiasis drugs and of new copper-specific chelating agents as potential therapeutic agents for Alzheimer’s disease.

Fiona Doetsch investigates stem cells in the adult mammalian brain. Elucidating the molecular and cellular pathways underlying their regulation may provide insight into brain repair.

Carl-Henrik Heldin has, since 1992, been professor in Molecular Cell Biology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Between 1986 and 2017, he was the Branch Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala. Professor Heldin is the chair of the Boards of the Nobel Foundation, the Science for Life Laboratory, and the European Molecular Biology Organization. His research interest is related to the mechanisms of signal transduction by growth regulatory factors, as well as their normal function and role in disease. An important goal is to explore the possible clinical utility of signal transduction antagonists.

Petra Knaus received her Ph.D. at the Center for Molecular Biology in Heidelberg in 1991. As a Research Fellow and Associate, she did her Postdoctoral Training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA, until 1996. After her return to Germany, she was Junior Group Leader at the Biocenter in Würzburg. There she established her own lab with a focus on BMP receptor biology and signal transduction. In 2004 she became Full Professor for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction at the Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2010 she received a W3 Professorship for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction and Regeneration at the Freie Universität Berlin and Charité. The interest of the Knaus lab is to understand the molecular mechanism of BMP signal transduction, and to identify common and distinct mechanistic concepts in different cell and tissue environments.