Speaker Biographies by Company

Senior Scientist, Molecular Diagnostics
Christa Noehammer currently works as Senior Scientist at the Austrian Institute of Technology where she has been heading the Molecular Medicine research unit for several years. Holding a master degree in Microbiology and a PhD in Biochemistry she has been working in the microarray field since 1999 being involved in the design, production and data analysis of various microarray types thereby mainly focusing on minimally invasive biomarker discovery for cancer diagnostics. The last couple of years Dr. Noehammer has been very much involved in the setup of sampling - and biomarker isolation protocols as well as high throughput biomarker technologies for saliva diagnostics. This included work on saliva- and blood-derived exosomes.

R&D Group Leader, Cell Biology and Imaging – R&D
I am currently R&D group leader and project manager at ANGLE Europe, as an expert on cellular biology and imaging technology. Graduated from the "Institut National des Sciences Appliquées" of Toulouse, I have specialised in biotechnology. I have worked as senior scientist for 6 years at Gustave Roussy in Paris and gained a strong expertise in cellular biology in oncology area.

Founder & CEO
Savan Devani is the Founder and CEO of BioTrillion, a health technology company developing a digital biomarker platform called BioEngine4D for real-time drug-use detection, accelerated therapeutic development, and earlier disease detection. Savan previously spent the majority of his 15-year career as a healthcare investment banker with Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. From Analyst through Managing Director, Savan completed 40 financing and M&A deals, totaling $35 billion in deal value, with clients across the drug, diagnostic, and device spectrum. He began his career as a bioengineer at Life Technologies. Savan graduated with a BSE in Bioengineering focused in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a MSE in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

CEO, Founder & Partner
No bio available

Founder and President
BioMedical Consultant, Entrepreneur & Senior Biotech Executive with track record of success for biomedical devices. Partner with clients for value creation during all aspects of development of biomedical devices, from invention to commercialization. Co-founder of Claros Diagnostics (a technology company spun out of Harvard University) with a successful $50M exit, completion of design & development activities, CE-mark and submission to FDA of a pre-market approval (PMA) as CTO of OPKO Diagnostics. The Claros® device is a point-of-care device that allows the quantitative determination of protein by immunoassay in a droplet of fingerstick blood. Technical and regulatory oversight for the launch of the 4Kscore®, a blood test for the early detection of prostate cancer. Post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University (Prof. Whitesides), and PhD in Switzerland from the Institute of Microtechnology, University of Neuchatel (Prof. de Rooij), in collaboration with the Insel University Hospital, and CSEM (Swiss Center of Electronics and Microtechnology).

Principal Research Scientist, Health and Biosecurity
Jason Ross completed his BSc in Biochemistry and Genetics and MSc in Plant Biotechnology at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Following this, he was awarded a scholarship to undertake a doctorate in Plant Biotechnology at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. From there, he moved in 2004 to Sydney to work in human health research at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national scientific research agency - where he works to this present day. Dr Ross has research interests in epigenomics, DNA methylation biomarkers and computational biology. Presently he leads a team investigating epigenetic biomarkers for cancer and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Ross’ research has had translational impact. He is co-inventor on patents describing epigenomics technologies and colorectal cancer biomarkers. Two of the biomarkers now constitute the Colvera™ ctDNA test, a clinical colorectal cancer DNA methylation diagnostic developed in partnership with Clinical Genomics and Flinders University. Colovera™ is now available on the US market.

Professor, Radiation Oncology
Dr. Makrigiorgos is a Professor of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Medical Physics & Biophysics division at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, Harvard Medical School. He also directs the DNA technology laboratory and the radiation pre-clinical facility. His research interests include the development of novel DNA technologies for molecular diagnostics in Oncology and the identification of circulating cancer biomarkers. He is the inventor of several PCR-based techniques for molecular diagnostics, including COLD-PCR and NaME-PrO technologies. He is a Member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Chemistry and has published over 150 articles, reviews and book chapters.

Associate Professor, Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
Dr. Hays’ research is currently focused on the development of 'bench-to-bedside' solutions in the fight against the global endemic of antimicrobial resistance. In this respect Dr. Hays has been / am involved in 9 EU projects (3 as coordinator), relating to the development and evaluation of new antibiotics, new antibiotic treatment strategies, new biomarkers of infection (including the human microbiota) and new (Point-of-Care) diagnostics.

Director, Emerging Threats
Dr Cassandra Kelly-Cirino joined FIND in 2017 and is currently Director of Emerging Threats overseeing activities related to Pandemic Preparedness and Antimicrobial Resistance. She has over 20 years of experience of working in Canadian and US public health and private sector settings. Cassandra began her career at the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory working on emerging infectious diseases, including bacteria, viruses and prions. In her 10-year tenure at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Cassandra served as the Deputy Director of the Biodefense Laboratory. During this time she also completed a PhD in immunology and infectious diseases, and developed vaccine and passive immunotherapeutic candidates for anthrax infections. She engaged national and international stakeholders in the development of public health policy for infectious diseases with a focus on emergency response and preparedness, developed novel diagnostic assays for multiple pathogens, and served as a development partner for commercial companies developing novel tools to combat infectious diseases. Most recently, Cassandra served as Vice President, Infectious Diseases, with DNA Genotek. In this role Cassandra was responsible for multiple initiatives to bring simple collection and stabilization solutions to the global public health and outbreak response fields, including a tuberculosis product designed specifically for low and middle-income countries.

