Francois Franceschi
François Franceschi obtained his Biology degree in 1983 from University of Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Frei Universität Berlin in 1989. Between 1991 and 2002 he was Principal Investigator of a research group focused on ribosome structure and function at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. At the Max-Planck Institute his group was a pivotal part of an international consortium, headed by Ada Yonath (2009 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner), that crystallized and solved structures of the small (T. thermophilus) and large (D. radiodurans) ribosomal subunits. In 2002 he joined Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, a product driven small molecule drug discovery and development company focused on the structure based design of new classes of antibiotics. Among Rib-X co-founders are: Tom Steitz (2009 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner), Peter Moore, William Jorgensen and Harry Noller. Currently, François is the Senior Director of Ribosome Targeting and Technology, where he leads a team focused on an assay toolkit that is essential to the rapid design and development of novel antibiotic classes active against serious drug-resistant bacterial infections.