Speaker Biographies

Preclinical Models for Cancer Immunotherapy and Combinations

Martin Aichinger, Ph.D., Laboratory Head, Pharmacology and Translational Research Oncology, Boehringer Ingelheim

Martin obtained his PhD in immunology from the University of Vienna. He trained in the lab of Ludger Klein, where he has generated and analyzed numerous mouse models focusing on antigen presentation pathways involved in the induction of T cell tolerance. After this, he joined the lab of Johannes Zuber where his work was focused on genetic screens aimed at the functional interrogation of T cell responses in the context of antitumor immunity using RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 technology. He currently holds a position as laboratory head in Pharmacology and Translational Research Oncology at Boehringer Ingelheim.

Sara Brett, Ph.D., Director Translational Sciences , GSK

Sara Brett earned her doctorate in Immunology at University of London and has extensive experience in Infectious Disease Immunology, Immune-Inflammation and Tumor Immunology in academia and industry. She has led translational research programs for Biopharms, Vaccines and Adoptive T cell therapies over the last 20 years at Glaxo Smith Kline and has authored several publications. More recently she has played a key role in the Immuno-Oncology and Combinations department, developing a patient selection platform to provide an integrated understanding of human ex vivo, and in vitro systems to aid tumor selection, patient stratification, and rationale for combination approaches for Immune-oncology assets.

Andreas Brink, Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Basel, F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Andreas Brink works as a Principal Scientist (Drug Metabolism) and Laboratory Head (Mass Spectrometry) within Pharmaceutical Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 in the field of genetic toxicology at the Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology of the University Würzburg, under the tutorship of Prof. Werner K. Lutz and Prof. Helga Stopper. His current interest is around the various aspects of drug metabolism throughout Drug Discovery and Development, with a focus on technology, mass spectrometry based solutions. Recently, his interest expanded to Mass Spectrometry Imaging and its application in pre-clinical research on drug toxicity, efficacy, metabolism and tissue distribution.

Sara Colombetti, Ph.D., Head of Oncology Discovery Pharmacology, Pharmacology, Roche Innovation Center Zurich, pRED Oncology Discovery

I have joined the Roche Innovation Center Zurich (Switzerland) in 2009, leading the effort to develop translationally relevant preclinical models for cancer immuno-therapy. I have then overseen the Immunopharmacodynamics and Pharmacokinetics group, focusing on the understanding of the mechanism of action of candidate therapies, and supporting the design of optimal combination strategies. Since 2016 I have been leading the Department of Oncology Discovery Pharmacology, responsible for all in vivo studies run within the Roche Innovation Center Zurich, focusing on Cancer Immunotherapy approaches.

Didier Decaudin, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Institute Curie

D. Decaudin, MD, PhD, HDR, is Oncologist at the Curie Institute since 1997, and the head of the laboratory of preclinical investigation (LIP) that belongs to the Translational Research Department of the Institute. He has a strong background in pre-clinical cancer research and managing project with pharmaceutical companies. He also has a strong background in establishment and characterization of new models of patient-derived xenografts (PDXs), as well as in the design of pre-clinical studies of new drugs. In particular, he has developed and characterized various panels of human cancer PDXs that constitute relevant tools for pharmacological assessment. In collaboration with immunologist researchers, he currently develops humanized mouse models.

Maria Jose Oliva Martin, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Preclinical Cell Biology, Immunocore

Dr. María José Oliva Martin is a Senior Scientist in the Preclinical Cell Biology Group at Immunocore Ltd. After graduating in Pharmacy at the University of Seville, she completed an MPhil in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Cambridge. She conducted her PhD between the University of Seville, the University of Cambridge and the Karolinska Institute, with a focus on the role of caspases in monocyte activation and its potential in the treatment of inflammatory response syndromes. She first came across CRISPR during her postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford, where she knocked out a differentiation related protein in stem cells. At Immunocore, she has continued in the field of immunotherapy, where she is currently working across different programmes applying CRISPR to specificity testing.

Danilo Maddalo, Ph.D., Lab Head, ONC Pharmacology, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Novartis Pharma AG

Danilo Maddalo obtained his PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Karlsruhe (Germany). He thereafter joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) as research fellow where he generated a CRISPR-induced mouse model of oncogenic chromosomal rearrangements. He finally moved to Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) where he currently leads a laboratory focusing on pharmacology and generation of preclinical models.

Thomas Metz, Ph.D., Head of Business Operations, Charles River

Thomas joined Oncotest, which became part of Charles River in 2015, after having worked in Boehringer Ingelheim's oncology program. He studied molecular and cell biology in Europe, and studied the cooperation of retrovirus-encoded nuclear oncogenes in avian erythroleukemia with Thomas Graf at the EU Molecular Biology Lab in Germany to obtain his PhD. He spent 2 years with Jerry Adams at The Hall Institute in Australia, working on mouse leukemia induced by retrovirus-encoded oncogenes and loss of TP53.

