The curriculum vitae of Marc Baaden

Curriculum Vitae

Marc BAADEN Born on 23 mai 1972 in Strasbourg (France), married, two children Dual nationality French and German

Current status Senior principal investigator position as Research Director at CNRS (DR1) Head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Biochemistry (LBT, UPR 9080)
Professional goal Understanding biological and chemical processes at the atomic level through theoretical methods based on physical chemistry with close links to experiments and using innovative technologies such as virtual reality.
Education In Germany: - School leaving examination (‘Abitur’, 1991), Valedictorian, Bilingual curriculum (German/French). - Degree ('Diplom-Vorprüfung') in chemistry (1994), University of Karlsruhe. In France: - Degree in chemical engineering at EHICS (1997), Strasbourg, Tri-lingual curriculum (French, English, German) in chemistry, specialty: material sciences. Valedictorian. 6 months stay at Toshiba, Japan. - Diploma thesis in physical chemistry (1997), Univ Louis Pasteur, specialty: spectroscopic methods. - European PhD Thesis in theoretical chemistry (2000), ULP Strasbourg / ETH Zurich, summa cum laude. - French Habilitation diploma (‘Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches’) : 10 Juin 2010.
Distinctions - awards 1997: EHICS Excellence award, Strasbourg, France 2001: Thesis award by the Conseil Scientifique de l'ULP, Strasbourg, France 2003: Young researcher award by the Groupe de Graphisme et Modélisation Moléculaire 2010: Young researcher award by the French Chemical Society's Physical Chemistry Division 2013: HP award for the best presentation at the "Journée Aristote Visualisation Collaborative » now Bonus for Scientific Excellence (2010-2017; 2020-2024)
Research and career path 1997 to 2000 : MNESR PhD fellowship awardee; teaching duties, then ATER position at ULP Strasbourg 2001 to 2003 : EC Marie Curie Research Fellow at Oxford University, Pr. Sansom’s group 2003 to 2012 : Chargé de Recherche CNRS at LBT ; 1st class since 2007 ; Team leader since 2007 Since 2012 : CNRS Research director ; 1st class since 2018 2015 to 2016: Deputy head of the LBT laboratory (Head Ph. Derreumaux) Since 7/’16 : Head of the LBT laboratory (currently 30 staff, 14 of them permanent)
Consulting services for ca. 10 industry partners worldwide including Air Liquide, UCB BioPharma, Servier labs and other large corporations. Since 2020 this activity is managed by my own company ‘Baaden Scientific’.
Skills * Biophysics and biological mechanisms, in particular membrane proteins * Structural bioinformatics, molecular dynamics simulations and high performance computing * Scientific visualization, virtual reality and interactive simulations
Major scientific contributions on the ion-permeating structure, gating transition and anesthetic binding of an important ion channel have expanded the boundaries of the field. Interdisciplinary approaches bridging the gap between theoretical chemistry, biophysics and computer science led to novel interactive molecular graphics developments. I introduced the idea that game engines are a useful platform to develop scientific prototypes.
Publications (>130) - International peer-reviewed journals : 102 (including Nature, PNAS, JACS, Angewandte..) - Peer-reviewed conference proceedings : 18 (total of 5964 citations, with 45 citations/article; H = 42) - Book chapters and writings : 12
Talks, conferences, seminars (>261) - Author of 79 invited conferences and seminars (38 of which were at international conferences) - Author or co-author of 60 oral communications at conferences (19 international and 41 national) - Author or co-author of 122 poster communications
International collaborations (resulting in joint publications) USA, Canada, Germany, China, Austria, Australia, Italy, Norway, Czech Republic, UK, Uruguay, India, Netherlands
Supervision of young scientists and teaching activities * Research supervision and mentoring : - Supervision or co-supervision of 11 PhD theses (9 defended) + 12 other PhD students (> 3 months) - 15 M1-level trainees, 11 M2-level and 27 other internships - 19 post-doctoral fellows (1 still in the lab, 18 working in research or industry) * Involvement in teaching : - more than a total of 811 hours in TD equivalence ; currently about 20 per year - design of innovative teaching projects: RIGOLE interdisciplinary week, MOOC origins of life
Acquisition of grants and funding (selected examples from academia and industry in the last 5 years) * Managing partner of the Merlin project, ANR CE45, 2021 to 2025, 609€ over 4 years. * Managing partner of the SuperET project, ANR CE29, 2021 to 2025, 481€ over 4 years. * Managing partner of the Enzymor project, ANR CE05, 2017 to 2020, 496k€ over 4 years. * Scientific leader of an industrial research project with UCB Biopharma, Belgium, 2016 to 2021, 199k€. * Scientific leader of an industrial project with Servier laboratories, France, 2016 to 2018, 182k€ over 2 years.
Obtained funding throughout the career: Σ 9.853 k€. Projects funded by the National Research Agency (10 Thematic projects, 3 ANR open projects), involvement in the design of projects at national-level LABEX DYNAMO, EQUIPEX CACSICE and at EU-level COFUND. Industrial projects with Air Liquide, UCB Biopharma, Servier labs.
Valuation of software developments: to be distributed to the scientific community, with a dozen achievements as MdDriver, BioSpring, Epock, Vitamins and UnityMol, downloaded more than 18,000 times. UnityMol received a Community Choice award from Sourceforge in 2022 and received industrial support for its development.
Management activities: community responsibilities and main professional expertise activities * At laboratory level: - head of the laboratory since 2016 (deputy head since 2015) - team leader since 2007 (team size variable from 2 to 8 non-permanent members) - member of the Laboratory Council for 19 years * At university level: - member of the Scientific Council of the UFR Sciences du Vivant (2017 and 2018) - EAD team leader for the ED 388 doctoral school * At national level: - theoretical chemistry, data and computation officer at the CNRS Chemistry institute - member of the National Committee for Scientific Research (section 13, 2008-2012) - member of HCERES committees (2016 to 2022) - president of the CT7 computing time committee of GENCI 2014 to 2020 - president of the learned society GGMM (2013 to 2015); member of its executive board - elected member of the GDR3333 (liaison to supercomputing centres) since 2018 - board member of the learned society « Groupe d’Etude des Membranes» since 2011 * International: - member of the Scientific Advisory board of ScalaLife, then BioExcel since 2012 - representative of France to the PRACE Access Committee since 2016; Vice-chair of the committee since 2019; Now Vice-Chair of the EuroHPC SuperPanel - member of numerous scientific conference committees; notably 2x Faraday Discussion - expert for research funding agencies (>10 countries) - reviewer for several international journals (ca. 25 articles / year)

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