Prof. Stéphane Lucas is a physicist by training who initiated the study of ionizing radiations on human health at UNamur 15 years ago. Together with Prof. Carine Michiels from URBC, he set up a radiobiology research group, which is recognized worldwide and brought UNamur in the forefront of cancer treatment by particle therapy. He is the director of the LARN lab and his main interests are nanotechnology, radiobiology, Monte-Carlo simulations and surface treatment. With Prof. K. Van Doninck, he is one of the stakeholder of the RISE project.

Professor Anne-Catherine Heuskin holds a professor position at UNamur since January 2017.  Previously, she held various post-doctoral positions, among which one year at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CA, USA, where she worked on simulations of brest cancer induced by spatial radiation.  In 2015, she took part in the NASA space radiation summer school at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY, USA.  Her research interests in radiobiology comprise irradiation of in vitro cells with charged particles, biological assays, theoretical modeling of cell response to radiation, interactions of charged particles with matter and dosimetry calculations.

Dr. Boris Hespeels is the scientific manager of the RISE project at UNamur. He has been working for10 years on bdelloids rotifers.  His research focuses on the characterization of the DNA repair system among bdelloids rotifers in response to desiccation or ionizing radiation. Passionate by the space conquest, he is now focusing on the comprehension of how living organisms, and in particular bdelloid rotifers, can be affected by space environment (including high dose of radiation and microgravity). Since 2017, he is managing the project full time and coordinates the scientific research related to RISE. He is the link between the science team, the ESA and industry (like Kayser Italia) in order to develop and support the success of RISE.

Dr. Victoria Moris is passionate about the molecular mechanisms behind the adaptation of species to stressful environments (starvation, desiccation, radiation). After studying starvation resistance of sacoglossan sea slugs for a year at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig (Bonn, Germany), she studied during her PhD the genes involved in the biosynthetic pathway of cuticular hydrocarbons, used in insects both in communication and against desiccation (Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany). In 2019, she started working on the RISE project using her strong skills in molecular biology and bioinformatics. Notably, she performs transcriptomic analyses of rotifers exposed to various radiations. She also started to analyze the gene expression of bdelloid rotifers sent to ISS during Rob1, and will analyze the data collected during Rob2 experiment.

Dr. Sébastien Penninckx is a chemist by training who specialized in radiobiology. During his PhD, he contributed to the improvement of radiotherapy treatments by developing nanotechnology-based solutions able to modify cellular response to various type of ionizing radiation. Scientific collaborator at NASA Ames Research Center (GeneLab, California, USA) since 2017, he is identifying radio-sensitivity/resistance biomarkers that will be used for astronaut selection in the frame of further space exploration missions. In addition, he is visiting lecturer at UNamur and manages projects related to the development of medical devices for radiobiology and diagnosis applications. It provides scientific support in the framework of the RISE project.

Ir. Richard Coos is an electromechanics engineer. He is involved in the experiments technical R&D. His main task is the development of a space simulator to characterize the rotifer resistance prior to their launch in space. To do this, he acquired knowledge in low earth orbit environment in order to simulate the solar radiation, space vacuum and temperature. He is also improving the particle accelerator hardware to irradiate desiccated and non-desiccated rotifers to simulate cosmic radiations.

Mr. Jeremy Berthe received his master degree in biology of organisms and ecology in 2018 at UNamur/UCLouvain. He is passionate about the various aspects of biology, from ecosystem to DNA. Becoming an astrobiologist and studying potential live shapes on other planets is his long-time dream. RISE project that he joined in 2020, gave him a good opportunity to get closer to his dream. He is growing cultures of different species of rotifers, managing the laboratory, preparing samples for radiation experiments (RX, protons, vacuum and UVs), and using different techniques to evaluate fertility, survival and the DNA damages of treated samples. He also prepared bdelloid rotifers which were sent to ISS for the Rob2 experiment.

Ms. Lucie Bruneau holds a a Bachelor in Chemistry and Biotechnology (Haute Ecole Provinciale Hainaut Condorcet). She is laboratory technician. She has been working full time on the RISE project since 2017. She is involved in fundamental research on bdelloids by characterizing the extreme resistance of these animals against various stress including high radiation and deep space vacuum. She is also in charge of the technical tests required for the validation of experiments that will take place on board the ISS.

Ms. Margot Cardinal is a technician, graduated with a bachelor in medical biology (HELHa-Fleurus). She has experience in clinical bacteriology as well as the analysis and treatment of labile blood products for transfusion. She is part of the LARN’s team to work on R&D of medical diagnostic devices. She joined the RISE project in 2019 to complete the sciences team for sample preparation, assembly and conditioning tasks for experiments.