Jürgen Moll, Director, Pharmacology and Translational Research, Oncology, Boehringer-Ingelheim

Jürgen Moll, PhD holds currently the position of a Director in Pharmacology and Translational Research of Boehringer-Ingelheim RCV GmbH & Co KG in Vienna. Before this appointment he held different positions in pharmaceutical industry of increasing responsibilities at Pharmacia, Pfizer and Nerviano Medical Sciences. He contributed to the preclinical development of several anticancer drugs, which are currently in clinical development and is (co-)author of numerous scientific papers and patents or patent applications. He studied Microbiology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany and holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Christian Münz, Ph.D., Co-Director of the Institute of Experimental Immunology, University of Zürich

Christian Münz has been trained in immunology at the German Cancer Research Institute, the University of Tübingen, Germany, and the Rockefeller University in New York, USA. He became Assistant Professor and Head of Laboratory at the Rockefeller University in 2003. In 2008 he was recruited as Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Institute of Experimental Immunology to the University of Zürich, Switzerland, and became Full Professor in 2015. Since 2010 he is also Visiting Professor at the Imperial College in London, UK. In 2006 he received the Burroughs Welcome Fund Investigators in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award for his studies on antigen processing via macroautophagy, and in 2012 the Sobek Award for his studies on the association of Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infection with multiple sclerosis (MS). He is an expert in EBV specific immune control and autophagy, and has published more than 175 peer reviewed papers and review articles on these topics.

Mark Paris, Ph.D., Associate Director, Translational Applications, Mitra Biotech

Mark is the technical lead for Mitra’s biopharma marketing effort and works with clients to craft custom solutions for their drug development needs. He spent 16 years in commercial antibody discovery and clinical development focusing on immuno-oncology. He has >12 years of experience running core molecular and immunohistochemistry labs. He is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University with a Ph.D. in Genetics.

Jonathan Pol, Ph.D., Postdoctural Researcher, Kroemer lab, Cordeliers Research Center, INSERM

Jonathan Pol obtained his PhD in medical virology in 2008 from the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris (FRANCE) after 4 years of research on the pathogenesis of the hepatitis B virus in an INSERM / Pasteur Institute unit. In 2009, Jonathan joined Brian Lichty’s team for 5 years in the McMaster Immunology Research Centre in CANADA. His work was dedicated to the development of innovative cancer treatments involving oncolytic viruses. Mainly, he has developed and evaluated in mice and macaques the toxicity and efficacy of a novel therapeutic approach which employs an oncolytic virus named Maraba as a vaccine platform in a heterologous prime-boost immunization setting. This strategy is currently being investigated in phase I/II clinical trials.Since 2014, Jonathan is senior postdoctoral fellow in Guido Kroemer’s group at the Cordeliers Research Center in Paris (FRANCE). His work has demonstrated the benefit of some metabolic modulators called caloric restriction mimetics or CRMs, to cancer chemotherapy. His findings have recently been published in Cancer Cell. He will be presenting the latest data associated with this research project at the 2nd annual WPC Europe.

Anita Seshire, Ph.D., Head of Laboratory, Oncology; Cellular Pharmacology, Merck Biopharma R&D

Biomolecular engineer by training, graduated in pharmacy, expert in cancer stem cells, started with leukemic stem cells research funded by a José Carreras fellowship and now 8 years with Merck Biopharma in cancer stem cells and oncology/ immune-oncology research.

3D Cellular Models

Veronique Barban, Ph.D., Director, Virology, Research and Non-Clinical Safety, Sanofi Pasteur

I got a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Virology from the University of Luminy (Marseille, France) in 1987, and I integrated Institut Merieux, the former name of Sanofi Pasteur, in 1988 as Virology Research scientist. Since then, I have worked in conception and characterization of several live-attenuated or recombinant, sub-unit vaccine candidates (Hepatitis A and C, HIV recombinant canarypox, CMV recombinant gB, HSV, etc.). My expertise is however mainly in Flaviviruses and I have contributed for the last 15 years to conception and development of the tetravalent live-attenuated Dengue vaccine, CYD-TDV, now licensed as Denvaxia. I am currently Virology Director in the Research Department of Sanofi Pasteur France.

Catarina Brito, Ph.D., Head, Advanced Cell Models Lab, Animal Cell Technology Unit, Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET) and Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (ITQB NOVA)

Catarina Brito has been the head of the Advanced Cell Models Laboratory, within the Animal Cell Technology Unit of iBET and ITQB-NOVA (Portugal) since 2014. Her research is focused on development of advanced cell models to study deregulation of cellular microenvironment in disease progression and its impact on therapeutic response. Her main research targets are Cancer and Central Nervous System diseases. She holds a Biochemistry degree and obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology with the New University of Lisbon. After a postdoc on human Stem Cell bioprocessing, Catarina was appointed Senior Project Manager of academic and industrial collaborations at iBET, developing preclinical cell models and bioassays.