CEO
Miron Tokarski is the co-founder and leader of Genomtec. His responsibilities within the company involve, among others, R&D and the development of innovative diagnostic devices. A graduate of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Clinical Laboratory Sciences Unit at Wroclaw Medical University, he is a PhD candidate in the field of molecular biology as well as a laboratory diagnostician. He is also the author of a number of scientific publications and the co-author of Genomtec patents. Ambitious and young, but already an experienced scientist, he has been awarded with a number of local and international grants and prizes.

Associate Director
Felix von Stetten studied agricultural sciences and biotechnology. He completed his PhD in Microbiology in 1999 from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Thereafter, he joined in the diagnostic industry, where he was involved in the development of methods for sample preparation, real-time PCR and DNA-arrays. Subsequently, he joined the Laboratory for MEMS Applications at IMTEK, University of Freiburg, where he was involved in lab-on-a-chip-research. In 2008, he became head of the Hahn-Schickard Lab-on-a-Chip division, in 2016 head of the Assay division and associate director of the Hahn-Schickard-Institut für Mikroanalysesysteme.

Associate Professor, Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering
Dr. Kersaudy-Kerhoas is an Associate Professor in Heriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Kersaudy-Kerhoas graduated from the Institut Superieur de l’Electronique et du Numerique (Brest-Lille, France) and the Technological University of Lille (France) with an MSc in Micro and Nanotechologies in 2005 before joining Heriot-Watt University for a PhD. She was awarded a five-year Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship in 2012 (2013-2018). Her research has focused on the development of microfluidic tools for the preparation of human blood samples prior to analytical detection of biomarkers such as DNA, RNA and microRNA. She works closely with biologists and clinicians to develop applications in the field of non-invasive prenatal testing, cancer and beyond. Her interests in Manufacturing Research lie in rapid prototyping and the development of cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable manufacturing processes for polymeric microfluidic components. In 2017, she won a £1.3M UK EPSRC Healthcare Technology Challenge Award.

Head, Molecular Biology CORE
Head of Molecular Biology CORE lab and member of the research team “Melanoma: Imaging, genetics and immunology” at the IDIBAPS-Barcelona and member of International Consortiums such as Genomel and Biogenomel. His research is mostly focused on the genetics and genomics of melanoma and other cutaneous lesions such as congenital nevi. He applies conventional and novel molecular strategies such as Next-generation sequencing, RNA-seq. and analyses of cell-free DNA to elucidate the biology underlying cancer development and to translate these molecular strategies into the clinical setting. In addition to melanoma patients, he applies the cfDNA based strategies in other cancer types such as lung cancer patients. He is principal investigator of competitive grants and collaborator in international project and author of more than 70 published articles.

PhD Student
I am a molecular biologist currently pursuing a Ph.D. on the development of a novel diagnostic approach for the detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) using acoustic biosensors, at the University of Crete, Greece. I hold a bachelor in Biology and an M.Sc. in “Molecular Biology and Biomedicine”. My research interests include the development of novel diagnostics methods for clinical applications and point-of-care testing. I have received extensive multidisciplinary training and have participated in collaborations with both academic groups and industrial partners. My Ph.D. research is funded by the Bodossakis Foundation, Greece and the EU programme H2020-FETOPEN (CATCH-U-DNA).

Lecturer in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine
Jesus Rodriguez Manzano is a Lecturer in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. Dr Rodriguez Manzano obtained his PhD in Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona. After post-doctoral fellowships in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London, he moved to the Department of Infectious Disease as a non-clinical lecturer working on the development of point-of-care diagnostic technologies and novel molecular methods for low- and middle-income countries. He is the author of over 40 scientific publications with more than 1,600 citations and co-inventor of 9 patents.

Research Group Leader, Medical Devices Research Group, Nano4Health Unit, Life Sciences Department
Lorena Diéguez joined INL in 2014 as Staff Researcher and is, since May 2018, the leader of the Medical Devices research group. Her research is focused in the development of biomicrofluidic devices mainly devoted to Translational Medical Research in close collaboration with Hospitals. For that purpose, her work is devoted to the development of integrated biosensing systems and nanobioengineered diagnostics microsystems for the isolation and characterization of tumor biomarkers from body fluids, as well as the development of microfluidic organ-on-a-chip 3D models. Lorena is also very interested in translating her technology from the lab to the clinic, and she has been very active in her endeavours as entrepreneur, creating the spin-off company RUBYnanomed in the field of liquid biopsy. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics and her Masters in Optoelectronics at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2005, then completed her Masters in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the University of Barcelona (UB) in 2007 and obtained her PhD in Nanosciences in optical and electrochemical biosensors at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia and the ETH Zürich. Her postdoctoral research at the University of South Australia (UniSA) from 2010 was devoted to the study of rare cells from biological samples using microfluidics.

