BIOTA

Born and educated in France, Hervé Bocherens obtained his PhD in Paleontology at the University of Paris 6 in 1992 on isotopic tracking of fossil terrestrial vertebrates. After a post-doctoral fellowship in the USA (Carnegie Institution and Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC) in 1992-1994, he obtained a researcher position at the CNRS at the University of Paris 6, then moved to the University of Montpellier 2 in 2001. He was hired as full professor in biogeology at the University of Tübingen (Germany) in 2008. In 2017, he became also affiliated to the Senckenberg Society for Natural Science Research in 2017 and was vice-director of the Senckenberg Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment Centre in Tübingen from 2017 to 2022. He is chair of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen since 2022. His main research interest is the isotopic tracking of interactions between terrestrial environment, vertebrates, and humans in the past with implications for the future, with an outcome of 250 peer-reviewed publications and supervision of more than 30 PhD students.  

Dr. Robert Blanvillain is an associate professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes (France), interested in the genetic control of developmental transitions, in particular the early greening of plants associated with the setting of chloroplast function. He earned his Bachelor’s in Applied Genetics at the University Paris Diderot and PhD at the university of Perpignan (south France) working on plant embryogenesis and programmed cell death. Robert moved as a postdoctoral fellow at the Plant Gene Expression Center (UC Berkeley/USDA) working on stress-induced flowering and the protein export pathway. Back in France, beside teaching to all-degree students, Robert initiated an integrated project on the molecular control of chloroplast biogenesis involving photoreceptors and plastid transcription.

Dr. Bogdan P. Onac is a Professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida (USA), specializing in reconstructing past climate and environmental changes using a variety of cave deposits. He earned his Bachelor’s and PhD in Geology from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.  Furthering his expertise, Dr. Onac held a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship at Pennsylvania State University (USA) and served as a postdoctoral fellow at Lund University (Sweden).  His innovative research explores clues within cave and lava tube deposits—including ice, guano, and speleothems—using stable and radiogenic isotope geochemistry and mineralogy to uncover insights into Earth’s climate history.  Dr. Onac also holds the position of Adjunct Research Professor at the Babeș-Bolyai University.  Dr. Onac’s leadership extends beyond academia. As the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Speleology and a member of several editorial boards, he has shaped the direction of karst research worldwide. 

I am a conservation biologist currently serving as a Professor of Conservation Biology and Director of Research at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography. Trained in environmental science and wildlife biology, my career has focused on applied conservation issues alongside practitioners. My work includes regional-scale conservation of the Hermann tortoise, systematic conservation planning of Natura 2000 network in Romania, modeling species distribution, and large carnivore conservation. In the realm of large carnivore conservation in Romania, I have published numerous studies addressing problem-solving and methodological advancements, such as the movement ecology of bears, selection of denning habitats, improved methods for identifying habitat conservation priorities, integration of human-large carnivore coexistence, and media coverage of human- bear conflicts. Currently, my research explores the effectiveness of artificial structures to increase saproxylic beetle abundance in young forests, the data-driven prioritisation of invasive species management, and the development of a framework for designing, evaluating, and updating human- wildlife coexistence initiatives at various scales. 

After obtaining a medical degree in Romania, I joined the team of Peter van Endert at Université Paris 5, INSERM, Necker, Paris, France, where I obtained a permanent position as “Principal Investigator” in 2005. My research career started in the field of MHC-I (Major Histocompatibility Complex class I) antigen presentation, in which I contributed to the identification of a new class of antigen trimming enzymes and description of novel cell biology mechanisms that allow the presentation of exogenous proteins antigens by dendritic cells (DCs) via MHC-I (Nature Immunology 2005, Science 2009). I started my independent group in 2015, as team leader, at Bichat Medical School, in Paris, in the INSERM Unit 1149. My team investigates the molecular mechanisms by which the endocytic system regulates the trafficking and signaling of immune receptors, such as endosomal TLRs (Nature Immunology 2017), Fc immunoglobulin receptors (iScience 2023, Advanced Science 2024) and antigen T Cell Receptor (Nature Communications 2020).