Five Personalities and Quality of Life

Alain Carpentier

The cardiologist and surgeon Alain Carpentier did the media tour earlier this year for his third successful implant an artificial heart. A standalone room that reproduces the heart and mime operation. But the feat, imagine Alain Carpentier and created in association with the CARMAT company, has yet to prove itself.

This is a crazy project that took him 25 years. Stubborn Research of years before seeing an artificial heart beating in the body of a man. It was in 2013.

But here, a few months after implantation, the first patient dies. Then the second and there are only a few days, the third and last human transplant. But this one has died because of a respiratory stop by kidney failure unrelated to the artificial heart.

From the beginning of his career, Professor Alain Carpentier, is interested in the heart bioprostheses. Valves or arteries manufactured from animal tissues.

Its largest and most ambitious achievement remains the artificial heart. CARMAT company with Professor Alain Carpentier succeeds his bet: to live for people with heart failure.

A fourth transplant must take place in the coming months before large scale trials. And CARMAT, which is publicly traded, the market can be huge. The company estimates that over 20 million people suffer from heart failure in Europe and the United States. She intends to market its artificial heart 150,000 euros.

At 82, despite the three deaths and the Alain Carpentier cardiologist does not want to question the feasibility of the project.

Emmanuelle Charpentier

The researcher Emmanuelle Charpentier is the only French at the 2015 prize list of Time magazine's 100 personalities who count in the world. The key to its success? A medical discovery that is already in the process of revolutionizing the forefront of medicine ...

Emmanuelle Charpentier geneticist and biologist. She was unknown there are only four years, but today it is covered with scientific awards. It does not, however, knew he existed as much. His discovery? the CRISPR a acronomyme which designates nothing less than the Swiss Army knife of genetics, a tool to isolate and neutralize a gene.

Initially it is a Japanese who discovers a genetic mechanism that enables bacteria to defend against viruses. Emmanuelle Charpentier associated with a American researcher Jennifer Doudna understands that bacteria use this mechanism as a pair of scissors to isolate the intruder. The two scientists shall develop this tool and set up a very simple method to do any work on DNA.

Grace CRISPR, it now becomes possible to elucidate the role of a gene, but also to correct its defects in the case of genetic diseases for example and some cancers. The progress in order for the medicine then, but also the fear of making genetic manipulation much easier. Unesco has also requested a moratorium this year to assess the scope of these discoveries.

Emmanuelle Charpentier now works at the head of a research center in Germany, unaffordable and courted by the scientific world.

Paul Duan

Paul Duan is a young french entrepreneur who has made a place in Silicon Valley. At 22, he has already set up his own business, Bayes Impact, whose core profession is to invent algorithms to improve the American public services. For a year she worked in particular to improve hospital services or to fight against unemployment. For Paul Duan, a good use of technology could change the world ... better.

He is the new foal stables of well-known Silicon Valley. Paul Duan was repere a year ago by Y Combinator, an incubator for start-up, which saw born Airbnb, Reddit or Dropbox. Since then, this cherub of 22, a native of Trappes Chinese expatriate family, is determined to put the algorithms for the common good.

His mathematical genius, Paul Duan has revealed of his first invention. It was during his first job within Eventbrite, an online ticketing site. He then created an algorithm to detect and reduce fraud on the Internet. A tool used today by micro-credit organizations manage and reduce their losses was 30% and thus to lend more to disadvantaged populations.

For Paul Duan, 22, is convinced that "datas", these huge data bases, ownership of public or private institutions, should be used to good effect. The start-up he founded, Bayes Impact, so has the status of a non-profit NGO. This did not prevent a year of existence to sign contracts nice. Today she helps American hospitals has big blow algorithms, at reducing discharges of patient registries, or optimize routes for ambulances. Projects that could save thousands of lives each year and pave the way for greater digitalization of public administrative services.

Moreover, Bayes Impact also advises the US government on the issues of return to employment for veterans and payment of their allowances. If Paul Duan came home one day from the United States, he or expatriates, it would be to try to improve the Pole Emploi services. Why not an algorithm to reverse the unemployment curve?

Eric Karsenti

Eric Karsenti is the researcher who has been awarded 14 December 2015 the gold medal of the CNRS, one of the most prestigious scientific awards in France. He has behind him a brilliant career as a researcher, but we also know him for his involvement in the Tara Expeditions project.

Eric Karsenti when meeting for the first time, one first sees a man not very big, bearded, overcomes a white curly hair mass. But behind this apparent sea bass, hiding a great scientist Eric Karsenti is cellular biologist, and his career has given rise to the publication of over 2,000 scientific articles.

Recruited in 1976 by the CNRS, the researcher is seconded in 1984 to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL, in Heidelberg, Germany. For him, science moves faster if one crosses the disciplines, and in 1996 created the Department of Cell Biology and Biophysics at the EMBL.

In the 2000s, Eric Karsenti, navigation interests, dreams out to sea, in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, and he established the scientific part of the expedition Tara Oceans. In 2009, the Tara schooner sets sail for a world tour of the oceans, with the aim to understand the key role of microorganisms that live there.

Today, 35,000 samples collection by Tara between 2009 and 2013 form the largest database ever created on the microscopic marine organisms.

Eric Karsenti, 67, CNRS gold medal, now works in the identification of bodies, his colleagues from the CNRS laboratories and EMBL.

Elon Musk

It is part of men who like to put a kick in the anthill. Surrounds a real fan club, Elon Musk is yet unknown to the general public. However, it is transforming the very competitive sector of the space, and promises nothing less than to revolutionize the field of energy.

He plays his Machiavellian genius image has James Bond. But Elon Musk is an entrepreneur as only Americans know how to do. Man has excessive ambition. This is the founder of SpaceX, a company that manufactures rockets. Reliable, innovative, less expensive than the competition, SpaceX has completely destabilized the same sector pushing the Europeans to speed the Ariane 6 folder to counter this threat. The company has even been empowered by NASA to transport its astronauts.

But Elon Musk does not stop there. It simply aims to transform the world and to make it attacks the energy sector. It thus presents a whole new battery has the autonomy announced as unmatched. The principle is simple: the size of a cabinet that is installed in a home, it charges the day grace has solar panels and provides electricity for the remaining time. Understandably with such a system, each household is autonomous more necessary national network of nuclear power plants, coal power plants ...

It is still far from done, but Elon Musk likes challenges, he wants to be for example the first man to go to Mars and end his days.