Faculty Scientist, Cancer Biology
Dr. Prashant Kumar received his Ph.D. in 2009 from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Department of Molecular Biology, Berlin, Germany. Following this, Dr. Kumar received postdoctoral training at the Department of Cancer Biology, University of Massachusetts (UMMS) Medical School, Worcester, USA, where he established a novel mouse model of malignant breast cancers. In June 2012, he moved to Singapore, continuing his research at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), A-STAR, in the laboratory of Prof. Jean Paul Thiery, a world-renowned authority in the area of EMT (Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition). During this period, the focus of his work took on a more translational aspect, and he was involved in the development of a novel point-of-care (POC) diagnostic platform for the detection of multiple protein bladder cancer biomarkers. He was also involved in the establishment of a culture method to assess circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from breast cancers. This new technique provides an opportunity to analyze CTC clonal heterogeneity and adapt therapeutic modalities in refractory breast cancer patients. He is a recipient of prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship awarded by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. He has worked, as a visiting scientist in Prof. Erik Thompson’s laboratory at TRI, Australia. He is a faculty scientist at the Institute of Bioinformatics, Bangalore, India where his lab is involved in the establishment of a culture method to assess circulating tumor cells (CTCs) harvested from blood samples of patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy.

Postdoc Research Fellow, Pathology, Molecular Diagnostic
Dr. De Luca has a background in molecular biology, with specific training in molecular oncology laboratory workflows concerning with solid (lung, colon, breast, melanoma, thyroid, brain) and liquid (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) tumors. Dr. De Luca has the expertise in: traditional methods used in molecular oncology laboratory and in particular DNA/RNA extraction and purification, electrophoresis, Real Time PCR, Sanger sequencing, Pyrosequencing, Mass Spectrometry (Sequenom); advanced methods as manual libraries preparation of DNA for NGS approaches with Ion Torrent S5 platform, cellular sorting (flow cytofluorometry, DepArray system) for whole genome amplification and mutational profiling of isolated cells; and liquid biopsy study in patients affected by breast, colon and lung cancer: molecular characterization of CTCs and ctDNA by NGS technologies.

Senior Researcher, Pathology, Molecular Diagnostics
No bio available

Director of Research, Biomarkers for Precision Oncology
Alain R. Thierry’s specific expertise is particularly applicable to research focusing on the study of the diagnostic capacity of circulating nucleic acids and the development of methods towards supporting personalized medicine. His team has developed an animal model to specifically quantify ctDNA from its different origins and it has demonstrated the crucial importance of detecting short ctDNA fragments to improve the high specificity and sensitivity of ctDNA analysis. This observation has enabled dominant intellectual property and the design of the IntPlex test. A.R. Thierry has coordinated the first prospective blinded multicenter study showing the first clinical validation of the plasma analysis for the detection of mutations in cancer patients, for instance KRAS and BRAF mutations from colorectal patient plasma samples. His team recently demonstrated first the clinical utility in using cfDNA analysis in mCRC patients. Aims of his research are also focusing on various aspects of the potential of ctDNA: (i),,detecting the emergence of the mutations following targeted therapy ; (ii), developing the Intplex test for the multimarker quantitative analysis of ctDNA; (iii), studying the follow up of CRC patients; (iv), the prognostic power of ctDNA and (v) the screening power of ctDNA as a universal cancer test. His team is now coordinating 10 clinical trials (2 European grants) and 3 basic research programs. He is the principal founder of DiaDx SAS (Montpellier) devoted to provide liquid biopsy solutions in oncology, and provide consulting services with ART Consulting.

Director, Molecular Diagnostics, Immunology & Clinical Chemistry, Laboratory Medicine
Dr. Gyorgy Abel is the Director of Molecular Diagnostics, Clinical Chemistry/Immunology, and Point of Care Testing at the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Beth Israel Lahey Health, in Burlington, Massachusetts. He also serves as Instructor in Pathology, Part-time, at Harvard Medical School. Gyorgy received his MD and a PhD in immunology in Hungary, completed post-doctoral fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and received board certifications in Clinical Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics. He made significant contributions to hepatitis C virus research by demonstrating the use of LDL receptor by the virus as a port of entry into hepatocytes. His professional interests include precision medicine and point of care testing. Gyorgy has held office in multiple professional organizations including the College of American Pathologists, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Currently he is President-Elect of the Academy of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. He is an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK Gyorgy authored or co-authored over 70 publications and gave over 100 talks at national and international meetings.

ssociate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Pathology and Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program
Dr. Roehrl is a physician-scientist, practicing pathologist, director of the Precision Pathology Center at MSKCC, and runs a research group focused on proteogenomics of cancer. He holds an MD from Munich and PhD from Harvard University. He is board-certified in both Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and served as faculty in Boston, Toronto, and New York.

Marketing Manager, Dx Manufacturing & OEM
Lynn Stephenson joined MilliporeSigma, then Sigma-Aldrich, in 2005 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University in Immunology. She has a broad array of experience working with regulated markets including portfolio/product management and marketing. She currently supports the global marketing program for In Vitro Diagnostics Contract Manufacturing.

Senior Scientist, Baceriology
Dr Gregory Amos joined The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in 2016 to set up and lead the microbiome section. NIBSC is a centre of the United Kingdom’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and a World Health Organization International Laboratory for Biological Standards. At NIBSC, Greg manages several research and standardisation programs which aim to globally standardise microbiome methodologies, develop diagnostic markers for early detection of disease, and create a better understanding of how microbiome therapeutics work. He is a member of various gastroenterology and microbiome working groups in the United Kingdom and is an Associate Editor of the journal Microbiome. Prior to NIBSC, Greg completed postdoctoral research investigating natural product production and microbial interactions at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California San Diego), investigating the role of microbial interactions in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at The University of Warwick and investigating the evolution of antimicrobial resistance in the environment at The University of Warwick.

