Two new professors to join IST Austria

Several new professors will join the Institute of Science and Technology (IST Austria) in fall 2017. Among them are Fyodor Kondrashov and Edouard Hannezo, both of whom will move to campus in September. Fyodor Kondrashov obtained his PhD in biology from the University of California at San Diego, USA, and is currently ICREA Research Professor at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain. He will join IST Austria as full professor. Edouard Hannezo obtained his PhD in biological physics at the Institut Curie in Paris and is currently based in the Gurdon Institute, in Cambridge, UK. He will join IST Austria as assistant professor.

How did living organisms become the way we know them today? This is the fundamental question that Fyodor Kondrashov and his research group entitled “Evolutionary Genomics” are focusing on. Rather than seeking to understand the organisms themselves, the group will study how organisms changed and developed over time, how they evolved. To address these deep questions, Kondrashov and his team will employ a variety of modern tools from mathematical modeling to innovative experiments to study numerous types of model and non-model organisms.

Edouard Hannezo, who will lead a research group on “Physical Principles in Biological Systems”, is interested in understanding how cells “know” how to make the right decisions at the right time and in the right place during development and normal tissue homeostasis, as well as how these decisions are dysregulated during cancer initiation. With a background in theoretical physics, he uses methods ranging from mechanics and active hydrodynamics to population dynamics and statistical physics, often in collaboration with developmental and stem cell biologists.