CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Speakers
Emmanouil Karteris
Emmanouil Karteris
Reader in Biomedical Sciences,
Brunel University

Emmanouil Karteris

Dr Emmanouil Karteris is a Reader at Brunel University London, Head of Cancer Biomarkers and Cellular Endocrinology Lab (www.cbcel.org), and Departmental Director International for Life Sciences. He gained his BSc degree in Medical Biochemistry (University of Surrey, UK, 1995), MSc in Medical Genetics with Immunology (Brunel University, UK 1996) and his PhD (Warwick University, UK 2000). Dr Karteris has published 96 research manuscripts (h-index 33, i10-index:67) and presented over 100 abstracts in leading international conferences. He also has expertise IP law and in setting up clinical studies. His lab -in collaboration with oncologists nationwide- primarily works on the clinical utility of liquid biopsies, namely characterization and enumeration of circulating tumour cells, measurements of cfDNA and ctDNA, as well as RNA-sequencing analyses.


Steven Johnstone
Steven Johnstone
Field Applications Scientist, EMEA FAS,
Bio-Techne

Field Application Specialist for Bio-Techne, specialising in the Namocell range of instruments, and covering the EMEA region. I’ve been an FAS for 3 years, and prior to that worked in R&D in the field of cell and molecular biology. I have a Ph.D in Stem Cell Biology from the University of Glasgow, and have a total of 18 years in the industry.


Nik Matthews
Nik Matthews
Head of the Imperial BRC Genomics Facility,
Imperial College London

Started my career on the Human Genome Project at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. Made a team leader at Sanger. Then moved to Cancer Genomics at Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cambridge Institute, where they had 3 Genome Analyzers – some of the first in the world. Headed own lab in London at the London Research Institute at CRUK where he started genomics side the project TracerX (Lung Cancer Study) which became the Francis Crick Institute.I am also as a founder member of a Genomics Core Manager Consortium called the London Genomics Network (LGN) https://londongenomicsnetwork.org/, where we discuss new technologies & experiences.


Stephen Evans
Stephen Evans
Professor,
University of Leeds

Steve Evans obtained his BSc in Physics from Queen Mary College in 1984 and PhD from the University of Lancaster in 1987.  He undertook postdoctoral research at Imperial College and was a Visiting Scientist at Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY, USA.  In 1991, he joined the School of Physics and Astronomy faculty at the University of Leeds. He has held posts as Deputy Director of the Centre for Self-Organising Molecular Systems (SOMS) and the Head of the School of Physics & Astronomy.  He currently heads the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics group and is the Scientific Research Director of the NIHR Centre for Surgical Technologies.  His main research interests are i) the development of theranostic agents (nanomaterials and microbubbles) for imaging and treating cancer and infection and ii)  the biophysics of single cells, using microfluidics for understanding disease progression


Shefali Thakur
Shefali Thakur
Higher Scientific Officer,
The Institute of Cancer Research

I’m a recent graduate with specialization in Molecular cancer biology. I did my PhD at World Health Organization’s ‘International agency for research on cancer’ in Lyon, France. My expertise includes molecular biology, cancer biology, genetics and next generation sequencing technologies. I currently work on aggressive breast cancer and associated resistance to therapy in clinic and exploit single cell technologies to understand how tumour heterogeneity gives rise to metastatic and chemoresistant phenotypes in breast cancer at ‘The Institute of Cancer Research’ in Chelsea. I’ve previously worked at BIOCEV, a EU funded research institute in Czech republic on chromatin remodelling and have completed my under-graduation from institutes in Czech republic, Sweden and India.


