2011

A common feature of sailboards, aircraft and electronic circuits is that they all contain resins used for their lightness, strength and resistance. However, once cured, these resins can no longer be reshaped. Only certain inorganic compounds, including glass, offered
this possibility until now. Combining such properties in a single material seemed impossible until a team led by Ludwik Leibler, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire “Matière Molle et Chimie” (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech), developed a new class of compounds capable of this remarkable feat.

The NIH Bench to Bedside Pioneer Award recipient is Prof. Claude Boccara of Institut Langevin at Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles ESPCI in Paris, where Professor Boccara has been one of the most inspiring scientists. Since 1982 at ESPCI, Professor Boccara has contributed to the advance of optical sciences as Director of Laboratoire d’optique, then Dean of Research with Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (Physics Nobel Laureate) and Jacques Prost. His pioneering work on understanding the physics of small objects has led to extremely sophisticated technologies in microscopy and spectroscopy.

Exactly a century ago, in April 1911, Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity — the property of certain materials to conduct electricity with zero electrical resistance, and which is capable of causing certain objects to levitate. Superconductivity has been the subject of intensive research at ESPCI ParisTech for decades. To celebrate the centenary of the discovery, several events have been organized at the School, with a range of films, exhibitions, and creative activities. Some are factual and others are more fanciful. Here’s a review of the initiatives and a small selection of links.

ESPCI ParisTech researchers publish on average one scientific article a day. We plan to discuss a number of key papers with their authors, through interviews to provide background on their work and the implications of their research. The first interview is with Serge Birman, the director of the Neurobiology Laboratory. Keywords are neurosciences, Parkinson’s disease, and genetics. Here he discusses a study on the behavioral consequences of dopamine deficiency in the Drosophila central nervous system.