Participants’ biographies

European Commissioner for Research
Philippe Busquin

Philippe Busquin’s academic and political career spans 42 years. He graduated in physics from Free University Brussels (ULB) in 1962. For 15 years, he taught at a Belgian teachers college, while lecturing in physics and completing both a philosophy degree and a post-graduate diploma in environmental studies, also at ULB. In 1977, he launched his political career, starting regionally (Hainaut Province) and followed by 17 years as member of the House of Representatives, during which time he held many ministerial posts, including education, home affairs, budget and energy, and economic affairs. In addition, he was chairman of the research institute IRE, mayor of Seneffe, a Belgian senator, and held leadership roles in the Belgian and European Socialist Party, until elected to the European Parliament in 1999 – later joining the Commission. He became European Commissioner for Research in 2000.

Evandro Agazzi

Evandro Agazzi is president of the International Academy of Philosophy of Science in Brussels (BE), honorary president of the International Federation of the Philosophical Societies (FISP), honorary president of the International Institute of Philosophy in Paris (FR), and of several other academies and learned institutions in different countries. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Genoa and the author or editor of more than 60 books and 650 papers. The ethics of science and technology are among the most salient fields of his research and teaching.

Klaus Ammann

Klaus Ammann is director of the Botanical Garden at Bern University (CH), where he has been an honorary professor since 2000. He gives lectures on plant systematics, biogeography, and biomonitoring. The Swiss botanist’s interests lie in the protection of biodiversity, assessing the risk of genetically engineered crops, and engaging in the public bioethics debate so as to make the most of emerging biotechnologies. Ammann is a member of the Swiss government’s Biosafety Committee. He also serves on several European associations and chairs the Biodiversity Section of the European Federation of Biotechnology. Ammann is involved in various EU-funded research projects on gene flow and plant conservation.

Sophie Bessis

Sophie Bessis has been professor of development and international co-operation at the University of Paris I-Sorbonne for the past eight years. Her work focuses on world food exchanges and the political economy of development, especially in Africa and the Middle East. During her rich and varied career, she has taught history at the University of Yaoundé (Cameroon), and was a professional journalist for nearly 15 years. She has also worked for UNICEF, UNESCO and other international organisations. Her published books in French include ‘The food weapon’, ‘The final frontier’, ‘Hunger in the world’. She has also published ‘Western supremacy, the triumph of an idea?’ (Zedbooks, 2003) in English

Christopher Bigsby

Author and broadcaster Christopher Bigsby is professor of American Studies and director of the Arthur Miller Centre at the University of East Anglia (UK). He is considered one of the leading writers on American theatre and has published more than thirty books on aspects of English and American culture – from African-American literature and popular culture, to theatre. His books include ‘The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller’ (Cambridge University Press [CUP], 1997) and ‘Contemporary American Playwrights’ (CUP, 1999). He has co-edited ‘The Cambridge History of American Theatre’ (CUP, 1998-2000), which won several awards including the American Society for Theatre Research’s Barnard Hewitt Award. His latest novel is ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ (Methuen Publishing, 2003).

James Bono

James Bono is an associate professor of history and of medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo (US). He edits Configurations, the official publication of the Society for Literature and Science (US) of which he was a past president. Bono has written and contributed to numerous articles and publications, including ‘Ethical Issues in Health Care on the Frontiers of the Twenty-First Century’ (2000). He has completed the first volume of ‘The Word of God and the Language of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine’ (1995) and is currently working on the second volume. He is also in the process of writing a new book, ‘Figuring Science’.

Massimiano Bucchi

Massimiano Bucchi teaches the sociology of science at the University of Trento (IT) and is a member for Italy of the Public Communication of Science and Technology International Scientific Committee. He has published five books among which are ‘Science and the media’ (London and New York, Routledge, 1998) and ‘Science in society’ (London and New York, Routledge, 2004) and many essays in international journals such as Nature, the British Journal of the History of Science, and Public Understanding of Science. His main fields of interest include public communication of science, science and technology in the mass media, and the role of public participation in the governance of techno-scientific innovation.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is a professor of genetics at Stanford University. He is an international expert on human genetic diversity and what it tells us about the phylogenetic tree of human populations. He realised that an understanding of mankind’s evolution requires knowledge of both genetic and cultural mechanisms, especially linguistic features. He has received several awards and distinctions, written many articles and is the author of several books, including: ‘The history and geography of human genes’ (with P. Menozzi, A. Piazza, Princeton University Press, 1994), ‘The Neolithic transition and the genetics of populations in Europe’ (with A. Ammerman, Princeton University Press, 1984), and ‘The genetics of human populations’ (with W. Bodmer, Dover, 1999). His popular science books include ‘Genes, Peoples and Languages’ (Penguin, 2000).

