Toward a science of intrinsic purposiveness: shaping development

Giuseppe Longo is a Research Director CNRS (Emeritus) at the Cavaillès interdisciplinary center of Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris (ENS). Former Research Director in the Dept. of Mathematics, then of Computer Science, at ENS (1990-2012), he has been Associate Professor of Mathematical Logic and, then, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pisa (1981-1990). He spent three years in the USA (Berkeley, M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon) as researcher and visiting professor, spent several months visiting Oxford and Utrecht, and has been adjunct professor, School of Medicine, Tufts U., Boston (2013 - 2020). Founder and editor-in-chief (1990-2015) of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, Camdridge U.P., Giuseppe is (co-)author of more than 100 papers and three books. He recently extended his research interests and works on the epistemology of mathematics and theoretical biology.

Maël Montévil is chargé de recherche in CNRS, in République des savoirs, USR 3608, École Normale Supérieure. He is a theoretical biologist working at the crossroad of experimental biology, mathematics, and philosophy. He developed the framework of constraints closure and theorized biological historicity and its implications for theory and modelization with which to study current issues such as endocrine disruptors and, more generally, anthropocene's disruptions and our response to them. Montévil is the author of more than twenty-five peer-reviewed articles and a monograph with Giuseppe Longo: Perspectives on organisms.

Matteo Mossio is Chargé de recherche (tenured) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), full member of the IHPST (https://ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/), Paris, France. Matteo Mossio works mainly in philosophical and theoretical issues related to biological autonomy. He published several articles in international philosophical and scientific journals as well as chapters in collective volumes. In 2015, he published (together with Alvaro Moreno) a full monograph on the theory of autonomy (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789401798365). Matteo Mossio obtained funding for and took part in numerous research projects in France and abroad. He attended or organised over 90 national and international seminars, workshops, symposia and summer schools, and served as a reviewer for many international philosophical and scientific journals. He supervised several PhD and Master students. He regularly teaches in the Philosophy Program of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon – Sorbonne.

CARLOS SONNENSCHEIN is a Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and an International Fellow at the Centre Cavaillès, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. He was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies-at-Nantes, France. For over five decades, Dr. Sonnenschein’s research has centered on a) the control of cell proliferation by estrogens and androgens, b) the impact of endocrine disruptors on organogenesis and the reproductive function and c) carcinogenesis during early development and adult life and, specifically, on the role of stroma/epithelial interactions on rat and breast carcinogenesis. In 1999, Drs Sonnenschein and Dr. Ana M Soto co-authored a book entitled THE SOCIETY OF CELLS (Bios-Springer-Verlag) in which they critically evaluated the fields of control of cell proliferation and carcinogenesis. They concluded that a) the default state of all cells is proliferation, and that b) sporadic cancers (over 95% of clinical cases) are anchored at the tissue level of biological organization. These are the core premises of their theory of carcinogenesis and metastases, i.e., the tissue organization field theory (TOFT).