Professor Nicola Curtin FMed Sci
Professor Nicola Curtin is a translational cancer scientist. She began her career investigating the development of liver cancer and then new treatments of the disease. This led her to study novel antifolates and modulation of resistance with nucleoside transport inhibitors. She became part of a multidisciplinary drug discovery team in 1990, and led the biological evaluation of novel PARP, DNA-PK and ATM inhibitors. The work she did with Thomas Helleday and Helen Bryant on PARP inhibitors identified the synthetic lethality of PARP inhibitors with BRCA mutations in 2005 and a new paradigm in cancer treatment. Four PARP inhibitors are currently licenced for cancer therapy, including rucaparib (Rubraca®) that she helped to develop. Her work now mostly focusses on investigating the therapeutic potential of inhibitors of the DNA damage response, potential synergies between them and exploitation of cancer-specific defects in the DNA damage response. She has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers (with >20,000 citations), 16 book chapters, edited 2 books and 2 special issues of a cancer journal and is inventor on 15 patents.She was awarded the Ruffolo Career Achievement from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 2021. In 2022 she was awarded the Heatley Medal and Prize from the Biochemistry Society and elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Dr. Péter Bay - University of Debrecen, Hungary
Dr. Bay’s research interest is focused on understanding the metabolic roles of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) enzymes with particular interest in mitochondrial oxidative metabolism, lipid metabolism and energy homeostasis to better understand the metabolic disruptor roles of PARPs. He is also engaged in studies on how the microbiome affects malignancies and to assess the molecular mechanisms through which the oncobiome modulates neoplasia. Dr. Bay has identified cytostatic bacterial metabolites and the signaling pathways elicited by the bacterial metabolites in breast cancer.
Dr. Anke Brüning-Richardson - University of Huddersfield, UK
Dr Brüning-Richardson spent her research career working on diseases of veterinary and medical importance applying latest cutting-edge technologies to understand disease mechanisms for improved diagnosis or treatment. Originally from Germany she came to England to study for her degree in Biology at Imperial College, London, and then for a PhD in Biology (Parasitology) under the supervision of Prof Elizabeth Canning. Her first postdoctoral position was at the Pirbright Institute to work on a DFID funded project, where she developed and field trialled the now commercially available rapid diagnostic rinderpest test (Svanova Biotech AB product-Ag10-4300-13) as part of the global rinderpest eradication program (GREP). Subsequently, she relocated to the University of Leeds and finally the University of Huddersfield, where she has been investigating the mechanisms underlying cancer development and progression. After studying colorectal, epithelial ovarian and bladder cancer she gained in depth knowledge of one of the most devastating cancer types, Glioblastoma. Her approach is to investigate anti-migratory small molecule inhibitors to target cell migration/invasion in these tumours as potential combination treatment as tumour recurrence driven by cellular migration/invasion is the main cause of death in brain tumour patients.
Dr. Meike Heurich-Sevcenco - Cardiff University, UK
Dr Meike Heurich is a protein biochemist, whose research interest is in cellular and molecular biochemistry of blood proteins with a particular interest in the molecular interactions of the complement system (innate immunity) and coagulation system. Her research group is studying protein crosstalk and protein structure-function relationships using biophysical and biochemical approaches. Her research focus is centred on studying altered protein levels in blood plasma and protein dysfunction in disease, where the complement and coagulation pathways have a role in pathophysiology.
Prof. Henry Hang Fai Kwok - University of Macau, China
Prof Kwok’s research interests mainly focus on developing novel monoclonal antibody and venom-based peptide as prototype drugs for anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory therapies. In addition, Prof. Kwok’s research group is also expanding scientific research in novel and existing cancer biomarkers in order to identify and validate their prognostic and therapeutic values according to the hallmarks of cancer.
Prof. Dr. José Cesar Rosa Neto - Biomedical Sciences Institute of University of São Paulo, Brazil
Professor Jose C Rosa Neto is a Cell Biology Professor in Biomedical Sciences Institute in University of São Paulo. He studied the effects of adipokines, hepatokines and myokines during low grade inflammation conditions (cancer and obesity) in him PhD. In post-doctoral he investigated the association between chemotherapy drugs and cachexia. Nowadays he has been a Head of Immunobetabolism group. The focus of Rosa Neto`s Lab is to understand the metabolic perturbations on immune cells in health and diseases context. Moreover, the interplay between immune cells and metabolic organs (liver, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue).
