Prof. Matthias Hamburger obtained a degree in Pharmacy from the ETH Zürich in 1980, and a PhD in Pharmacognosy/Phytochemistry at the University of Lausanne in 1985. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA), and from 1988 to 1993 a Senior Researcher and Privatdocent at the Institute of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, University of Lausanne. From 1993 to 1996, he was involved in establishing the Center for Natural Products Research (CNPR) in Singapore. He acted as a Group Leader and as coordinator of worldwide sourcing and external collaborations. From 1995 to 1996, he was in addition involved with consulting activities in Switzerland in the area of phytopharmaceuticals and OTC products. He was Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutical Biology at the University of Jena (Germany) (1997–2004) and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences (2000–2002). In April 2004, he served as Head of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Basel. He was Head of Department from 2009 to 2012. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of Basel.
Prof. Gianluca Damonte is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry. He is a Professor of Biochemistry and Structural Biology for the Degree Courses of Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology and Chemical Sciences at the University of Genoa. His main research interest is the structural characterization of peptides, proteins and primary and secondary metabolites extracted from plant and animal sources, using gas and liquid chromatography techniques coupled with mass spectrometry. He is Head of the Structural and Cellular Biochemistry Unit of the Center of Excellence for Biomedical Research (CEBR) of the University of Genoa and responsible for the Mass Spectrometry service.
Prof. Olivier Potterat has a degree in biology from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), where he further obtained his PhD in 1991 at the Institute of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry. After a two and a half year post-doc at the University of Tübingen (Germany), he held different teaching and research positions at the University of Lausanne and was appointed as Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy from 1995 to 1998. In 1988, he moved to the pharmaceutical company Boehringer-Ingelheim in Vienna (Austria) and later Biberach/Riss (Germany) where he was in charge of the Natural Product Laboratory within the Lead Finding Department. In 2005, he returned to academia, joining the University of Basel as a Senior Research Associate where he obtained his habilitation in pharmaceutical biology and was appointed as a titular professor in 2018. His areas of expertise include medicinal plant analysis, natural products drug discovery, HPLC-mass spectrometry and structural elucidation.
