Frank Vollmer is Professor in Biophysics at the University of Exeter, UK. He obtained his Ph.D. in ‘Physics & Biology’ from the Rockefeller University in NYC, USA, in 2004. He was Rowland Fellow at Harvard University from 2004 to 2009, Scholar-in-Residence at the Wyss Institute at Harvard in 2010, Group Leader (untenured Associate Professor) at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany from 2011–2016 and Instructor in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School where he directed a satellite laboratory from 2011– 2016. Since 2016 he is Professor in Biophysics at the School of Physics, University of Exeter, UK. He received the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2017 and in 2021 the Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics (IoP). Since 2021 he is Fellow of the IoP.

Dr. Felix Ritort is full professor in condensed matter physics at the University of Barcelona since 2007. He got his PhD in statistical physics in 1991 under the supervision of G. Parisi and M. Rubi. Until 2002 he made contributions to the field of disordered systems and nonequilibrium physics. Afterward, he started an experimental career in single-molecule biophysics to investigate energy processes at the molecular level. Ritort’s group is recognized worldwide as a leader in applying the finest theoretical methods to extract quantitative information about thermodynamics and kinetics of molecular interactions. A recurring theme in his research is the understanding of how molecular systems embedded in noisy thermal environments outperform the efficiency of macroscopic systems: being small has advantages that nature has exploited. He has been awarded several prizes: ICREA Academia Award 2008, 2013, 2018; Bruker Prize 2013 from Spanish Biophysical Society. He chairs the Division of Physics for Life Sciences of the European Physical Society.