Dr Faisal Aziz - University of Minnesota
Dr Faisal Aziz is a Research Scientist at The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and a research focus on gastroenterology cancer. His work explores immune responses in gastrointestinal diseases and cancer, particularly T-cell activation pathways and immune evasion mechanisms mediated by STS-1/2. Dr. Aziz has a strong background in inflammation, immunity, infectious diseases, purine metabolism (PFAS and PPAT), protein structure and drug discovery, and mouse model development. His current research involves the structural and functional characterization of Suppressor of T-cell Receptor Signaling (STS-1 and STS-2) proteins and high-throughput screening of small molecules targeting their phosphatase domains to restore T-cell function. Additionally, he has investigated Helicobacter. pylori infection in gastric cancer and the molecular mechanisms of psychological stress-induced tumorigenesis. Dr. Aziz has extensive experience in translational research, including the development of gastric cancer mouse models, novel immunological assays, and in-house diagnostic tools for H. pylori and cancer biomarkers. His expertise in high-throughput drug screening, Cryo-EM microscopy, and immuno-oncology places him at the forefront of molecular medicine and immune-therapeutic discovery.
Dr Sarah Carpanini - Cardiff University
Dr Sarah Carpanini is an Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUK) funded Research Fellow. This fellowship enables her to explore how changes in genes related to the complement system impact synapse loss, one of the earliest changes in the brain occurring in Alzheimer’s disease. Sarah's research group aim to understand how alterations in immune system genes, like complement, contribute to diseases of the brain, including Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia. Her group use induced pluripotent stem cells to study neurons, microglia, and astrocytes to gain deeper insights into these processes.
Dr Sandro Arguelles Castilla - University of Seville, Spain
Currently, Dr Argüelles is professor of the Department of Physiology at University of Seville (Spain). Prof Argüelles completed his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of Seville (Spain), where he focused on the effect of aging and oxidative stress on protein synthesis through alterations of translation eElongation Factor-2 (eEF2), the protection of eEF2 using several antioxidant and protective compounds as well as the role of stress and inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases. In the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the NIA in the Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus (USA), prof Argüelles also worked on neuronal survival and regulatory mechanisms of eEF2 under stress. In the laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology at China-US Hormel Cancer Institute he focus on the role of signal transduction in carcinogenesis and molecular mechanisms of cancer prevention. Due to the age-population is expected to increase during the next several decades and due age is a major risk factor of developing chronic age-related diseases, his current research interest include study pathways that can be modified to mitigate basic aging processes and could be potentially important as age-related disease therapy.
Dr Rebecca Dowey - University of Huddersfield, UK
Dr Rebecca Dowey is lecturer of Pharmacology & Physiology at the University of Huddersfield. Rebecca’s career to date has spanned both academia and industry, which has been focused on the development and re-purposing of therapeutics to treat diseases across a range of fields including immunology, oncology and viral diseases. Rebecca obtained her PhD at the University of Sheffield and demonstrated the re-purposing of a PKC inhibitor Ruboxistaurin to reduce neutrophilic inflammation in hospitalised patients with COVID-19. Rebecca has previously worked in both small biotechnology companies and more recently a global drug discovery contract research organisation. Her research interests include developing 3D bioprinted patient derived tumour models for triple negative breast cancer drug development and assessing the role of the host immune response in oncology treatment resistance.
Dr Hashim Islam - The University of British Columbia
Dr. Hashim Islam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Exercise Sciences and Investigator at the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management at The University of British Columbia (Okanagan. Dr. Islam’s research program focuses on the impact of exercise, dietary manipulation (e.g. fasting, mitochondrial therapeutics), and chronic conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes on mitochondrial function within different cells and tissues within the human body. He is particularly interested in how mitochondria in immune cells are impacted by these various stimuli and the role of muscle-immune cell interactions in physiological adaptation and chronic disease.
Dr Lei Huang - Newcastle University, UK
Lei is an immune biologist with research interests on viral infection, cancer and autoimmunity. Immune regulatory mechanisms such as PD1 and Indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase (IDO) are essential in preventing autoimmunity but virus and cancer often exploit these mechanisms to evade immune system attacking. We use various in vitro and in vivo models to discover mechanisms regulating immune and inflammatory responses driving disease progress, mediating therapy resistance and causing disease comorbidity such as neuropathy, and design new therapies to treat cancer and autoimmunity.
Dr Ranjeet Mahla - Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Dr. Mahla is an early career researcher (Staff Scientist) at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA. He is also having association with LJMU, Liverpool, UK. His current research focuses on characterizing B cells in EBV patients for discovering novel monoclonal antigen specific antibodies for advancing EBV therapeutics, leveraging single-cell RNA sequencing, VDJ immune repertoire analysis, and multiparametric flowcytometry. He is broadly interested in the implications of multi-omics approaches in tracking disease development mechanisms. Dr. Mahla holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry, Botany, and Biotechnology; an M.Sc. in Life Science; a Ph.D. in Immunology (with a Newton Bhabha PhD Placement at UCL); a PG in AI and ML; and an M.Sc. in AI and ML. His broad research interests encompass infectious diseases and vaccine development strategies, autoimmunity, extracellular vesicles, the tumor microenvironment, germline stem cells, and artificial intelligence and machine learning. He is currently working on a deep learning algorithm to delineate disease-specific signatures across various autoimmune and infectious diseases. Dr. Mahla has published 55 articles in various journals of international repute.