Karin Knorr Cetina

Karin Knorr Cetina is a sociology professor at the University of Constance (DE), a visiting professor at the University of Chicago (USA), and a member of the Institute for World-Society Studies at the University of Bielefeld (DE). In addition to her three degrees, she has received several honours, including Vienna University’s Fellowship for the Gifted. She was a Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (USA) and president of the International Society for Social Studies of Science. She is a future member of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences (USA). She has published numerous papers and books, including the award-winning ‘Epistemic cultures: how the sciences make knowledge’ (1999, Harvard).

Denis Duboule

Embryologist and geneticist Denis Duboule is professor and chair of zoology and animal biology at Geneva University and director of the Swiss ‘pole of excellence’ Frontiers in Genetics. He is a pioneer in the analysis of the molecular development of vertebrates. In 1998 and 2003, he was honoured for his contributions to the understanding of a genetic approach to vertebrate development and evolution, demonstrating the essential role of genes in the formation of limbs and urogenital systems. He has received several awards and distinctions, and is a member of various academic institutions, including Europea Academia. He is the author of several papers, including: ‘How to make a limb?’ (1994) and ’25 years of collinear tinkering’ (2003). He is also the author of ‘A guidebook to homeobox genes’ (1994) and is editor of the journal ‘Development’.

Inez de Beaufort

Having come from an academic background in theology, Inez de Beaufort is professor of healthcare ethics at Erasmus University’s faculty of medicine and health sciences (NL). She is also a member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, as well as several national committees in the Netherlands. The Dutch ethicist has wide-ranging teaching and research experience, including as senior research fellow at the Institute of Bioethics in Maastricht (NL). De Beaufort has written papers on a wide variety of topics in medical ethics, such as reproductive technology, euthanasia and end of life, human experimentation, and beauty and ethics.

Carl Djerassi

Professor of chemistry emeritus at Stanford University (USA) Carl Djerassi is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as other academies around the world. He has received 19 honorary doctorates and such scientific awards as the US National Medals of Science and of Technology. Djerassi – who moved to the USA from his native Austria during World War II and now lives in London and San Francisco – is a prolific writer, having produced over 1 200 scientific articles, five novels, two autobiographies and six plays. He describes his creative writing not as fiction but as ‘science-in-fiction’.

Anne Fagot-Largeault

Anne Fagot-Largeault is chair of the philosophy of biological and medical sciences at the College of France in Paris. She is also a psychiatric specialist attached to the Paris Health and Social Security Services. Her research focuses on the history and philosophy of the life sciences, approached from a theoretical or practical angle. She has received several awards throughout her career and is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the French National Committee of the History of the Philosophy of Sciences, and the International Academy of the Philosophy of Sciences. She has written numerous articles for national and international specialised reviews and is also the author of several works, including: ‘Causal vs. teleological explanation of behaviour’ (Stanford University Press, 1971), and ‘Respect of the genetic inheritance and respect of the person’ (Folia Bioethica, vol. 1 (1991).

José Mariano Gago

José Mariano Gago trained as an electrical engineer (IST) and as an experimental high energy physicist at the École Polytechnique in Paris (FR). He was a researcher for several decades at the CERN particle physics laboratory (CH). Gago was Portugal’s science and technology minister (1995-2002). He launched the Ciencia Viva movement to promote S&T culture. During the Portuguese EU presidency (2000), he prepared, along with the Commission, the Lisbon Strategy for the European Research Area and for the Information Society. He is currently working as a physics professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon (PT). He heads Portugal’s Laboratory for Particle Physics and the board of the International Risk Governance Council (CH). He is a member of the Academia Europaea.