Kambez Hajipouran Benam, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado, School of Medicine

Dr. Benam earned his D.Phil. in pulmonary immunology and infectious diseases from Oxford University where he developed model systems to study influenza infections; his team engaged in high-level understanding and preparation against 2009 influenza pandemic. He then joined Prof. Donald Ingber’s team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where he led the development of the ‘Small Airway-on-a-Chip’ and ‘Breathing-Smoking Human Lung Chip’ technologies. At Wyss, he applied these preclinical microengineered systems to discover and validate novel therapeutic targets, and identify prognostic/diagnostic biomarkers of lung diseases. Dr. Benam is now Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of Colorado, School of Medicine.

Neil Carragher, Ph.D., Professor & Principal Investigator, Drug Discovery, Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Neil Carragher graduated from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK in 1992 with a BSc Honours degree in the subject of “Cell and Immunobiology”. He then took up a position within industry at the Yamanouchi Research Institute (now Astellas Pharma), Oxford, England, UK where he also gained his Ph.D. He then held consecutive postdoctoral positions within the Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA and at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. In 2004 Neil returned to the pharmaceutical industry as Principal Scientist with the Advanced Science and Technology Laboratory at AstraZeneca where he pioneered early multiparametric high-content phenotypic screening approaches. In 2010 he once again made the career switch from industry to academia and is currently Professor of Drug Discovery at the University of Edinburgh. Primary research interests include advancing High-content analysis, phenotypic screening, Reverse Phase Protein Array technology, drug combinations and cancer drug discovery.

Ilídio J. Correia, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidade da Beira Interior

Ilídio J. Correia graduated in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences of the Universidade de Lisboa, and has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He obtained his habilitation in Biomedicine at Universidade da Beira Interior. Currently, he is Associate Professor with habilitation and Director of the Master degree in Biomedical Sciences. So far, 9 Ph.D. degrees and more than 40 MSc degrees were concluded under his supervision/co-supervision. He is author/co-author of 85 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals. His research interests are focused on four main topics: a) Design, production and characterization of micro and nanodevices for drug delivery; b) Design, production and characterization of new scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration; c) Production and characterization of new skin substitutes to improve the wound healing mechanism; and d) 3D cell culture models for drug screening purposes.

Mordechai (Motti) Deutsch, Ph.D., Director, The Biophysical Interdisciplinary Schottenstein Center for the Research and Technology of the Cellome; Professor, Physics Department, Bar Ilan University

Prof. Mordechai Deutsch is a member of the Physics Department at Bar Ilan University. He formulated the vision of the Biophysical Interdisciplinary Jerome Schottenstein Center (JSC) for the Research and Technology of the Cellome, established it and serves as its Director. He has, as well, established and chaired the Israel Cellome Network. Prof. Deutsch's field of expertise are: molecular physics, biophysics, medical physics, electromagnetism, geometric and physical optics, methods in spectroscopy, fluorescence, biotechnology, micro optics, microfluidics, micro fabrication, light microscopy, advanced optical imaging and signal analysis, microlithography, and miniaturization of laboratory techniques. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, and grants worth well over several million dollars from industrial, governmental and institutional sources. He has lectured worldwide, published 95 scientific articles, and has history of holding 59 issued and pending patents in the U.S., Japan, Europe and Israel. Research overview: definition, research and performance of accurate fluorescence measurement and related derivatives (fluorescence polarization, life time, FRET, diffusion) measurements in general, and those derived from biological cells in particular; Theory, experimental and practice of probe-free measurements of fluctuations of image gray values information entropy, occurring within transmitted light cell image. Development of numerous nouveau biophysical parameters based on spatial, spectral and temporal analysis of label-free (transmitted light, auto fluorescence and electrochemical measurements) and fluorescence-based images of single cells. Design and production of numerous micro-structure platforms which enable performance of multi-parametric (high content) measurement, in an individual cell resolution, while in a population. Within these platforms, identity of the investigated cells, even those which are non-adherent and non-tethered, is secured during long-term kinetic measurement, while undergoing medium exchange, treatment, measurement and finally, analysis and biophysical interpretation of results. Development of a spheroid-based assay approach (technology, methodology and readout). Design and fabrication of micro-structures for spheroid preparation, retention and screening, using optical imaging methods, as well as their adaptation for applications in biological research and medicine.

Noushin Dianat, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratoire Colloïdes et Matériaux Divisés, ESPCI Paris

Having graduated from a Biotherapy master program focalized on cell, gene and tissue therapy, at Université Paris Est, Noushin Dianat started her Ph.D. in Université Paris-Sud in 2010 and worked on in vitro liver metabolic disease modelling with patient-specific iPSCs and their differentiation into hepatocytes. During her thesis, she could also establish for the first time a guided protocol for differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into biliary epithelial cells, cholangiocytes. Afterwards, she was interested in tissue engineering and establishment of a high-throughput technology for fabrication of miniaturized liver 3D spheroids. In 2014, she joined LCMD lab at ESPCI Paris as postdoctoral fellow on a collaborative project with Sanofi. Since then she is working with her team on elaboration of this novel technology named “BioPearl”.