Dr Mathew Martin - Newcastle University, UK
Dr Martin’s research is focused at the interface between chemistry and cell biology using biophysical and biochemical techniques to aid characterisation of small molecule inhibitors of proteins and protein-protein complexes. This cell-free characterisation plays a central role in drug discovery, expediting the preclinical phases from hit finding to lead optimisation. It also accelerates the discovery of high-quality probe molecules for target validation and biomarker discovery. Mat has been involved in drug discovery projects targeting multiple classes of clinically relevant proteins encompassing a range of disease areas.
Dr Jason Parsons - University of Birmingham, UK
Dr Parsons is a radiation biologist, whose research is focussed on the biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology of ionising radiation. His main interests are on examining the biology of radiation of different ionisation densities, particularly proton beam therapy and other high-linear energy transfer (LET) radiation in comparison to low-LET photons, and particularly its impact on the signalling and processing of DNA damage. Research is largely centred on models of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), but also on other radioresistant cancers including glioblastoma, and on identifying optimal strategies to sensitise these cancers to radiotherapy.
Dr Aideen Ryan - University of Galway, Ireland
Aideen Ryan is a Senior Lecturer in Tumour Immunology at NUI Galway. Her research interests lie in understanding immunosuppression in solid and haematological malignancies. Her specific focus is in understanding mechanisms of stromal cell immunomodulation (including mesenchymal stromal cells, fibroblasts and cancer associated fibroblast) in the tumour microenvironment and the development of multicellular 3D models in vitro. She is author on more than 50 papers. She is an active member of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), Irish Association of Cancer Research (IACR) and the Irish Society of Immunology (ISI). She has served on Review and Advisory panels for charity and funding committees nationally and internationally and is on the editorial board of several international journals.
Dr Christopher Schliehe - Erasmus University Medical Center, The Netherlands
Dr Schliehe is an immunologist with a research focus on antigen presentation and immune regulation in the context of immunotherapy. After his doctoral studies at the University of Konstanz, Germany, in which he studied the principles of MHC class I presentation, Christopher moved to the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, and investigated mechanisms of immune regulation by epigenetic modifiers as a postdoctoral fellow. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where his team combines a large spectrum of experimental approaches (including classical immunological techniques, in vivo models, genetic screens, mass spectrometry, and chemical immunology) to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and regulatory processes involved in antigen presentation on MHC class I molecules as well as innate and adaptive immune regulation.
Dr Peter Smith - Remix Therapeutics, USA
Peter is Co-Founder, President and CSO of Remix Therapeutics, a biotech company in Cambridge MA, discovering and developing small molecule modulators of RNA processing. He was formerly CSO at H3 Biomedicine where he led a team of scientists discovering and developing novel targeted oncology therapies. He was previously at Millennium Pharmaceuticals/Takeda Oncology where he held positions of increasing responsibility in the oncology group. Peter completed his postdoctoral studies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of Leeds, U.K and obtained his PhD at the Cancer Research Unit, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
Dr Gabriele Saretzki - Newcastle University, UK
Dr. Saretzki is a cellular biologist with a PhD from Humboldt-University Berlin. She worked on telomeres, telomerase, oxidative stress, DNA damage and cellular since 1990. In 2002 she became a lecturer in ageing research at Newcastle University focussing on non-canonical functions of the telomerase protein TERT in mitochondria and neurons. Gabriele taught in undergraduate and several MRES courses on ageing-related topics for many years. She is associated editor for PloS one since 2011 and an active reviewer for many scientific journals. She is now retired but still a visiting lecturer at NU. She published around 111 papers with an H-index of 56
Dr Elena Torlai Triglia - Queen Mary University of London, UK
Dr Elena Torlai Triglia is a group leader and lecturer in Genetics, Genomics and Fundamental Cell Biology at Queen Mary University of London (UK). Dr Torlai Triglia trained as a computational and molecular biologist in the group of Prof. Ana Pombo at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (Germany), where she studied gene regulation in stem cells and during neuronal development. After her PhD, she moved to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (MA, US), where she investigated how healthy cells change during disease development, mentored by Prof. Brad Bernstein and Prof. Aviv Regev. In 2024, she moved to QMUL where her research group studies how the genetic and epigenetic state of a cell influences molecular, cellular and tissue behaviour during disease development, with a particular focus on cancer.
