Presentation

Fifty years of chemistry: a panorama (I)

Fifty years of chemistry: a panorama (II)

M. Jean Marie Lehn

Nobel Prize (University of Strasbourg, Collège de France, France) Dr. Jean-Marie LEHN was born in Rosheim, France in 1939. Lehn earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Strasbourg in 1963, and in 1970 he became a professor of chemistry at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg. From 1979 to 2010 he was professor at the College de France in Paris and director of the Supramolecular Chemistry Laboratory in Strasbourg. He continues presently to direct this laboratory as Professor Emeritus at the University of Strasbourg. In 1987 Jean-Marie, together with Charles J. Pedersen and Donald J. Cram, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity. This chemical basis of “molecular recognition” (i.e. the way in which a receptor molecule recognizes and selectively binds a substrate) also plays a fundamental role in biological processes.

Light: a tool for manipulating atoms

M. Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Nobel Prize (Collège de France, France) Dr. Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, born in Constantine (Algeria) in 1933, studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he received a postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1962. In 1973 he was accepted at the Collège de France, and in 1981 became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1997, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on laser cooling of neutral atoms (together with Steven Chu and William D. Phillips). The method is relevant for the development of precise atomic clocks, which are used for positioning and navigation. His is currently affiliated to the Laboratoire de Physique at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris).

Toward a molecular biology of conscious processing : consequences for drug design

M. Jean-Pierre Changeux

Collège de France, France Dr. Jean-Pierre Changeux, born in Domont (France) in 1936, studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, pursued PhD studies at the Pasteur Institute under the direction of Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob, and gained his doctorate in 1964. In 1972, he became director of the Unit of Molecular Neurobiology at the Pasteur Institute, where he received a professorship in 1975 and was elected the same year professor at the Collège de France, chair of Cell Communications. In 1988 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences and received the Gold Medal of the CNRS in 1992. Dr. Changeux has been faithful to a handful of scientific questions, at molecular, cellular and brain levels. If one needs to seek a unifying theme to all of them, it is the conviction that selection is the basis of life processes, rather than instruction. While started as separate lines of investigations, all the research threads were tied in the recent decades within the study of allosteric mechanisms as a basis for the involvement of nicotinic receptors in cognitive functions. He is currently affiliated to the Pasteur Institute (Paris).

Molecular gastronomy and note by note cooking: a story of scienc e, on one hand, and culinary art, on the other

M. Hervé This

AgroParisTech, France Dr. Hervé This (born 1955 in Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French physical chemist who works for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique at AgroParisTech. He is one of the world’s experts on the chemistry of cooking. He is the Scientific Director of the Foundation for Food Science & Culture at the French Academy of Sciences, and Director of the Molecular Gastronomy Team at AgroParisTech. He obtained a PhD from the University Paris VI on "Molecular and physical gastronomy". He has published many scientific papers, as well as regular collaborations to engage the general public with the scientific concepts behind cooking.

Pr. Pierre Gagnaire

3 stars Chef Pierre Gagnaire (born 9 April 1950 in Apinac, Loire) is a world-famous French chef, and is the Head Chef and owner of the eponymous Pierre Gagnaire restaurant at 6 rue Balzac in Paris (in the 8th arrondissement). Gagnaire is an iconoclastic chef at the forefront of the fusion cuisine movement. Beginning his career in St. Etienne where he won three Michelin Stars, Gagnaire tore at the conventions of classic French cooking by introducing jarring juxtapositions of flavours, tastes, textures, and ingredients. On his website Pierre Gagnaire gives his mission statement as the wish to run a restaurant which is 'facing tomorrow but respectful of yesterday' ("tourné vers demain mais soucieux d'hier")