CLERMONT-FERRAND, France — May 22, 2019 — CARBIOS, a company pioneering new bioindustrial solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) members: Prof. Dr. Uwe T. Bornscheuer of Greifswald University in Germany and Dr. Ludwik Leibler of ESCPI Paris in France.
CARBIOS Chief Scientific Officer, Prof. Alain Marty will now take the lead as president of the SAB. He is surrounded by three researchers with complementary scientific skills. With their strong international backgrounds and a shared vision of innovation, members of the SAB will bring to the Company their expertise in the field of polymer sciences and enzymology. In addition, they are actively pursuing research that values sustainability and a green economy.
Prof. Alain Marty commented: “It is a pleasure to have such high-quality scientific researchers in the fields of polymer sciences and enzyme technology which are the heart of CARBIOS processes. I look forward to the exciting discussions and advice that this new Scientific Advisory Board will generate and welcome its two newest members to the team.”
The major research target of Prof. Dr. Bornscheuer is the development of tailor-made biocatalysts suitable for industrial applications, based on a strong expertise of enzyme optimization. He is named inventor on more than 40 patent applications and published more than 450 scientific articles in this field of research. Bornscheuer’s international affiliations include an adjunct professorship in Thailand, a research stay at Kyoto University in Japan, two sabbaticals at the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) in Toulouse and at Diversa Corp. in San Diego, Calif., a postdoctoral stay at the University of Nagoya in Japan, and awards from the German Lipid Society, American Oil Chemists’ Society, the French Society of Lipid Research, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science as well as the prestigious BiocatAward in 2008. He leads the Dept. of Biotechnology & Enzyme Catalysis at the university’s Institute of Biochemistry, and he is now Vice-Dean of the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Greifswald University. Indeed, he shares with CARBIOS a global perspective on the importance of enzyme catalysis technology in helping to establish a circular economy and sustainable solution to the problem of plastic pollution.
Dr. Leibler is currently distinguished Professor at Ecole supérieure de Physique et de Chimie de Paris (ESCPI Paris). He is member of the French Academy of Sciences and Foreign Associate of National Academy of Engineering (USA). He received his PhD in 1976 in Theoretical Physics from Warsaw University, and then spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Collège de France in Paris under the direction of Pierre-Gilles de Gennes. He joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Strasbourg, then Paris where he worked on theoretical and experimental aspects of polymer self-assembly and dynamics, interfaces, gels and charged polymers. From 1996 to 2003 he was the founding director of a joint laboratory between CNRS and chemical company Elf-Atochem (later Arkema) and between 2003 and 2017 served as Director of Soft Matter and Chemistry Laboratory at ESPCI in Paris. During the last decade, Dr. Leibler and his team discovered a self-healing supramolecular rubber that self-repairs by simple contact after being cut and a new class of organic materials, called vitrimers, which like glass are malleable when heated, the discoveries lauded by 2015 European Inventor Award of European Patent Office.
Dr. Leibler has received number of honors and awards from various international organizations including Polymer Physics Prize of American Physical Society, American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry, Descartes – Huygens Prize of Academy of Sciences and Arts of Netherlands, Tartufari International Prize of Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei (Italy) and in France, Grand Prix of Fondation de la Maison de Chimie, Grand Prix IFP of l’Acadeìmie des Sciences and Grand Prix Pierre Süe of the French Chemical Society, Silver Medal and Medal of Innovation from CNRS. He is named as inventor on around 50 patent applications and published more than 200 scientific articles.
Returning member Dr. Philippe Dubois will continue to serve as member of CARBIOS’ SAB. He is currently Rector-President of the University of Mons in Belgium, where he also leads the Laboratory of Polymeric and Composite Materials, Center of Innovation and Research in Materials & Polymers CIRMAP. His expertise covers organic chemistry; macromolecular chemistry; catalysis in polymer materials; and (reactive) processing of (nano)composites and nanohybrid materials, including biosourced polymers. He has pursued a scientific and professional career in the design and application of polymers as well as polymer-based nano-composites. He has published more than 740 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is the inventor of 71 patent applications. He is President and Scientific Director of Materia Nova Research Center, Belgium. He is Adjunct Professor at the Chemical Engineering Faculty, Michigan State University, MSU, Lansing (USA) and Guest Professor at the National key-lab of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China).
Prior to taking over as Rector-President, Dr. Dubois was Vice-Rector of research at UMONS for more than 7 years. He also served as President of the Royal Society of Chemistry in Belgium in 2006-2007. Since 2010 he has been a titular member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Belgium and in 2017 was elected member of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc) Engineering Division. In 2016, King Philippe of Belgium personally awarded Dr. Dubois as a laureate of the FNRS Quinquennial Award in applied exact sciences (2011–2015), the highest scientific award of FNRS delivered every five years. The award recognized Dr. Dubois’ research on reaction processes as providing a “fundamental contribution to the advances of green chemistry and to society in general.”
Posted May 22, 2019
Source: CARBIOS
