From Frontiers Forum:

How can research translate to R&D? Or a whole new business venture? In a panel session at Science Unlimited 2019, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group CEO Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Life Biosciences CEO Mehmood Khan, Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell and EPFL’s Henry Markram discussed innovation, R&D and successful technology transfer.

Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group

Stefan von Holtzbrinck is CEO of the family-owned Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. He has 20 years’ experience in science communication, including 3 years as MD of Nature Publishing Group. The Holtzbrinck Publishing Group has majority holdings in Springer Nature (of which Stefan is Chairman of the Supervisory Board), Digital Science, DIE ZEIT and Macmillan, and investments in Holtzbrinck Ventures, Frontiers, AMBOSS, GSV AcceleraTE and Rethink Education fund. Stefan is a member of the Executive Committee of the Max Planck Society.

Mehmood Khan, Life Biosciences

Mehmood Khan is CEO and Board Member of Life Biosciences Inc, where he provides strategic direction and operational oversight. He was previously Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Global Research and Development at PepsiCo and President of Global R&D at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Before moving into industry, Mehmood had a distinguished medical career, including as a faculty member in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School where he served as Director of the Diabetes, Endocrine and Nutritional Trials Unit.

Bracken Darrell, Logitech

Bracken Darrell is President and CEO of Logitech, the largest Swiss consumer electronics company with CHF 3 billion in annual revenues. He is responsible for the company’s strategy for growth and profitability, for the vision for the brand as well as for the company’s operations. Logitech has been a top performer on both the Nasdaq and Swiss stock exchanges. The company value has risen by over 500 percent in the past seven years as the company has moved from PC peripherals to new categories and new brands.

Henry Markram, EPFL

Henry Markram has pioneered simulation neuroscience as a new path to understanding how the brain works. As Professor of Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), he founded the Brain Mind Institute, the Blue Brain Project and the Human Brain Project, a €1 Billion European initiative to simulate the brain. His research has shifted from experimentally reverse engineering neocortical tissue to developing a software ecosystem and algorithms to convert biological data into detailed digital reconstructions of brain tissue.

Image Credit:  Amanda Scott – Alias Studio Sydney