Principal Scientist, Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics,
Clare Morris is a Principal scientist in the Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, UK. She has 21 years’ experience in the standardisation of infectious diseases; starting out in the area of blood borne viruses producing International Standards and CE marked external run control material for the Blood Transfusion industry, then moving in to the multi-faceted area of clinical diagnostics. Leading a small team of scientists at NIBSC, Clare has been responsible for the development of a number of international standards and reference materials for the molecular detection of infectious diseases.

Blood Biomarkers Group Leader, Advanced Therapies Division
Pia Sanzone is the NIBSC Blood Biomarkers Group Leader in the division of Advanced Therapies. at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), UK. Pia earned her PhD in Synthetic Biology from the University of Southampton (UK) in 2013 and soon after worked for a private genomic diagnostic company. Since joining NIBSC, Pia’s activities have focussed on the development of reference materials for human genomic diagnostics, with a particular focus on characterisation and development of quantitative World Health Organization (WHO) International Standards (IS) for the measurement of cancer biomarkers. Pia has been the main scientist involved in the development of the JAK2 WHO IS, KRAS codon 12 and 13 WHO IS and Cancer Genomes WHO IS and is currently working on the development of ctDNA WHO ISs. Together with the NIBSC Genomic Reference Materials group, Pia has a keen interest in reconciling cancer genomic measurement (percentage mutation vs. gene copy number vs. copies/ul, for example), methodology discordance (next-generation sequencing vs. digital PCR vs. others), and development of computational/bioinformatics approaches to resolve such questions. Pia is committed to making a positive contribution to global public health and collaborates with academic scientists, healthcare professionals, and industrial partners in order to understand and address the needs in the standardisation of human genomic diagnostics.

Chief, Immunobiology & Molecular Virology Unit, Laboratory of Virology, DIR, NIAID
Dr. Marzi received her Ph.D. in virology from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany in 2007 where she studied the glycoprotein-mediated entry of Ebola virus (EBOV) and HIV. Later that year Dr. Marzi moved to Winnipeg, Canada to join Dr. Heinz Feldmann’s group at the National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada to work in the BSL4 laboratory on filoviruses and EBOV vaccines. In 2008, Dr. Marzi moved with Dr. Feldmann to the NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT and continued her BSL4 work on vaccine development for highly pathogenic viruses using primarily the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) platform. She also studied the pathogenesis of filoviruses and developed small animal models for these pathogens. Recently, she expanded the VSV vaccine platform to other emerging pathogens like Zika virus. In 2013, Dr. Marzi was promoted to Staff Scientist, and in 2017 to Associate Scientist. Dr. Marzi was selected as a tenure-track investigator in the NIAID Laboratory of Virology in 2019. The German Society of Virology recognized Dr. Marzi with the prestigious Loeffler-Frosch Award for her research on filoviruses and vaccine development in 2019.

Global Health Programme Manager
At Nesta Challenges, Caroline is the Programme Manager for the Global Health team, working on the Longitude Prize and a range of other health-related programmes. Prior to Nesta, most recently Caroline worked as the Programme Manager for the Antimicrobial Resistance Programme at Public Health England. She has a passion for microbiology, global health policy and public health and has worked across multiple roles in scientific publishing, policy and project management. Outside of work, she enjoys singing, going to gigs, cycling and anything a bit spooky but most of all she enjoys hanging out with her cat Melvin.

Advanced Nurse Practitioner, QN, Attenborough Surgery, Bushey Medical Centre, Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group
Liz Cross is an advanced nurse practitioner in UK. In the winter of 2015/16, in a bid to improve antibiotic stewardship in her clinics, Liz piloted CRP point of care testing for the management of lower respiratory tract infections in line with the NICE guidelines. Following this pilot Liz won an NHS Innovation award which funded the 2nd stage of the project. CRP POCT was piloted in 8 (5 CRP test sites, 3 standard care) GP sites over a 3-month period during the winter of 2016/17 in the UK. Subsequently Liz won an Antibiotic Guardian award in the diagnostic category with this work in June 2017. Liz has written news articles, presented at conferences for NHS Improvement, NICE, Antibiotic Guardian, reviewed two NICE MIB diagnostic kits, conducted lectures at the Universities in UK, USA and India, presented to commissioners and local GP networks and conducted two workshops in the House of Commons for MPs and peers