Cyril Höschl

Cyril Höschl chairs the psychiatry department at Charles University (CZ), where he enrolled as a student in 1968. He is also director of the Prague Psychiatric Centre (CZ). During his three decades as a psychiatrist, Höschl has held several research and faculty positions at Charles University. For seven years, he was dean of the university’s third medical faculty. He has also lectured on psychoneuroendocrinology and psychopharmacology at several universities in Canada and the United States. He has received several prestigious awards both in the Czech Republic and abroad. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK).

Gilbert Hottois
Gilbert Hottois is a professor of philosophy at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and is the director of the ULB’s Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Bioethics (CRIB). He is also a member of the Royal Academia of Belgium, as well as several national and international scientific societies and ethics committees. His mostly recently published books in French include ‘The bioethical paradigm’, ‘Between symbols and technosciences’, ‘Essays in bioethical and biopolitical philosophy’, ‘The new encyclopaedia of bioethics’, ‘Species Technica’, ‘Wisdom and technoscience’, ‘Philosophy and Science Fiction’.

Fotis C Kafatos
Greek-born Fotis C Kafatos is director-general of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg (DE), a position he took up after a quarter of a century as a professor of biology at Harvard University (USA). He also held professional positions and helped organise university teaching and research in biology in his native Greece at the universities of Athens and Crete and the Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). Kafatos has been awarded several prestigious honours including foreign member of the UK’s Royal Society, member of the National Academy of Science (USA) and foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences. He has left a profound mark on modern biology. His influence extends to the different domains of integrative and developmental biology, as well as genetics and genomics.

Federico Mayor

Two-time UNESCO director-general (1987-1999), Federico Mayor helped the UN’s cultural arm to fulfil its mission to “build a bastion of peace in the minds of all people” by launching its Culture for Peace Programme. Upon his return to his native Spain, he established the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, over which he currently presides. Mayor has also had long and distinguished careers in academia and politics. His academic positions have included rector of Granada Univeristy (ES) and he was co-founder of Spain’s Centro de Biologia Molecular. His political posts have included Spanish minister for education and science, as well as member of the Spanish and European parliaments.

Helga Nowotny

Helga Nowotny directs the ‘Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellowship’ programme. She is a board member of several scientific and policy-oriented institutions in Europe. Professor Nowotny chairs the European Commission’s European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) and has also been a member of the European Research Council Expert Group (ERCEG). With law and sociology degrees, she has held teaching and research positions across Europe. She was professor of social studies of science at ETH Zurich and the director of the Collegium Helveticum from 1995 to 2002. She received the Society for Social Studies of Science’s Bernal Prize in 2003, and won the Arthur Burkhardt Prize for the Promotion of Science in 2002.

Ronald Plasterk

Ronald Plasterk is professor of developmental genetics at Utrecht University (NL). The Dutchman also heads the Hubrecht Laboratory at the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology. Plasterk is interested in the areas of genetics and functional genomics. He focuses on the mechanism and regulation of DNA transposition and how genomes are protected against mutation. The Dutch biologist previously held positions at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the California Institute of Technology. In addition to numerous scientific studies, Plasterk is a columnist for the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant and the television programmeBuitenhof.

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger is a director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (DE). The main focuses of his research lie in the history of biology, medicine and molecular biology. By bridging the gap between the study of history and cutting-edge sciences, such as biomedicine, Rheinberger’s work represents a good example of the emerging multidisciplinary knowledge society. The Swiss-born scientist has been a guest scientist with the Collegium Helveticum in Zürich (CH). He is a member of Leopoldina, the German Academy of Natural Scientists, an honorary professor at the Technical University of Berlin’s Department of the History of Science (DE), and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of the Sciences (DE).

Steven Rose

Steven Rose is a neurobiologist and has been a professor of biology at the Open University (UK) since 1969. He has published nine books and more than 200 neuroscience research papers. Through the Brain and Behaviour Research Group he established, Rose has focused his research on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of learning and memory. He has had a continued concern with the social framing of science and with communicating it to the general public, for which he has received a number of international awards.