Francesco Paolo Fiorentino, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Università degli Studi di Sassari

Francesco obtained his Ph.D. in cancer biology at the University of Palermo (Italy). He spent three years at Temple University, Philadelphia (U.S.), training in lung cancer cell biology and epigenetics in the group of Antonio Giordano, and afterwards he was appointed as postdoc at the Italian Society for Studies in Reproductive Medicine, Bologna (Italy), where he spent two years working on DNA methylation of human oocytes. After four more years as postdoc at the Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine in Barcelona (Spain) in the group of Jun Yokota, focusing on small cell lung cancer cell biology, he went back to Italy and co-founded Kitos Biotech, a CRO providing cell-based assay services for anticancer drug discovery. Francesco also obtained a postdoctoral fellowship by the Umberto Veronesi Foundation to persue his studies on small cell lung cancer cell biology, that he currently carries out at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari (Italy). Francesco is author of 9 peer reviewed publications and reviewer for Oncogene, Journal of Cellular Physiology and Cytotechnology.

Giorgia Imparato, Ph.D., Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Center for Advanced Biomaterials for Healthcare (IIT@CRIB)

I received my Ph.D. in Materials and Structures Engineering at the University of Napoli "Federico II” in February 2009. Up to 2011 I worked as a Post Doc at Interdepartmental Research Center of Biomaterials (CRIB) at University of Naples Federico II, where I was involved in the FP6 EU projects “Dermagenesis: bio-engineering of leather: structure design, biosynthesis – Towards zero emission production” and in the FIRB Project TissueNet. From 2011 to date I have been Senior Post Doc at the Center for Advanced Biomaterials for Health Care at Italian Institute of Technology in Napoli, where together with my team put on the organotypic tissue lab. We patented an innovative model of human skin equivalents, able to replicate relevant biological phenomena such as skin ageing, skin photo damage and spontaneous morphogenesis of follicular structures. In the 2013 I was PI of the Interdepartmental/Interdisciplinary Projects, funded by IIT named "Interconnecting artificial and living systems for advanced prosthetics" that brought to publication on high-impacted journal.

Samuel Jackson, Ph.D., Programme Manager, Efficacy, Disease Models and Safety Pharmacology, National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs)

Dr. Jackson was awarded a Ph.D. in Neurobiology in 2004 for work studying the role of the cannabinoid system in neurodegeneration related to multiple sclerosis. During postdoctoral positions at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, UCL and QMUL, he developed and employed animal and in vitro models of demyelinating disease to probe therapeutic approaches to remyelination and neuroprotection. Following 3 years at Eli Lilly working on the neurobiology and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Jackson left the lab to apply his knowledge of animal and alternative modeling at the NC3Rs. He is currently managing a program of work to enable the development and uptake of human tissue based models, microphysiological systems and other alternative methods to diverse research areas, including cancer and safety pharmacology.

Meriem Lamghari, Ph.D., Researcher, Institute of Biomedical Engineering/Institute for Research and Innovation in Heath (INEB/i3S); Affiliated Professor, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar

Maria José Oliveira, Ph.D., Assistant Researcher, Tumour and Microenvironment Interactions Group Leader, INEB/i3S, Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, University of Porto

MJ Oliveira graduated in Biology by the Faculty of Sciences-UPorto in 1996 and completed her Ph.D. degree in Health and Medical Sciences at Ghent University Hospital (Belgium) in 2004. During her Ph.D. and Post Doc (at IPATIMUP) research she focused on the role of bacteria, present at the tumor microenvironment, on cancer invasion. In 2007 she initiated at INEB (December 2007) a new line of research aimed at understanding the role of macrophages and of Extracellular Matrix components on gastric/colorectal cancer invasion, dissecting the underlying molecular mechanisms. Her group at i3S is currently dedicated to establishing cancer organotypic models using human decellularized matrices as scaffolds. MJ Oliveira has 59 accepted publications in international peer- reviewed journals and received some international prizes as recognition of her work.

Carlos Ortiz de Solórzano, Ph.D., Professor and Senior Scientist, Solid Tumors and Biomarkers, Center for Applied Medical Research, University of Navarra

I am MSEng (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) in Telecommunication Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow (1997), and later Staff Scientist (2000) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the University of California, before becoming Senior Scientist at the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) of the University of Navarra (2004), in Pamplona, where I am the head of the Imaging Platform and the Cancer Imaging Laboratories. Since 2103 I am Full Professor of Signal Processing in the School of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Navarra. My research activities deal with the development of image processing tools and their use in biomedical applications, to improve the detection and understanding of the etiology of cancer. This includes processing both microscopy cellular images and also non-invasively obtained images of animal models of the disease. To this end, I have used competitive funds granted by public funding sources in the United States, the European Union and Spain. The results of my research have been published in more than 60 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, most of them belonging to the top quartile of their category, and in numerous conference proceedings.

Heinz Ruffner, Ph.D., Senior Investigator II, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Heinz Ruffner studied Molecular Biology at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology in 1994, working in the lab of Charles Weissmann on IFN gene regulation. In 1995, Heinz joined the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute in San Diego, CA, as a postdoctoral fellow, working in the lab of Inder Verma on the characterization of BRCA1. In 2000, Heinz moved to Cellzome in Heidelberg, Germany, as a group leader in cell biology. In 2008, he joined the Developmental Molecular Pathways (DMP) department at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) in Basel as a Senior Investigator I. In that role, he became group and team leader for projects aiming at regenerative medicine indications. Heinz became Senior Investigator II in 2013. Current research areas in the Chemical Biology and Therapeutics (CBT) department at NIBR include tissue stem cell biology and tissue/organ regeneration.