Professor and Distinguished Scientist, Center for Cancer Early Detection and Research (CEDAR), Knight Cancer Institute
Michael J. Heller received his PhD in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in 1973. He was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1984 he was supervisor of the DNA Technology Group at Amoco Corporation (Standard Oil Indiana) During that time he carried out early bioengineering and recombinant DNA work on plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria for energy and chemical production, and developed some of the first fluorescent resonant energy transfer (FRET) and chemiluminescent oligonucleotide probes for DNA hybridization analysis. He also oversaw Amoco’s sponsored energy and chemical research work at Cetus Corporation, which included the cloning of thermophilic enzymes. Dr. Heller was the Director of Molecular Biology at Molecular Biosystems, Inc., from 1984 to 1987. He was a co-founder of Integrated DNA Technologies, and served as President and Chief Operating Officer from 1987 to 1989. He was a co-founder of Nanogen, and served as the Chief Technical Officer from 1993 to 2001. Nanogen carried out the successful development and commercialization of electronic DNA microarray technology for clinical diagnostic genotyping applications. Dr. Heller is a Professor (Recall/Emeritus) in the Departments of Nanoengineering and Bioengineering at the University California San Diego. He is also now a Distinguished Scientist at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Center for Cancer Early Detection and Research (CEDAR), in Portland, Oregon. He has also co-founded a company called Biological Dynamics which is developing new sample to answer cancer diagnostics technology, based on the novel dielectrophoretic (DEP) technology developed at his UCSD lab. Dr. Heller has extensive industrial experience in biotechnology, biomedical and molecular diagnostic devices and nanotechnology, with particular expertise in the areas of DNA probe diagnostics, electrokinetic lab-on-a-chip devices, DNA synthesis, FRET/fluorescent-based detection technologies and electric field assisted self-assembly of DNA nanostructures. Dr. Heller has over 100 publications and 56 issued US patents.

Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences
A/Prof. Chamindie Punyadeera is an inventor and an ambassador for women in Science, Technology Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM). She has had a hybrid research career working in industry as well as in academia. She has worked at Royal Philips Electronics in the Netherlands and has been instrumental in developing Philips Mini-care I-20 for cardiac disease detection. She has also contributed to the development of an integrated platform to detect nucleic acids (IdyllaTM) commercialised by Biocartis NV (Belgium). She is a globally acknowledged pioneer in salivary diagnostics. She is a consultant to Oasis Diagnostics®, USA and FLUIDS iQ™, Montreal, Canada. She leads a world-class saliva research laboratory in Australia, > 15 researchers focusing on developing salivary technologies to detect heart disease and the application of liquid biopsy to accelerate precision treatment in cancers. She is the convenor of the inaugural saliva conference in Australasia in 2016, which is now a national conference. A/Prof. Punyadeera has >99 publications, 5 invited book chapters, cited 3403 times with a h-index of 30. She has also produced 13 PCT applications and has licensed salivary oral cancer test to Agena Biosceinces, USA. Her team is also develops prognostic assays to identify pateints likely to develop recurrences using circulating tumour cells. She has partnered with Agena Biosciences in translating this prognostic assay into clinical practice. She has delivered key note and invited lecturers both nationally and internationally. She is a grant reviewer for both national and international funding agencies and currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Oral Oncology, associate editor BMC Genomics and a guest editor to Diagnostics and Biomolecules.

Associate Professor, Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, University of Gothenburg; Clinical Genetics & Genomics
Anders Ståhlberg, Associate Professor, is working as principal investigator at the Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, University of Gothenburg and Clinical Pathology and Genetics, Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden. He has a PhD in molecular biotechnology and has two post-doc periods working with human embryonic stem cells and tumor biology. Anders primary research interest is to understand molecular mechanisms in tumor initiation, tumor development and cancer stem cell differentiation. In addition, he is developing and implementing liquid biopsy analysis in routine clinic. The research is focused on breast cancer and sarcomas. He has developed several strategies for gene expression profiling and mutation analysis, especially at the single-cell and single-molecule level. These techniques are used to study tumor heterogeneity and cell fate mechanisms, as well as to monitor disease progression using liquid biopsies. Currently, Anders is heading a Translational Genomics Platform (https://wcmtm.gu.se/research-groups/genomics-platform) Research homepage: http://cancercenter.gu.se/research/anders-stahlberg

President & CTO
Professor Piotr Garstecki. Full Professor at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw, Poland. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Professor George M. Whiteside’s Group at Harvard University. He currently leads the Research Group of Microfluidics and Complex Fluids at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Warsaw. The group conducts research on fundamental aspects of the physics of soft matter systems and develops microfluidic tools for chemistry and biology. He co-authored almost 150 scientific publications (in the renowned scientific journals, such as: Nature, Nature Communications, Angewandte Chemie, Nature Physics) and multiple patent applications. He also co-founded Scope Fluidics S.A. that currently hosts two start-ups developing diagnostic systems: Curiosity Diagnostics and Bacteromic.

Consultant, Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Paediatrics
Dr Sanjay Patel is a paediatric infectious diseases and immunology consultant working at Southampton Children’s Hospital, UK. His main areas of interest are antimicrobial stewardship (AS) and outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT). He is the officer for stewardship and surveillance for the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC), chairs the paediatric network of the ESCMID Study Group for Antimicrobial Stewardship (ESGAP) and was member of the NICE guideline development group on Antimicrobial stewardship: systems and processes for effective antimicrobial medicine use (NG15). He chaired the national working group tasked to develop the BSAC p-OPAT good practice guidelines, which were published in October 2014 and has been involved in the joint adult/paediatric update published in 2019. His other interest is medical education; he co-leads the antimicrobial stewardship module for the ESPID on-line antibiotic management course, authored a chapter for the BSAC ebook on antimicrobial stewardship and runs paediatric infectious diseases courses in the UK and Iceland.