Edoardo Sanguineti

Poet, intellectual, author and critic Edoardo Sanguineti was a professor of Italian literature at the University of Genoa (IT). He was the leader of an Italian avant-garde movement in the 1960s and his work appeared in the influential anthology ‘I Novissimi’ (1961). He has also acted as a communist deputy in the Italian parliament. He is considered to be one of the most important poets in Italy's neo-vanguard movement, and his writing is enjoyed at home and throughout the world. Sanguineti has received numerous distinguished awards and prizes for his work. His notable poems include ‘Laborintus’ (1956), ‘Segnalibro’ (1982), and ‘Il gatto lupesco’ (2002). His novels include ‘Italian Caprice’ (1963), and ‘Il giuoco dell’oca’ (1967).

Dan Sperber

Dan Sperber is a French social and cognitive scientist. He holds a research professorship at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, and has held visiting positions at Cambridge University (UK), the British Academy (UK), the London School of Economics (UK), the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem (IL), the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (US), the University of Michigan (US), the University of Bologna (IT), and the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of ‘Rethinking symbolism’ (1975), ‘On anthropological knowledge’ (1985), ‘Explaining culture’ (1996). Sperber is also the co-author, with Deirdre Wilson, of ‘Relevance: communication and cognition’ (1986).

Halldór Stefánsson

Halldór Stefánsson runs the Science and Society Programme at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg (DE). He grew up in Reykjavík (IS) and studied social anthropology, first in Copenhagen (DK) and, then, in Paris (FR). After finishing his doctoral studies, the Icelandic anthropologist moved to Japan where he worked as a research fellow at Osaka University’s Department of Anthropology. He, then, became a tenured professor at the Department of International Studies at Osaka Gakuin University (JP) until he returned to Europe in 1998. During his 16 years in Japan, he wrote widely about Japanese cultural and religious practices. His writings include, ‘The ancestors are dead! Long live the ancestors!’ (1984) and ‘Foreign myths and sagas in Japan’ (1993).

Marilyn Strathern
Marilyn Strathern has been a professor of social anthropology at Manchester and Cambridge universities (UK) for 18 years. Her field work in Papua New Guinea and England has delved into issues of gender, kinship and the new reproductive technologies. Professor Strathern has published numerous articles and books, including ‘The gender of the gift’, ‘After nature’, and the co-authored ‘Technologies of procreation’. A fellow of the British Academy, she was knighted in 2001 for services to anthropology. Her latest area of interest and research regards intellectual property issues.

Gianni Vattimo

Gianni Vattimo has been a professor of theoretical philosophy at Turin University (IT) – from where he also graduated in 1959 – for more than two decades. Before taking up his current post, he served as assistant professor (1964-1969) and full professor of aesthetics (1969-1982) at the same university. He is also a fellow of Italy’s Accademia delle Scienze, vice-president of the Academia de la Latinidade, and member of the scientific committees of several Italian and European journals. In his published works, Vattimo has proposed an interpretation of contemporary hermeneutic ontology, emphasising its positive link with Nihilism. Gianni Vattimo is also a member of the European Parliament.

Fraser Watts

Fraser Watts is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University (UK). Trained as a clinical psychologist, he has variously worked as head of clinical psychology at King’s College Hospital (UK) and as a senior scientist at the Medical Research Council’s Applied Psychology Unit (UK). Following his ordination as a priest, Revd Dr Watts took up a lectureship in theology and natural science at Cambridge University. During his career, he has published books and articles on a wide range of psychological questions including cognition and emotion, and information processing in anxiety.

Lewis Wolpert

Lewis Wolpert is a professor at the department of anatomy and developmental biology at University College, London (UK). After originally training as a civil engineer in South Africa, he entered the world of cell biology in 1955. He became a fellow of the Royal Society (UK) in 1980 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990. He has presented a number of popular science programmes. In addition to writing a newspaper column, he has published several books, including ‘The unnatural nature of science’ (Faber). His most recent is ‘Malignant sadness: the anatomy of depression’ (Faber).

Moderator
Alex Taylor

Alex Taylor is British but has been producing and presenting European news programmes on TV and radio for the last fifteen years, mainly in France but he has also worked for the BBC and German television. He was also Programme Director of the French section of Radio France Internationale. In 1999 he set up his own production company, making programmes about European politics and culture, and has hosted over 250 international events.