Guests of Honor

Dirk Van Dyck is emeritus professor of the University of Antwerp. During several years he was staff member of the EMAT center for electron microscopy at the University of Antwerp with an infrastructure of 7 electron microscopes and 60 scientists. He was founder and director of the Vision lab on image processing with about 30 scientists. He is worldwide known for his work on electron microscopy and electron diffraction, phase reconstruction and microtomography. He has done pioneering work on the cluster theory, the real space method, and the channeling theory. He has laid the foundations of the focus-variation method for exit wave reconstruction which is now worldwide used for quantitative reconstruction of atomic structures at the sub-Angstrom level. This method has been applied successfully for tomographic reconstruction using synchrotron radiation(holo-tomography). Recently, he developed the big-bang theory for atomic resolution electron tomography. Dirk Van Dyck published about 400 scientific papers and several books. He is also the co-editor of the handbook of nanoscopy. According to Google Scholar citations he has more than 15000 citations. He has been promotor of 35 PhD Theses and holds 115 international  patents. Since 1989 Dirk Van Dyck is member(consultant) of the IUCR committee on electron crystallography. In 2002 Dirk Van Dyck received the Francqui Chair from the University of Leuven for his scientific work in electron microsocopy and X-ray microtomography. From 2004 to 2008 as Vice-Rector for research of the University of Antwerp he has been board member of nearly all the Flemish funding agencies for fundamental and applied research. In 2008 he received the honorary doctorate from the university of Lima (Peru). Dirk Van Dyck is honorary member of the Royal microscopical society of England. Dirk Van Dyck is board member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science and Arts of Belgium. Since 2016 Dirk Van Dyck is deputy chair of the advisory council for innovation and entrepreurschip of the Flemish government.

Marin van Heel is a Physicist graduated from the Universities of Delft and Groningen, with a strong focus on theoretical optics. He did his PhD in Biophysics in Groningen, where he developed new research methods in structural analysis of biomolecules by electron microscopy, which today is known as “Cryo-EM”. He was the founder and first Director of the Imperial College Center for Structural Biology (IC-CSB; 1997), and founder and Director of the Imperial College Center for Biomolecular Electron Microscopy (CBEM, 1997). He organized the first “Brazil School for Single Particle Cryo-EM” which has occurred 8 times since 2005. He is a co-PI of the FAPESP Project for the new LNNano / CNPEM center in Cryo-EM. Marin van Heel received the Ernst Ruska Award for Electron Microscopy in 1985, and the 2017 Wiley Award for Biomedical Sciences for “Pioneering Developments in Electron Microscopy”, (with Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson). He was one of the main developers of the single particle Cryo-EM electron microscopy techniques, in use around the world today. Most of these new techniques were implemented in the context of the IMAGIC software package (1981). An important achievement was the introduction of techniques of “Multivariate Statistical Analysis” (MSA) in the methodology of analysis of isolated particles in (1980/1981). In “multi-reference” (1986), these techniques allowed the study of randomly oriented particles. The studies extended to the third dimension with the introduction of the 3D reconstruction “Exact Filter” (1986). Finding the orientations of particles or class averages became possible with the introduction of “Projection Matching” (1984), and especially the “Angular Reconstitution” approach (1987). The first 3D reconstructions from random orientations appeared in 1994/1995. One of his research focuses has always been the study of biological complexes in specific functional states. The first such study was performed on a ribosomal complex in a specific functional state (E.coli 70S in complex with EF-Tu, Nature, 1997). One of the most spectacular results was the reconstruction of multiple 3D structures of the 70S ribosome in complex with RF3 (Nature, 2004). These works were pioneers in Cryo-EM of isolated particles.

Dr. Fraser graduated from the University of Birmingham (UK) with the degrees of B.Sc. (1970) and Ph.D. (1972). He was appointed to the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1973 (Assistant, Associate and Full Professor), before moving in 1989 to the Ohio State University (OSU) as Ohio Regents Eminent Scholar and Professor. He was appointed as a Senior Research Scientist at the United Technologies Research Center from 1979-1980. He has also been a Senior von Humboldt Researcher at the University of Göttingen, a Senior Visitor at the University of Cambridge, a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, and he spent a sabbatical leave at the Max-Planck Institut für Werkstoffwissenschaften in Stuttgart. He has been an Honorary Professor of Materials and Technology at the University of Birmingham since 1988. In 2014, he was recognized as an Honorary Professor at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He is an Adjunct Professor at Monash University in Australia and at the University of North Texas. At present, he serves as Director of the Center for the Accelerated Maturation of Materials (CAMM) at OSU. He has been a member of the National Materials Advisory Board and the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He has consulted for a number of national laboratories and several industrial companies. He is a Fellow of TMS, ASM, IOM³ (UK), MSA and MAS. He has published over 450 papers in scholarly journals and given over 380 invited presentations. He has graduated over 52 doctoral students and 36 students graduating with the degree of M.S.