CEO
Dr. Hofmann has more than 20 years international commercial experience in medical diagnostics, including senior level R&D, operational and business development roles as well as 5 years of investment experience in a leading global healthcare venture capital firm. While at Molecular Vision Ltd, Dr. Hofmann has overseen the development of a disruptive point-of-care diagnostic platform technology, leading to the acquisition by Abingdon Health Ltd. He subsequently led the formation of a diagnostic reader division, ultimately resulting in multiple CE marked products. Since August 2018, Dr. Hofmann has been CEO of SouthWestSensor Ltd., a University of Southampton start-up company focused on deployable continuous biochemical sensing solutions. Oliver is a regular speaker at international tradeshows & conferences, has published >15 papers in peer reviewed journals (>500 citations) & three book chapters and is an inventor on 6 patents.

Senior Researcher, Oncology Program
Dr. García-Silva is a senior investigator within the Microenvironment and Metastasis Group at the Spanish National Centre for Cancer Research (CNIO) in Madrid,Spain. After more than fifteen years experience in cancer research, her current research is focused on the mechanisms driven by extracellular vesicles during the formation of the pre-metastatic niches and the development of exosome-based clinical applications.

Professor, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine
Dr. Anders Wolff received his MSc in Chemical Engineering from DTU in 1993 and he received his PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Delft University of Technology (Delft, The Netherlands) in Dec. 1997 and joined MIC – Department for Micro and Nanotechnology (now DTU Nanotech, DTU, Lyngby, Denmark) in Feb 1998. In 2000, he assumed the position of associated professor and leader of the Cell Handling Group (now BioLabChip group) at DTU Nanotech. In January 2019 Anders was transferred to DTU Bioengineering where he obtained a professor position in June 2019. In recent years, he has worked on various microsystems for cell analysis. This has included chip flow cytometers with integrated optics, dielectrophoresis for cell handling, sorting and sample preparation, PCR chip with integrated heaters and thermo sensor, and integrated microsystem for sample preparation and DNA amplification.

Professor, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine Section for Microbial and Chemical Ecology
Professor Winnie E. Svendsen obtained her master’s degree with honors from University College Dublin in 1992 and her PhD from Copenhagen University in 1996. She obtained a tenure track position in 2001 at the Denaish Technical University and established her own research group: Nano Bio Integrated Systems (NaBIS), at DTU Nanotech in 2006. The group moved to DTU Bioengineering in January 2019. The NaBIS group focuses on interdisciplinary research in order to solve the versatile challenges of integrating micro- and nanoscience in biological analysis. The fundamental expertise of is the development of highly sensitive micro- and nanosensors integrated within microfluidic systems for biological and environmental applications. In her lab, the performance of these sensors is optimized through a highly interdisciplinary approach, using theoretical simulations as well as rapid prototyping. Professor Svendsen´s research has led to more than 100 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, 7 start-up companies, 7 finalized patents and 4 more currently under consideration.

Senior Business Development Manager, Licensing and Commercial Supply
Peter's current role is in supporting partners/customers who purchase Thermo Fisher Scientific products for commercial use - focus in products for inclusion into molecular diagnostic kits. He has over 15 years’ experience in commercial sales for Ion Torrent Sequencing, Real-time PCR and Molecular Biology products. Prior to joining Thermo Fisher Scientific, Peter led a research group in Molecular Toxicology in AstraZeneca after receiving his doctorate in Plant Biology from the University Edinburgh.

Senior Research Associate, UCL Cancer Institute
Dr Daniel Wetterskog is a Senior Research Associate at the UCL Cancer Institute in the UK. In his position Daniel is in charge of project supervision and implementation and development of methods for interrogation of clinical samples with a focus on cell free DNA found in plasma. Daniel completed his PhD. in 2008, working on transcriptional dysregulation in cancer at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. After a post-doctoral position at the Institute of Cancer Research London focusing on identification of resistance mechanisms to HER2 targeting agents and a second post-doctoral position at University College London Cancer Institute focusing on radiosensitization of cancers he re-joined the Institute of Cancer Research in 2014 to continue his work on understanding and overcoming treatment resistances in cancer.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCL Cancer Institute
Dr Anjui Wu received the medical doctor degree and junior doctor training from National Taiwan University. After spending few years in the consulting industry, he continued his research interests and did his PhD in the Institute of Cancer Research under the supervision of Prof Gerhardt Attard. His main interest is to develop a clinically-qualified assay for cancer detection and risk stratification.

Associate Professor, Clinical Microbiology, Unit of Microbiology and Virology, Department of Medicine and Surgery; Director, Unit of Clinical Microbiology and Unit of Clinical Virology, Diagnostic Department
Dr. Calderaro has a degree in Medicine and Surgery summa cum laude on 1991 at the Faculty Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma; licence to medical practice in Medicine and Surgery on November 1991 awarded by the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma; member of the Medical Practitioners National Register since December 1991; PhD in Basic and applied Microbiology on 1996; post-degree a at the Medical School of Microbiology and Virology summa cum laude 1999 at the Faculty Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma. She is currently an MD, PhD in Clinical Microbiologist and Clinical Virologist, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma. Medical activity Direcror of the Unit of Clinical Microbiology and Director in charge of unit of Clinocal Virology at the University Hospital of Parma. She teaches at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma. Her research activity covers the fields of bacteriology (micobacteria, spirochaetes); parasitology (plasmodia, Toxoplasma gondii, intestinal protozoa), virology (hepatitis viruses; gastroenteric viruses).