Stina Simonsson, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Institute of Biomedicine, Department of Clinical Chemistry and Transfusion Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital

Jean Viallet, Ph.D., Founder, CEO, INOVOTION

Prof. Jean Viallet, PhD, founder/CEO of INOVOTION (2015). Led the invention of a new in vivo technique for oncology efficacy/toxicity evaluation. Published over 30 publications in international biotechnology/cancer reviews. Diploma in executive management at HEC Paris (2016). Leads INOVOTION and supervises its research, commercial, and scientific partnerships.

Optimizing Leads and Predicting Drug Toxicity

Alexander Amberg, Ph.D., Computational Toxicologist, R&D Preclinical Safety, Sanofi

Alexander Amberg performed his doctoral studies at the department of Toxicology and Pharmacology of the University Wuerzburg and obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemical Toxicology in 2000. In 2001 he joined the early & exploratory safety group of Sanofi and is in this position since, responsible for in silico/computational toxicology analysis globally at Sanofi. Since 2007 he is registered as “European Registered Toxicologist (ERT)” after getting his examination of “Fachtoxikologe DGPT” of the German Society of Toxicology. His major research interests are development of new in silico prediction models for different toxicity endpoints and data management of in-house data in combination with public available toxicity data, to support drug development in research and development. For this he is also member in different internal expert advisory groups as well as external initiatives, like the IMI eTOX consortium (for toxicity data sharing and development of new expert systems for in silico toxicity prediction), the IMI SafeSciMET education program, GTI (genotoxic impurity)/ICH M7 task force and others.

Miguel Andrade, Ph.D., Professor, Bioinformatics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and Adjunct Director, Institute of Molecular Biology

Miguel Andrade received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1994. He trained at the post-doctoral level at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and Cambridge with Chris Sander and Peer Bork. His post-doctoral studies involved the development and application of computational methods for the analysis of gene and protein function and structure. From 2003 to 2007, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine of the University of Ottawa and Scientist and Head of the Bioinformatics Group of the Ottawa Health Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada, where he was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2006. In 2007 Miguel started the Computational Biology and Data Mining group, first at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin and since September 2014 at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz. The group focuses on the development and application of computational methods that are used to research the molecular and genetic components of human disease. Since April 2014, Miguel is professor of bioinformatics at the Faculty of Biology of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and adjunct director of the Institute of Molecular Biology.

Davide D'Amico, Ph.D., CEO, Management Board, ZeClinics

Dr. Davide D’Amico is an experienced Medical Biotechnologist (MSc, University of Bologna - Italy) and business executive in life science. He started his career as a pre-doctoral researcher in the University of Florida (USA) and followed as PhD student in the Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona – Spain), in the field of neuroscience. Since 2013 Davide is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at ZeClinics, where he is responsible of the guide and management of the company vision, strategy and future plan.

Berengere Dumotier, Ph.D., Secondary Pharmacology Expert, Safety Pharmacology, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research

Bérengère Dumotier completed her PhD in the Cardiology Hospital in Lille, France. She was hired by Novartis in 1999. Berengere gives expert statements to project teams with regard to cardiac safety issues within the Safety Pharmacology group. She is a member of the Preclinical Secondary Pharmacology senior team. She provides guidance for risk assessment/mitigation efforts of drug discovery projects in collaboration with the preclinical safety scientists as well as development, regulatory and clinical colleagues.

Christoph Funk, Ph.D., Head Mechanistic ADME, Roche Innovation Center Basel, F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Christoph Funk completed studies in Biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland with a PhD. After a post doctoral fellowship at Washington State University in the he started in 1994 as Drug Metabolism lab head in Non-Clinical Drug Development at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. Besides the metabolic charac¬teri¬za¬tion of many new drug molecules, research was focused on the setup of in vitro drug-transport assays and their characterization aiming at understanding the relevant steps involved in drug absorption, distribution and elimination. Today Dr. Funk is responsible for a section with roughly 40 co-workers within Global Pharmaceutical Sciences focusing on mechanisms involved in drug metabolism, distribution and elimination, bringing different disciplines from drug metabolism, drug transport, pharmacokinetics and drug safety together. The over-arching aim is to understand the key ADMET mechanisms of potential new drugs and thereby predict their behaviour and liabilities in man.

Christopher Goldring, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, MRC Centre for Drug Safety Science, University of Liverpool, U.K.

