Yves Dufrene
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
I received my Engineering degree in chemistry and bioindustries in 1991, and PhD degree in1996 at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL, Belgium). After a postdoc at the Naval Research Laboratory (Washington DC, USA), I became Postdoc Researcher (1998) and then Research Associate (2000) of the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) at UCL. I am currently the head of the Laboratory of Chemistry of Interfaces (UCL; ~20 persons).
The general research objective of my team is to provide novel insights into the nanoscale properties of biointerfaces, going from single biomolecules, to lipid membranes and live cells, with the ultimate goal to understand the molecular bases of crucial biological events such as molecular recognition, pathogen-drug and pathogen-host interactions. The main recent achievements include: the development of novel atomic force microscopy-based methods for probing biosurfaces, the design of novel nanostructured organic surfaces for biomaterial and nanobiotech research, a better understanding of the nanoscale properties of lipid membranes and of their interaction with drugs and peptides, and a better knowledge of the structural, physical, chemical and biochemical properties of microbial cell surfaces.