Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD, President Stony Brooks University, USA

A Seattle native, Dr. Stanley has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biological sciences (Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of Chicago. After earning his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1980, he completed his resident-physician training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He went to Washington University in St. Louis in 1989 for a fellowship in infectious diseases in the School of Medicine, eventually becoming a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology in recognition of the collaborative nature of his research. A highly distinguished biomedical researcher, Dr. Stanley was one of the nation's highest recipients of support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research focusing on enhanced defense against emerging infectious diseases. He is an expert in the biological mechanisms that cells employ when responding to infectious agents such as parasites, bacteria and viruses — a process commonly called the inflammatory response. In 2006 Dr. Stanley was appointed Vice Chancellor for Research at Washington University, serving in that position until he was appointed President of Stony Brook University.

Prof. Alain Beretz, President University of Strasbourg, France

Prof. Beretz graduated with a degree in pharmacology and has been a member of the Pharmacology Faculty of the University of Strasbourg since 1990. His research deals with thrombotic disorders, vascular pharmacology and chronic vascular diseases. He was Vice-President in charge of technology transfer, and then President of the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. He was elected in January 2009 as the first President of the University of Strasbourg, the product from an innovative merger of the three previous universities. In 2010 the University of Strasbourg received a €375 million endowment for the improvement of campus buildings. It is also one of the first three winners of the “Excellence Initiative”, a series of competitive calls for projects yielding a total €1.2bn grant from the French government’s “Operation Campus” competition. In 2013, Prof. Alain Beretz was re-elected President of the University of Strasbourg and appointed Chairman of LERU.