Chris Goldring has more than twenty years of experience of molecular bioanalysis, working with cell culture and in vivo models. He leads the molecular and cellular toxicology group within the MRC Centre for Drug Safety Science (CDSS), a leading UK centre based at the University of Liverpool, with a critical mass of scientists studying mechanisms of adverse reactions to drugs, and which is the coordinator of the Mechanism-based Improved Prediction of Drug-Induced Liver Injury (MIP-DILI) IMI programme. He plays a leading role in the new IMI project TransQST, which will develop quantitative systems toxicology models to improve our understanding of adverse drug reactions. He is also leading the liver project in the UK Regenerative Medicine Safety platform, developing innovative methods for the assessment of the safety of stem cells and regenerative therapies, including cell labelling using nanoparticles and cell tracking. He has current MRC, IMI, and North-West Cancer research fund support. He is programme director of the Pharmacology degree programme at Liverpool, and he runs Masters teaching programmes on Innovative methods of in vitro safety assessment and Stem Cells in the IMI Safescimet training programme.

James J. Hickman, Ph.D., Founding Director, NanoScience Technology Center and Professor, Nanoscience Technology, Chemistry, Biomolecular Science, Material Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Central Florida

James J. Hickman is the Founding Director of the NanoScience Technology Center and a Professor of Nanoscience Technology, Chemistry, Biomolecular Science, Material Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Previously, he held the position of the Hunter Endowed Chair in the Bioengineering Department at Clemson University. Dr. Hickman has a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Chemistry, as well as BS and MS from Penn State University in Chemistry. For the past twenty-five years, he has been studying the interaction of biological species with modified surfaces, first in industry and in the latter years in academia. While in industry he established one of the first bioelectronics labs in the country that focused on cell-based sensors and their integration with electronic devices. He has extensive experience in surface modification and surface analysis for biological and neuroscience applications, and the integration of these systems with MEMS devices and components. He is interested in creating hybrid systems for biosensor and biological computation applications and the creation of functional in vitro systems for human body-on-a-chip applications. He has worked at NSF and DARPA in the area of biological computation. He is also the founder and current Chief Scientist of a biotechnology company, Hesperos, that is focusing on cell-based systems for drug discovery and toxicity. He has 112 publications and 18 book chapters, in addition to 26 patents.

Jordi Mestres, Ph.D., Head, Systems Pharmacology Group, IMIM-UPF Joint Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics, and Associate Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Spain

Jordi Mestres holds a PhD in Computational Chemistry from the University of Girona. After a post-doctoral stay at Pharmacia & Upjohn in Kalamazoo (Michigan, USA), in 1997 he joined the Molecular Design & Informatics department at N.V. Organon in Oss (The Netherlands) and in 2000 he was appointed Head of Computational Medicinal Chemistry at Organon Laboratories in Newhouse (Scotland, UK). In 2003, he took on his current position as Head of Systems Pharmacology (formerly Chemogenomics) at the IMIM Hospital del Mar Research Institute in Barcelona. He is also Associate Professor at the University Pompeu Fabra. In 2006, he founded Chemotargets as a spin-off company of his group. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Corwin Hansch Award from the QSAR and Modelling Society. His research interests focus on the use and development of computational approaches to integrate chemical, biological, and phenotypic spaces and their application to systems chemical biology and drug discovery. He is the author of over 130 publications, 9 patents among them.

Bruno Stieger, Ph.D., Group Leader, Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, University Hospital, Zurich

Bruno Stieger is a senior research associate at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland. He was trained as a biochemist at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich Switzerland and holds a PhD in biochemistry from the same institution. The Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University Hospital Zurich has cloned the major bile salt and drug transport systems of hepatocytes. It has identified the founding members of the SLC10A1 and of the SLCO gene families including the sodium-dependent uptake system NTCP (Slc10a1), several organic anion transporting polypeptides OATPs (SLCO), which are important drug transporters and the bile salt export pump BSEP (ABCB11). The department has established the importance of BSEP in drug-induced cholestasis. The current research interests of the department are related to i) understand the role of the interaction of drugs with canalicular export systems in the development of acquired liver disease and ii) regulation of the expression and activity of drug and bile salts transporters.

Ard C.H. Teisman, Ph.D., Scientific Director, Global Safety Pharmacology, Discovery Sciences, Janssen Research & Development

Ard C.H. Teisman obtained a degree in Biology (1992) at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) with majors in CNS and Pharmaco-chemistry. After finishing his degree he held an interim position as a junior researcher in Asthma Research (dept. of Molecular Pharmacology; University Center for Pharmacy, University of Groningen). In 1998 Ard obtained his PhD at the dept. of Clinical Pharmacology (Faculty of Medicine, University of Groningen) where he explored potential new therapies for the treatment of Heart Failure. Following this he held a Postdoc position in cardio-renal pharmacology. Then in 2001, Ard joined as a research scientist the Center of Excellence for Cardiovascular Safety Research of Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (Beerse, Belgium), a Johnson & Johnson company. Ard assumed roles of increasing responsibility towards his current role as deputy head of global safety pharmacology and group leader of Discovery De-Risking. In his current position he supports many discovery projects across Janssen R&D, guiding the scientists, from a Safety point of view, in their compound selection decisions. In addition, he is actively involved in general safety related study designs, analysis and interpretation, basic research projects and preclinical to clinical translational exercises. Finally, he gives lectures on safety pharmacology both internally and externally (for university students) and is the chair person for the Janssen campus Ethics Committee for Animal Research.

