Georg Fantner

EPFL Switzerland

Georg E. Fantner received his MS degree from the University of Technology Graz in 2003, and his PhD degree from UC Santa Barbara in 2006 (advisor: Paul K. Hansma). During his masters and PhD, he developed a number of high performance AFM instruments and applied them to the study of the molecular origin of bone fracture toughness. After a Postdoc in the biomolecular materials lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Advisor: Angela M. Belcher), he joined the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne as assistant professor in 2010. Now, as associate professor, he leads the laboratory for bio- and nano-instrumentation in the institute for bioengineering. His research, which has been funded by the European Research Council with an ERC starting grant and an ERC consolidator grant, focusses on the development of new technologies to measure and manipulate nanoscale structures in general, and the development of atomic force microscopy instrumentation in particular. He applies these instruments to answer questions in a variety of fields ranging from materials science and nanotechnology to biology and life science. His interdisciplinary work has been published in many high impact journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Cell biology, Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, Nano Letters, and Science, as well as featured in a number of popular science- and general-interest magazines. He serves as scanning probe microscopy editor for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CambridgeCore), and as editorial board member for Scientific Reports. His recent work focusses on the development of time resolved scanning probe microscopy imaging, encompassing new modes for high-speed AFM imaging of molecular processes, as well as long-term time lapse imaging of cellular processes using AFM and scanning ion conductance microscopy. Prof. Fantner hold several patents in the field of nanotechnology and is the co-founder of two nanotechnology companies. Recently he has become active in the field of open hardware, where he explores new avenues to foster free academic exchange of knowledge, particularly for the development of highly sophisticated custom instruments. He serves as the president of the EPFL open science strategic committee and the ETH-domain open research data steering committee.