From Science to Industry to Society: The Synthetic Cell Revolution

Speakers for this event

• Nagtegaal, Caroline

  Nagtegaal, Caroline

  Member of the European Parliament

  Caroline Nagtegaal MEP (1980) was elected in the European Parliament since November 2017 on behalf of the Dutch liberal party VVD. The VVD is part of the ALDE Group, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) she is involved in subjects as macro-economics, financial regulations, EMU, FinTech, Bitcoin and crowdfunding. She focusses on improving the resilience of the financial markets and enhancing growth potential of European SMEs, for example by developing an EU framework for crowdfunding. She is also working on a new budgetary tool that promotes structural reforms in the Member States. As substitute member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) she deals with energy, cyber security, space, quantum technology and robotics. She took care of the new cyber security legislation. She is also committed to Horizon Europe, a programme dedicated to excellence and innovation. At this moment, she is shadow rapporteur on the Space Programme. Besides that, she is vice-president of the delegation on relations of the European Parliament with India and co-chair of the Innovation Group. Prior to her election to the European Parliament, Ms. Nagtegaal worked at Royal Schiphol Group and Port of Rotterdam Authority. She dealt with public & external affairs for those companies.

  Member of the European Parliament

• Prof. Dr. Dabrock, Peter

  Prof. Dr. Dabrock, Peter

  Chair, University of Erlangen / German Ethics Council

  Professor Peter Dabrock, born 1964, studied Protestant and Catholic Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences in Würzburg, Bonn and Bochum, Germany. After several positions in academia as researcher, Assistant, Associate and Full Professor in Bochum and Marburg (from 1995-2010) he has been Chair of Systematic Theology (Ethics) at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg since October 2010. Beyond serving in many high-level national and international advisory bodies in academia, Church, and Society including the European Group on Ethics (2011-2016) he has been an appointed member of the German Ethics Council since 2012. Since 2016 he has been its elected Chairperson. Dabrock has published several books and more than 200 articles with special focus on ethics of life sciences, of technology (including ethics of energy), of social justice and of life styles.

  Chair, University of Erlangen / German Ethics Council

• Schwille, Petra

  Schwille, Petra

  Director, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

  Petra Schwille studied physics in Stuttgart and Göttingen and obtained her PhD in 1996 with Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. After a postdoctoral stay at Cornell University (Ithaca, USA) she established a research group at the MPI Göttingen in 1999 and accepted a call as professor and chair of biophysics at the BIOTEC of the TU Dresden in 2002. In 2011, she was appointed as scientific member of the Max Planck Society and director at the MPI of Biochemistry, Martinsried. Her research interests range from single-molecule biophysics to bottom-up synthetic biology of artificial cells.

  Director, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

• Théry, Manuel

  Théry, Manuel

  Research director CEA

  Manuel Théry works on cell shape and internal architecture. He studies the skeleton of the cell, the “cytoskeleton”. He has developed micro-devices to control cell shape in order to study how cytoskeleton filaments form networks that sense and adapt to geometrical boundary conditions. Recently he developed “in vitro” cell-free reconstitution assays in which isolated filaments grow and adapt to geometrical cues.

  Research director CEA

• Thole, Esther

  Thole, Esther

  Science journalist and writer

  Author of Creators of Life (original NL: Makers van Leven), Maven Publishing (2018). In her book, editor Esther Thole describes how scientists build structures on the nano-scale towards hierarchically ordered materials or building blocks for life.

  Science journalist and writer