Drug Discovery Chemistry

José Ignacio Andrés, Ph.D., Scientific Director & Fellow, Discovery Sciences, Lead Discovery Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development

José Ignacio Andrés obtained his doctorate in Organic Chemistry in 1985 at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. That year he joined Janssen Research & Development to start up the Medicinal Chemistry Department in Toledo (Spain), and he currently holds the position of Scientific Director & Fellow. In 2001, he was appointed Medicinal Chemistry Associate for CNS - Psychiatry Discovery Research, and in 2007 he was appointed Head of the newly created Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Ligand Discovery Team in Toledo. His current research focus is on Chemical Biology. During his scientific career he has been directly involved in a large number of discovery programs, several of which have successfully brought compounds into the clinic, including four new PET radioligands. He is co-author of around 60 peer-reviewed publications and co-inventor of around 50 patent applications.

Paul Brennan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Medicinal Chemistry, University of Oxford and Principal Investigator, Target Discovery Institute, Structural Genomics Consortium

Paul Brennan received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley under the mentorship of Paul Bartlett working on synthetic methodology for combinatorial chemistry and synthesizing inhibitors for new anti-bacterial targets. Following three years of post-doctoral research with Steve Ley in Cambridge University on the total synthesis of rapamycin, Paul returned to California to take a position at Amgen. His research was focussed on designing and synthesizing kinase inhibitors for oncology. After two years at Amgen, Paul accepted a position as medicinal chemistry design lead at Pfizer in Sandwich, UK. Over the next six years Paul designed and synthesized compounds for most major drug classes: GPCR’s, CNS-targets, ion-channels and metabolic enzymes. In 2011 Paul joined the Structural Genomics Consortium as a principal investigator to discover chemical probes for epigenetic proteins. He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the SGC and head of chemistry of the Alzheimer’s Research UK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute at the University of Oxford.

Guy Breitenbucher, Ph.D., Senior Director, Discovery Chemistry, Dart NeuroScience

J. Guy Breitenbucher has been active in drug discovery research for 22 years. He is currently Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Dart Neuroscience in San Diego California. The department at Dart focuses on development of small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of memory and cognitive disorders. Prior to joining Dart, Dr. Breitenbucher had roles as head of Combinatorial Chemistry, and later head of the Pain Medicinal Chemistry at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development in San Diego. At J&J, Dr. Breitenbucher led a drug discovery research department which placed multiple compounds in the clinic for the treatment of various pain etiologies. Prior to work at J&J Dr. Breitenbucher was a senior scientist at Axys Pharmaceuticals in San Francisco where he worked in the combinatorial chemistry department responsible for design and synthesis of large compound libraries. Dr. Breitenbucher was also a scientist in the medicinal chemistry department at Bristol-Myers-Squibb in Wallingford CT. working in the area of CNS drug discovery. Dr. Breitenbucher received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in chemistry at California State University at Long Beach, and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at University of California at Riverside. Dr. Breitenbucher also did postdoctoral studies in natural product synthesis at the University of California Berkeley. During his medicinal chemistry career Dr. Breitenbucher has been part of discovery research teams that have put a total of 12 molecules into clinical development. He is co-author/co-inventor on over 90 scientific papers and patent applications.

Werngard Czechtizky, Head of Chemistry, R&D LG-CR, Sanofi

Werngard Czechtizky obtained her PhD at ETH Zürich. After a postdoctoral stay at Harvard, she worked on GPCR lead finding in a global Chemical Biology platform at Aventis. In Sanofi-Aventis, she moved into a parallel synthesis team working in the fields of CNS and CV diseases in 2005. In 2010, she became leader of a medicinal chemistry section focussed on Diabetes programs. In 2014, she was appointed Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Sanofi R&D Germany.

Matthew J. Daniels, MA, Ph.D., MRCP, Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellow, Principal Investigator, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and BHF Oxbridge Centre of Regenerative Medicine, Oxford University

Matthew Daniels is an academic cardiologist currently supported by the Wellcome Trust to develop iPS models of inherited human heart disease and better ways to study them at the University of Oxford, UK. He completed an Astra-Zeneca funded MB-PhD program at the University of Cambridge in 2005, during which time he developed an interest in live cell imaging and fluorescent protein technology, which enabled him to make the first observation of failure of cytokinesis to explain aneuploidy in inherited human cancer (Daniels et al, Science, 2004, 306, 876-9). He then went on to train in clinical cardiology developing an internationally recognised practice in structural intervention and inherited cardiac conditions. His academic activity is currently focused on development and application of genetically encoded tools to study excitable cells such as the heart and pancreas.

Malin Lemurell, Ph.D., Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, Innovative Medicines and Early Development, AstraZeneca

Malin Lemurell studied chemistry at Gothenburg University and achieved her PhD in 1999 on bio-catalyzed asymmetric oxidation under supervision of Prof. Allenmark. After post-doctoral studies on metal catalyzed asymmetric oxidations at The Scripps Research Institute with Prof. Barry Sharpless, she continued her career in medicinal chemistry as scientist and later leader at AstraZeneca, Sweden. Malin is the inventor of 13 patents and 3 compounds where she worked on the chemistry program are currently in clinical development. Today she is the Head of Medicinal Chemistry in the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, Innovative Medicines and Early Development, at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg. Her current interests include drug design, innovations in the interface of chemistry and biology including new chemical modalities and targeted drug delivery, as well as development of drug hunters of the future.