Distinguished Research Professor, Clinical Pharmacology
Michael Oellerich, MD, HonMD, FAACC, FAMM, FFPath (RCPI), FRCPath, is currently a Distinguished Research Professor at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University Medical Center (UMG), Goettingen, Germany. He was Chairman of the Department of Clinical Chemistry at UMG from 1991 to 2012, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and President of professional organizations (IATDMCT, DGLM, DGKL, WASPaLM). He currently is Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM). He was Editor-in-Chief of the TDM journal (2003-2018), Associate Editor of Clinical Biochemistry (1996-2007) and Clinical Chemistry (2007-2013). His current research interests are in the field of cfDNA in cancer and transplantation. He authored more than 470 publications and received various awards (e.g. Ludolf-Krehl Award, IATDMCT Charles Pippenger Award, WASPaLM Medal of Honor, WASPaLM Gold-Headed Cane, BSCL Sign of Honor).

Professor, Chairman, Institute of Tumor Biology
Prof Pantel is Chairman of the Institute of Tumour Biology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. The institute is part of the Centre of Experimental Medicine and the University Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH). Prof Pantel graduated in 1986 from Cologne University in Germany and completed his thesis on mathematical modelling of haematopoiesis in 1987. After his postdoctoral period in the USA on hematopoietic stem cell regulation (Wayne State University, Detroit), he performed research at the Institute of Immunology, University of Munich for 10 years. The pioneer work of Prof Pantel in the field of cancer micrometastasis, circulating tumor cells and circulating nucleic acids (ctDNA, microRNAs) is reflected by more than 400 publications in excellent high ranking biomedical and scientific journals (incl. NEJM, Lancet, Nature Journals, Cancer Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Cancer Discovery, PNAS, JCO, JNCI, Cancer Res.) and has been awarded the AACR Outstanding Investigator Award 2010, German Cancer Award 2010, and two ERC Advanced Investigator Grants 2011 and 2019. Moreover, Prof Pantel coordinates the European IMI consortium CANCER-ID (www.cancer-id.eu) on blood-based “Liquid Biopsies” in lung and breast cancer comprising 37 partner institutions from academia, non-profit organizations and industry.

Director, Laboratory of Rare Human Cells (LCCRH), Department of Pathology and Onco-Biology
Dr Catherine Alix-Panabières received her PhD degree in 1998 at the Institute of Virology, University Louis Pasteur, in Strasbourg in France. In 1999, she moved to Montpellier where she did a postdoctoral research at the University Medical Centre. During this last decade, Dr Alix-Panabières has focused on optimizing new techniques of enrichment, detection and characterization of viable circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with solid tumors. She is the expert for the EPISPOT technology that is used to detect viable CTCs in patients with breast, prostate, colon, head & neck cancer and melanoma. This technology has been recently improved to detect functional CTCs at the single cell level (EPIDROP). In 2010, she achieved getting a permanent position at the Hospital and at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier (MCU-PH). As an associate professor, she became the new director of the Laboratory of Rare Human Circulating Cells (LCCRH) in the Department of Pathology and Onco-Biology. In this unique platform LCCRH, they isolate, detect and characterize circulating tumor cells using combinations many technologies. She has authored or co-authored >80 scientific publications in this field during the last years and 10 book chapters, she is the inventor of three patents in the liquid biopsy field and she is part of French national projects: for ex, PANTHER (FUI project), STIC-METABREAST, TACTIK (PHRC) as well as of big European projects: CTC-SCAN (Transcan project), CANCER-ID (IMI project), PROLIPSY (Transcan project) and European Liquid Biopsy Academy (ELBA, Marie-Curie project). It was a great honor for her to receive the Gallet et Breton Cancer Prize, the highest honor conferred by the French Academy of Medicine in November 2012 and, very recently, the 2017 AACR Award for the most cited scientific article in 2015 (Cayrefourcq et al. Cancer Res).

Assistant Professor, Global Health, University Medical Center
Dr. Vanessa Harris, MD, PhD is an adult infectious diseases clinician and assistant professor at the Departments of Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University Medical Center of the of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Dr. Harris received her Bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Amherst College and subsequently her M.D. at Harvard Medical School. She has received numerous awards including a Fulbright Fellowship in 2003. She completed her internal medicine residency, infectious diseases fellowship and PhD at the University of Amsterdam’s Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands. Dr. Harris is interested in understanding how the intestinal microbiome shapes development of mucosal and systemic immunity in young childhood globally. She has studied this by evaluating the interaction of the intestinal microbiome, mucosal immunity in relation to diminished oral vaccine performance observed in low- and middle- income countries.

Associate Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia; Team leader, NSERC CRD Grant in 3-D Brain Organoid Models of Arboviral Diseases; Co-founder, Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms
Dr. Jean is a tenured associate professor in the field of molecular virology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He is the Co-Director of the Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms and he has been a full Member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) College of Reviewers. At UBC, he has been leading major international research initiatives funded by CIHR and the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) to discover novel broad-spectrum antiviral agents and biomarkers directed at human pathogenic viruses. As the scientific director of UBC Facility for Infectious Disease and Epidemic Research (FINDER) for 9 years (2008-2016), he has established at UBC one of the largest university-based Containment Level (CL)-3 facilities in the world. He has won several prestigious scholarly awards including the Fisher Scientific Award from the Canadian Society for Microbiologists and the UBC Faculty of Science Service Award in recognition of his leadership role in establishing the UBC FINDER.

