Michael received his PhD in biochemistry and protein crystallography at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Hamburg, Germany, and at the Charitè Berlin in 1992. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Charitè, he joined the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland, as research assistant. End of 1995, he continued his career in industrial research at F. Hoffmann - La Roche as a lab head for X-ray crystallography. Since 2001 he has been Vice Director for Structure Research at Roche Basel and extended his responsibility with the appointment to the head of Discovery Technologies in 2008. In this function, he is responsible for technologies to support small molecule drug discovery including compound depository, assay development and screening, stem cell research, protein generation as well as analytics. The main research interest is to facilitate early small molecule drug discovery from target assessment & validation to hit & lead identification and optimization methods in various therapeutic areas including metabolic disease and neuroscience. He is lecturer in protein crystallography and pharmacy, author of more than 70 articles and patents and professor in structural biology at the University of Basel.

Michael received his PhD in biochemistry and protein crystallography at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Hamburg, Germany, and at the Charitè Berlin in 1992. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Charitè, he joined the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland, as research assistant. End of 1995, he continued his career in industrial research at F. Hoffmann - La Roche as a lab head for X-ray crystallography. Since 2001 he has been Vice Director for Structure Research at Roche Basel and extended his responsibility with the appointment to the head of Discovery Technologies in 2008. In this function, he is responsible for technologies to support small molecule drug discovery including compound depository, assay development and screening, stem cell research, protein generation as well as analytics. The main research interest is to facilitate early small molecule drug discovery from target assessment & validation to hit & lead identification and optimization methods in various therapeutic areas including metabolic disease and neuroscience. He is lecturer in protein crystallography and pharmacy, author of more than 70 articles and patents and professor in structural biology at the University of Basel.

Geoff undertook a degree in biological and biochemical sciences at the University of Salford starting in 1988. As part of his undergraduate studies Geoff undertook a year in industry and joined the Protein Function team of ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1990. This work involved mechanistic studies on the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase, leading to the discovery of a potent inhibitor related to Iressa (trademark of AstraZeneca). Following graduation in 1992, he rejoined ICI as a permanent member of the Protein Function Team. ICI Pharmaceuticals subsequently became Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, which merged with Astra to form AstraZeneca. During the last 21 years Geoff has applied the techniques associated with mechanistic enzymology and biophysics to the study of structure-function relationships on numerous drug targets and associated ligands, including several successful drug discovery projects, such as Iressa, Crestor and Caprelsa (trademarks of AstraZeneca). He currently holds the position of Principal Scientist and Associate Director in Biophysics within the Discovery Sciences Department at AstraZeneca, Alderley Park. He leads a team of 8 scientists whose work involves the identification and characterisation of hit and lead compounds. His work interests include a range of biophysical techniques (including ITC, DSC, SPR), as well as mechanistic enzymology approaches to characterise the mechanism, kinetics and thermodynamics of protein-ligand interactions for exploitation in drug design.