Eric Marsault, Ph.D., Professor, Laboratoire de Chimie Médicinale, Institut de Pharmacologie de Sherbrooke

After an undergraduate training at Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI) and École Supérieure de Chimie Organique et Minérale (Paris), Eric Marsault obtained his Ph.D. at McGill University (Montreal, Qc, Canada) in 1996 with Pr George Just, then worked as a visiting scientist for Sanofi (Milan, Italy) prior to joining Université de Sherbrooke (Qc, Canada) as a postdoctoral fellow with Pr Pierre Deslongchamps. In 2000, he joined Néokimia (which later became Tranzyme Pharma) where he worked for 8 years as a researcher, group leader then director of medicinal chemistry. Throughout this time, the Tranzyme team matured then developed the first high throughput parallel platform to produce macrocyclic peptidomimetics, then optimized 2 clinical Ph.2 and Ph.3 candidates. In 2009, he joined Université de Sherbrooke as an Associate Professor and became Full Professor in 2015. His research focuses on the validation of emerging targets and the development of academic drug discovery, with a particular focus on peptidomimetics and macrocycles on targets such as GPCRs and transmembrane serine proteases for cardiovascular diseases, pain and infectious diseases. He is co-author of > 45 publications and co-inventor of > 35 patents. Since 2013 he is also chairman of the Institut de Pharmacologie de Sherbrooke, which focuses on the validation of emerging targets and the optimization of new drug candidates and diagnostic applications.

Neil Press, Ph.D., FRSC, Director, Global Discovery Chemistry, Novartis

Neil Press studied undergraduate chemistry at Imperial College, London, where he stayed on to complete his PhD research in ‘macrocyclic stereocontrol’ in the labs of Prof Don Craig. He subsequently undertook postdoctoral research with Professor Phil Magnus at the University of Texas in Austin. Here he worked on a total synthesis of calicheamicinone, a potent anti-tumour compound with a particularly elegant mode of action. In 1995 Neil joined the central research laboratories of Ciba-Geigy, Macclesfield, and subsequently moved to the Novartis Horsham research centre after the merger with Sandoz. Neil has worked as a medicinal chemist for 22 years, having led multiple projects from early phase through to clinical compounds. He is currently a Director in Novartis global discovery chemistry and is based in Basel where he leads a medicinal chemistry team. Neil’s current interests are in finding new, inventive ways to enable and expedite the target and drug discovery process through chemistry, computation and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Hasane Ratni, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Basel, F. Hoffmann-La Roche

Hasane Ratni is currently a Senior Principal Scientist, Medicinal Chemistry, at F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., pRED, Pharma Research & Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Basel, Switzerland. He received his PhD at the University of Geneva and did a post-doc at Tokyo before joining F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd in 2001. His research has mainly been devoted to the areas of neuroscience (for example neurokinin receptors, or V1a receptor antagonist now in human clinical trials, phase II, for autism). In 2005, he participated in a secondment within the Roche group at Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, Gotemba Japan, in the field of renal disease. He was the chemistry discovery project leader of the SMN program aiming for a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, now undergoing clinical trials in patients. His current focus is on gamma secretase modulator for Alzheimer disease. He is an author or co-author of more than 100 patents and publications. In 2014, he received the Roche Leo Sternbach Award for Innovation in Chemistry and in 2016 the Gold medal at the Roche Patent Inventor’s recognition event.

Vicky Steadman, Ph.D., Director of Drug Discovery, Cypralis

Vicky’s journey with macrocycles began with a PhD and post-doc in total synthesis of macrocyclic natural products with Profs Ian Paterson and Amos B. Smith, III. She held senior scientific roles at Merck and GlaxoSmithKline which included two macrocycle projects. Upon joining Selcia in 2008, she was rapidly promoted from Senior Scientist and is currently Director, Discovery with specific responsibilities at Cypralis. She has led multiple projects for customers including the structural elucidation of macrocyclic peptide Teixobactin, published in Nature, and an initiated an ambitious structural simplification of a macrocyclic natural project. She is named on over 25 papers and patents.

Jenny Viklund, Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry at Sprint Bioscience

Jenny Viklund is a member of the medicinal chemistry team at Sprint Bioscience for the past 5 years. Her main responsibilities include, chemistry project leader, enabling and driving drug design and data analysis in general, development of the Sprint Bioscience Fragment Screening Library and updating the computational chemistry toolbox and workflows. Her areas of special interest are; fragment-based drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, structure-based design and library design. Prior to joining Sprint Bioscience, she worked for ten years as Computational Chemist at AstraZeneca, Sweden, contributing to two CNS programs and producing candidates that are now in clinical trials. She has a Master of Science in Molecular Biotechnology, Uppsala.