Prof. Harald Reuter

Harald Reuter is Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has been chairman of the Department of Pharmacology (1971-1999), and Dean of the medical faculty (1983-1985). He was a visiting professor at Yale and Stanford Universities and served on several Councils of Scientific Societies. He is an elected member of important scientific academies, such as the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the National Academy of Sciences „Leopoldina“ (Germany), the Academia Europaea and others. He has received numerous scientific prizes and awards, among them the Marcel Benoist Prize of the Swiss Government, the Schmiedeberg-Plakette of the German Pharmacological Society, the K.S. Cole Award from the Biophysical Society (USA). In 2002 Harald Reuter was awarded the „Ernst Jung Medal for Medicine in Gold” for his lifetime achievements. His scientific achievements were cited by the National Academy of Sciences (USA) as „Reuter is a pioneer in studies of sodium and calcium regulation of the heart. His discoveries of the sodium-calcium exchange process, the cardiac calcium current and its regulation by adrenergic receptors, and the novel properties of cardiac sodium channels are cornerstones of our current understanding of the physiology of cardiac myocytes“.

Prof. Beat Gähwiler

Beat Gähwiler is Emeritus Professor of Neurosciences at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He obtained a PhD in Biophysics in 1969 from the University of Basel. After postdoctoral work at the University of California in Berkeley, USA and several years at Sandoz Ltd. in Basel, he became 1987 Professor of Neurosciences and co-director/director at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich. He spent sabbatical time at the Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of Seville and was appointed Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford. Beat Gähwiler was president of the advisory board of the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and served on various other boards. In addition, he was presiding several scientific foundations, including the prestigious Roche Research Foundation in Basel. The research of Beat Gähwiler focused on the physiological, pharmacological and morphological characterization of small organized neuronal networks derived from the vertebrate nervous system. For this purpose, he had developed the slice culture technique, a method now used worldwide in a large number of research laboratories. He has used this model to characterize cholinergic, peptidergic and amino acid-mediated neurotransmission in various brain areas. Of particular significance was the development of the co-culture approach, in which nerve cells derived from different brain areas establish functional connections in vitro with their normal target cells. He has made major contributions about the development of neural networks, the influence of trophic factors on the maintenance and growth of central neurons, the mechanisms involved in synaptic plasticity and the consequences of chronic epileptiform activity. Beat Gähwiler is author of more than 180 papers, recipient of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden award and of the Robert Bing Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.

Prof. Robert Kass

Robert S. Kass, Ph.D. obtained his B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Illinois (1968) and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan (1972). Following postdoctoral training at Michigan (Physiology), the Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, and the Department of Physiology at Yale University in the laboratory of Richard W. Tsien, Robert Kass joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester as an Assistant Professor in 1977 where he was awarded an NIH Career Development Award. At the University of Rochester he was promoted to Professor of Physiology in 1988 and Professor of Physiology and Pediatrics in 1990. During a sabbatical leave of absence, Robert Kass studied with Professor Bert Sakmann (the 2008 Cartwright Lecturer) at the Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany (1989-90) where he carried out experimental work on recombinant ligand-gated ion channels. He was recruited from the University of Rochester and appointed Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology of Columbia University in1996. In 1997, he was appointed to the Center for Neurobiology & Behavior and in 1999, was named the David Hosack Professor of Pharmacology. In 2005 he was named Columbia University Alumni Professor. Robert Kass was appointed as Vice Dean for Research of Columbia University Medical Center in 2008. He is a member of Phi Eta Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa honorary societies. Research in the Kass laboratory focuses on the regulation and expression of ion channel proteins in normal and genetically altered heart. Robert Kass has directed HIH or NSF sponsored research for thirty years that has contributed to the understanding of the fundamental cellular and molecular basis of cardiac electrical activity. His achievements include the mutation-specific therapeutic strategy, verified in genotyped patients, which has established the principle that two variants of the same genetic disorder require dramatically different therapeutic strategies for disease management based on biophysical properties of specific genetic lesions.