AXA Group

Professor Itzhak Gilboa, holder of the AXA-HEC Chair for Decision Science

The HEC Business School and the AXA Research Fund linked up to create a permanent Chair for Decision Science. Endowed with 1 million euros, this permanent chair will be held by the Israeli researcher Professor Itzhak Gilboa.

This chair will be devoted to sponsor individual research, workshops and conferences, bringing together researchers from various disciplines. It will thus help HEC strongly reinforce its research capacity in decision making and integrate the latest research developments into its highly recognized leadership training curriculum.

Press kit (pdf)

Press Release (pdf)

What is a good decision ?, Itzhak Gilboa, Magazine Echo #2

Professor Abdul Barakat

The École Polytechnique and the AXA Research Fund linked up to create a permanent Chair for Cardiovascular Cellular Engineering (CCE) endowed with 3 millions euros and officially launched on June 14th 2010. This chair will be held by Professor Abdul Barakat, researcher at the Polytechnique's Hydrodynamics Laboratory (LadHyX), former Professor at the University of California, Davis. The major interest of this chair will be to build a bridge between mechanics and biology to formulate new approaches and thus fight against cardiovascular diseases, which remain the leading cause of mortality in the world.
« Heart disease and stroke are the two leading causes of death in Europe today. These diseases are caused by atherosclerosis, or thickening of the arterial walls which leads to arterial blockage by lipid-rich plaques.

In addition to genetic and lifestyle factors, there is a mechanical element related to arterial blood flow which is critical to the development of atherosclerosis. This is the focus of our cellular engineering approach which will enhance our understanding of the disease as well as lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies which will contribute to extending life expectancy.» Abdul Barakat

By endowing the École Polytechnique to create this permanent chair, the AXA Research Fund wanted to support an ambitious and cutting edge programme. Indeed the chair will for the first time study atherosclerosis through a transdisciplinary approach combining biology and engineering. It also aims to develop a new
generation of engineers sufficiently versed in biology to formulate original approaches to these diseases. This partnership expresses our wish both to encourage innovative science and to help institutions attract the best talent to reinforce their research and training capacity at the highest level.

Press kit (pdf)

Press Release (pdf)

Abdul Barakat interview, Magazine Echo #2

L'Académie des sciences

Six young biologists are invited by the French Académie des sciences to exposed their work published in 2009-2010 in top worldwide publications.

The AXA Research Fund is happy to grant 2000 euros to each project holder.

Press release

Program

AXA Research Fund Events page