Reader, Personalised Medicine in Infectious Disease; Deputy Head, Division of Infection and Pathway Medicine, Edinburgh Medical School, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Till Bachmann is the Deputy Head of Infection Medicine at the Deanery of Biomedical Sciences at Edinburgh Medical School. He is also Director of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases MSc and Biomedical Sciences and PhD programmes at The University of Edinburgh and the Zhejiang University – University of Edinburgh Institute in China. Till has a PhD on biosensors from research at University of Stuttgart and The University of Tokyo and a German Habilitation in Analytical Biotechnology. He is an expert in point of care detection of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, conducting research at the interface of biomarkers and rapid diagnostics. Till is coordinator of the UK-India project ‘DOSA - Diagnostics for One Health and User Driven Solutions for AMR’, the JPIAMR-VRI Network AMR Dx Global, succeeding the JPIAMR Transnational Working Group on Rapid Diagnostic Tests. Till fulfils a variety of industrial and institutional advisory roles worldwide. As such he is vice-chair of the JPIAMR Scientific Advisory Board UK AMR Diagnostic Collaborative, panel member for the Longitude Prize on Antibiotics, Scientific Advisory Board member for Devices & Diagnostics under National Biopharma Mission of the Indian BIRAC, and founder of AMR DxC - the Antimicrobial Resistance Diagnostics Challenge competition.

Associate Professor, Clinical, Experimental and Biomedical Sciences
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Junior Research Group Leader, Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies (FIT) and Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK)
Dr. Can Dincer is currently junior research group leader at the Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies (FIT) and the head of Disposable Microsystems group at the Laboratory for Sensors at the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) of the University of Freiburg. The main research interest of his working group is the development of bioanalytical microsystems for various applications including diagnostics, food and environmental monitoring. Having completed his studies in microsystems engineering, Dr. Dincer received his PhD degree with summa cum laude in 2016 from the University of Freiburg. In early 2017, he has been awarded by the second place in Gips-Schüle Young Scientist Award for his dissertation. Between June 2017 – June 2019, Dr. Dincer also worked as a visiting researcher at the Department of Bioengineering at the Imperial College London. In September 2019, he joined the editorial team of the journal “Biosensors and Bioelectronics” as an Associate Editor.

Director, Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre
Professor Tony Whetton is currently the Director of the Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre. He also has a programme of leukaemia research sponsored by Blood Cancer UK. He obtained a PhD in signal transduction research and biophysical chemistry. This was followed by research into membrane structure using electron spin resonance techniques. He then moved into leukaemia research continuing this work at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology where he became the Professor of Cell Biology in 1995 and Head of Department in 2001. He joined the School of Medicine at the University of Manchester in 2003 as Professor of Cancer Cell Biology, based at the Christie Hospital. Here he has established a state of the art biological mass spectrometry facility for stem cell and leukaemia research. This research has expanded and developed to include a clinical proteomics research capability, where the objective is to discover new biomarkers associated with the cancers leading to the development of the £26 million Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre which uses proteomics and informatics to define disease mechanisms and biomarkers.

Deputy Director and Co-Founder, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology; Professor, Chemistry
In the last five years, Professor Trau has initiated and led several large international programs that involve close collaboration between leading nanotechnologists, molecular biologists, geneticists and commercial researchers - with the goal of creating cutting edge diagnostics. Professor Matt Trau is currently a Professor of Chemistry at The University of Queensland; and is also Deputy Director and co-founder of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. Since graduating from the University of Sydney (BSc Hons I, University Medal) and the University of Melbourne (PhD in Physical Chemistry, 1993), he has held positions in industry and academia across the globe. These include a Fulbright Research Fellowship at Princeton University, USA; and a research scientist at Dow Chemical and ICI Pty Ltd. Professor Trau has been a Visiting Professor at two of the largest Cancer Research Centres in the world: The Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston (2000); and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle (2008). Professor Trau is internationally recognised for his innovative and cross-disciplinary research at the interface between chemistry, nanotechnology, biology and medicine. He has co-authored more than 170 refereed publications, many of which appear in the highest impact journals in his field, e.g., two Nature and two Science publications. His major awards and honours include an ARC Federation Fellowship (one of the most prestigious scientific fellowships in Australia), a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the USA; a Queensland Young Tall Poppy Award; a UQ Foundation/Vice Chancellor's Research Excellence Award; a Paul Harris Fellowship; and a Pink Circle Award for breast cancer research excellence.

Group Leader, Laboratory of Biotechnology and Nanomedicine, CIBIO
I graduated in 2007 in “Cellular and Molecular Biology” at the University of Catania (Italy), then I achieved a Ph.D. in “Genetics and Biomolecular Sciences” at the University of Pavia (Italy). After post-doctoral sessions in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, since 2018, I am the group leader of the lab of biotechnology and nanomedicine at Dept. CIBIO of the University of Trento (Italy). My research activity focuses on the tumor microenvironment and on the RNA biology in cancer cells, as well as on the development of high-throughput strategies to target protein-RNA interactions. Fascinated by the impressive RNA and protein cargo of extracellular vesicles (EVs), I developed innovative methods to isolate EVs and analyze their content, proposing EVs and RNA-based tests as a novel opportunity for a liquid biopsy towards personalized medicine.

Business Development Director
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