Dr Jean-Paul Schwitzguébel is a plant and microbial biochemist. After his studies at the University of Geneva (M.S. and Ph.D. degrees), he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, and at the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), mostly on the metabolism and bioenergetics of higher plants and microorganisms. In 1984 he moved to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL) as a permanent senior scientist and group leader in the Laboratory for Environmental Biotechnology. Most of his work is now devoted to the research and development in the field of plant biotechnology for the removal of organic pollutants from wastewater and contaminated sites. He is also the initiator and coordinator of the European COST Action 837 (Web site: http://lbewww.epfl.ch/COST837) on phytoremediation.

Email address: jean-paul.schwitzguebel@epfl.ch