Dr Rosie Walker - University of Exeter, UK
Dr. Rosie Walker is a Lecturer at the University of Exeter. Her research integrates molecular and traditional epidemiological approaches to investigate risk factors for dementia. She is particularly interested in the molecular mechanisms underlying inter-individual variation in cognitive abilities, and how these mechanisms may underpin the relationship between cognitive function and dementia risk. To address these questions, Dr. Walker uses large-scale population-based studies with rich, multi-modal data, including 'omics, genetics, and brain imaging measures.
Dr Monika Winter - Northumbria University, UK
Dr Monika Winter is an Assistant Professor of Mitochondrial Cell Biology at Northumbria University. Dr Winter obtained her PhD degree at Newcastle University studying stress-sensing and ageing signalling pathways in C. elegans. She completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Southern California, and The Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University where she investigated the pathogenesis of novel mitochondrial disease genes identified by next generation sequencing technologies. Her current research focuses on determining key genetic factors that underpin mitochondrial-nuclear communication, by using induced pluripotent stem cells-based disease models and genome-wide CRISPR screens.
Dr Mingtao Zhao - The Ohio State University College of Medicine, USA
Mingtao Zhao, DVM, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Cardiovascular Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, USA. He is an assistant professor (tenure-track) in the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Zhao obtained his PhD degree at the University of Missouri (2013) and completed his postdoc training at Stanford University School of Medicine in 2018, followed by an instructor position at Stanford Cardiovascular Institute from 2018 to 2019. In August 2019, he moved to Columbus to set up his independent laboratory in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Zhao’s research laboratory aims to decipher the molecular mechanisms controlling heart development and discover novel treatment for congenital heart disease using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Dr Jenny Lord - The University of Sheffield, UK
Dr Jenny Lord is a Lecturer in Systems Biology at The University of Sheffield. Her research focusses on using big datasets and computational approaches to improve understanding of how the genome works and how its disruption relates to disease. She is particularly interested in the regulation of splicing, and in the non-coding genome. She has extensive experience developing and applying bioinformatics pipelines to analyse large-scale omics datasets in medical genetics. Jenny completed her PhD at The University of Nottingham and initial postdoctoral position at Washington University in St Louis in Alzheimer’s disease genetics, before moving into rare disease diagnostics in two further postdoc positions at The Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Southampton. In December 2023, she moved to Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) at the University of Sheffield to start her own research group.
Professor Tim Eisen - University of Cambridge, UK
Tim Eisen is Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Cambridge. His main interests are the research and treatment of kidney cancer and the interaction between industry, academia and clinical practice. Currently, he is on leave of absence to work as a Vice President of Roche in Oncology Product Development.
Professor Babak Javid - University of California, USA
Babak Javid is a physician-scientist, associate professor in the Division of Experimental Medicine at University of California, San Francisco and Wellcome Trust Investigator. His principal research interests are on mycobacterial pathophysiology. In particular, the Javid group investigates mechanisms by which mycobacteria adapt to hostile environments via regulation of protein synthesis, as well as the role of human humoral immunity to tuberculosis.
Professor Marian Knight - University of Oxford, UK
Marian Knight is Professor of Maternal and Child Population Health at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford. She is a public health physician and applied health researcher whose research focuses on severe complications of pregnancy and early life. She has a particular interest in the use of national observational studies to address clinical management questions in situations where trials may not be possible. She also leads the UK national Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths and morbidity.
Professor Stephen Robertson - University of Otago, New Zealand
Professor Robertson is a clinical and molecular human geneticist with broad interests in developmental disorders. He has particular interests in conditions affecting the formation and maturation of the human skeleton, most particularly those that are caused by mutations in a family of genes encoding proteins called filamins. Allied interests include the clinical manifestations and molecular aetiopathogenesis of neuronal migration disorders affecting the development of the cerebral cortex. These disorders have very broad phenotypic manifestations and offer a special insight into the developmental biology of early human neurogenesis. His work spans clinical studies, demonstration of the mutations underpinning these entities and exploration of their pathogenesis using biochemical, cellular and model organism approaches.
Professor Susanne A. Schneider - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
Susanne Schneider is a consultant neurologist with broad clinical and academic experience and with a great passion for research into the pathophysiology of Movement Disorders. Following her PhD in movement disorders at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in London, UK. she continued her keen research interest in clinically-applied genetics. She is the author of more than 170 papers and more than 30 book chapters. She co-edited four books. She is an active member of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society serving on several committees. She has served on the Program Committees of various international congresses and is on the Editorial Board of several international journals.
Dr Robert Semple - University of Edinburgh, UK
Robert Semple is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science based at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh. Over the past 15 years his clinical and research interests have centred on insulin resistance, lipodystrophy and other disorders of adipose growth. He uses rare human conditions to improve understanding of the nature of pandemic “insulin resistance” and of the mechanisms linking it to disease, and on translating research findings into clinical benefits for patients. Approaches in his group span clinical trials, experimental medicine, and disease modelling in cells and animals.