Jean-Paul Joseleau
Jean-Paul Joseleau received his education in chemistry at the University of Grenoble (1959-1962), and obtained a Ph.D. degree in organic Chemistry in 1965 at the University of Grenoble on lignin biosynthesis under the supervision of Professor F. Barnoud and Professor T. Higuchi (Japan). He was introduced to glycoscience research by Professor G.G.S. Dutton (UBC, Canada) with whom he completed a Ph.D. in Bio-organic Chemistry on the structural elucidation of hemicelluloses (1975, Vancouver, Canada), after obtaining a Doctorat ès-sciences d’Etat in Grenoble (1974) in Biochemistry. He was Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Grenoble and director of a research group on Plant Cell Walls at the Centre deRecherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales (CERMAV, UPR-CNRS 5301). He was nominated Professor Emeritus in 2004. He developed researches on the primary structure of bacterial antigen K polysaccharides, and carried out a long time study in plant cell wall chemistry and biochemistry, focusing on the modifications induced during cell development and maturation. The occurrence of polysaccharides and lignins during plant cell walls elaboration was studied on the chemical,biochemical, and ultrastructural levels. He has been President of the Reseau Français desParois Végétales and was elected in 1993a Fellow of the International Academy of WoodSciences (IAWS).
Serge Perez
Serge Perez was born in Perigueux, France, and graduated, in crystallography, from the University of Bordeaux, France. He then spent one year at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon, Eugene, USA and subsequently three years at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Montreal, Canada. He returned to France upon accepting a permanent position as a Junior Scientist of the Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Végétales (CERMAV), Grenoble, and he spent a sabbatical year working for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, USA. Later on, he moved on to Nantes, France, at the Institut de la Recherche Agronomique, where he was awarded a position as Senior Research Scientist to start a research group in Molecular Engineering. In January 1996 he moved back to Grenoble to become Chairman of the CERMAV, and hold this position for 11 years. He left this position to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility to take up the position of Scientific Director in charge of the Life Sciences, Chemistry and X-ray Imaging programs. After completing his term, he returned to the CERMAV in 2012. Since January 2014 he is a staff member of the Department of Molecular Pharmacochemistry, a joint research unit between CNRS and University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble. His research interests span across the whole area of structural and conformational analysis of oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, glycoconjugates and protein–carbohydrate interactions in solution and in the solid state. This includes interests in computational chemistry and molecular modeling, crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, along with the structure-function and structure-properties relationship. He is the author of about 300 publications in the field of structural glycosciences.