Making Europe a leader in AI: in conversation with Venki Ramakrishnan, Antoine Petit and Martin Stratmann

Venki Ramakrishnan has a long-standing interest in ribosome structure and function. In 2000, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. This work has led to insights into how the ribosome “reads” the genetic code, as well as into various aspects of antibiotic function. In the last few years, Ramakrishan’s lab has determined the high-resolution structures of functional complexes of the entire ribosome at various stages along the translational pathway, which has led to insights into its role in protein synthesis during decoding, peptidyl transfer, translocation and termination. More recently his laboratory has been applying cryoelectron microscopy to study eukaryotic and mitochondrial translation. Since 1999, he has been on the scientific staff of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and he is currently President of the Royal Society.

Antoine Petit, an exceptional grade university professor, was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CNRS on January 24, 2018. After earning a teaching degree and a PhD in computer science from the Université Paris Diderot, he specialized in formal methods, mostly based on transition systems, for the specification and verification of parallel systems in real time. An academic from 1984 to 2004, he served as an assistant professor at the Université d'Orléans, a lecturer at the Université Paris-Sud and a professor at the ENS Cachan (near Paris) from 1994.

From 2001 to 2003, Antoine Petit was deputy director of the French Research Ministry's Research Department, in charge of Mathematics and Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies. In 2004, he was seconded to the CNRS, first as scientific director of the Information and Communication Science and Technologies Department, before becoming inter-regional director for South West France. In 2006, he joined the French National Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (Inria) as head of the Paris-Rocquencourt research center. He was named Chairman and CEO of the Inria in 2014, having been its deputy CEO.

Martin Stratmann was born on 20 April 1954, in Essen. He studied chemistry in Bochum, and completed his doctorate at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (1982), and his postdoc in Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA (1984). Professor Stratmann was head of the corrosion group at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (1987), German Habilitation in physical chemistry at Düsseldorf University (1992). He became a Full Professor at the University of Erlangen (1994), Director and Scientific Member at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (since 2000). Amongst others, he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, the UR Evans Award of the Institute of Corrosion, the HH Uhlig Award of the Electrochemical Society, which also appointed him as their Fellow. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Karl-Winnacker-Institut of the DECHEMA, as well as a member of Acatech (National Academy of Science and Engineering), and the Academy of Science and Art of North Rhine-Westphalia. From 2008-2014, he served as the Vice President of the Chemistry, Physics and Technology Section of the Max Planck Society. Since June 2014, Martin Stratmann has been President of the Max Planck Society.