Danish Memon
Danish Memon
Lead Bioinformatics Scientist,
ThirtyFiveBio

Danish Memon has a background in cancer data science and is driven by a deep commitment to utilizing omics datasets potential in advancing pharmaceuticals and revolutionizing the precision matching of treatments to individual patients. Presently, he holds the role of a Lead Bioinformatician within the M:M Bio ecosystem supporting ThirtyFiveBio, where his primary responsibility is to extract valuable insights from molecular datasets, shedding light on the biological aspects and therapeutic possibilities of oncology-focused drug targets. Over the years, he has accrued substantial experience in advising biotechnology firms on tasks such as identifying suitable targets, assessing the worth of pharmaceutical assets, selecting disease indications, and devising biomarkers for clinical trials.


Michal Bonar
Michal Bonar
Distribution Support Manager EMEA,
Nanocellect

Michal is a biotechnologist, flow cytometrist and molecular virologist, Michał has worked in a variety of environments from biotech to academia. Today, he helps scientists discover the power of sorting for all.


Alessandro Riccombeni
Alessandro Riccombeni
CEO and founder,
Axia Medicine

Dr. Alessandro Riccombeni has more than 14 years of international experience in genomics research, product development, and business strategy across the US and EMEA. Riccombeni has led the development of cloud platforms for bioinformatics and commercial services for gene editing. He started his career in research, leading projects in Oncology and Infection Biology for 6 years before moving into industry.


Dimitrios A. Lamprou
Dimitrios A. Lamprou
Professor (chair) of Biofabrication and Advanced Manufacturing,
Queen’s University Belfast

Dimitrios Lamprou (Ph.D., MBA) is Full Professor (Chair) of Biofabrication and Advanced Manufacturing, and Director at MSc Industrial Pharmaceutics at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). He is also the Chair at United Kingdom and Ireland Controlled Release Society (UKICRS) and the Chair of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (APS) Emerging Technologies Focus Group. Dimitrios, is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications, has over 400 conference abstracts, has given over 150 Invited Talks in institutions and conferences across the world, and has secure Funding more than £4M. Dimitrios has been recognised as world leader in 3D Printing & Microfluidics. PubMed-based algorithms placed him in the top 0.088% of scholars in the world writing about 3D Printing and on the top 0.071% of scholars in the world writing about microfluidics, in the past 10-years. Moreover, PubMed-based algorithms placed him in the top 0.63% of scholars in the world writing about nanofibers. Dimitrios has also been named in the Stanford University’s list 2021 & 2022 of World’s Top 2% Scientists, for his research in Pharmaceutics and Biomedical Engineering. His research and academic leadership have been recognized in a range of awards, including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Science Award and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance Leaders Scheme Award. For more info, please visit www.emergingtechnologieslab.com


Rick Kamps
Rick Kamps
NGS Manager,
Maastricht University

Currently, Dr. Rick Kamps is working as a Laboratory Manager in the Department of Toxicogenomics and as a teacher supervising many Bachelor students in the concept of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in the Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences since 2010. Furthermore, he has more than 25 years of research experience in the diagnostics and biotechnology sector (e.g., Academic Hospitals in Aachen (Germany) and Maastricht (the Netherlands), and Philips Research Eindhoven (the Netherlands).  He is more than a decade skilled in Next-generation sequencing in multiple applications (e.g., RNA/DNA sequencing). At the end of 2020, he gained a Ph.D. in Resolving the Role of Genetic Defects and the Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number in Mitochondrial Disease and Embryonic Development.


Ester Kalef-Ezra
Ester Kalef-Ezra
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Proukakis Lab,
University College London

Dr Ester Kalef-Ezra is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL at Proukakis lab at University College London. She gained her BSc degree in Biology (University of Patras, 2010), MSc in Protein Biotechnology (University of Crete, 2012), and PhD related to mitochondrial biogenesis (University of Crete, 2016). Recently, she became an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). Dr Kalef-Ezra has more than 12 years of international experience in laboratory research, including various genomics, biochemical, cell biology, and epigenetics techniques. Over the last 2 years, she is exploring the nature and roles of somatic CNVs in Parkinson's disease by employing multiple single-cell whole genome sequencing (scWGS) methods


Moritz Haneklaus
Moritz Haneklaus
Senior Research Scientist,
Macomics

Moritz Haneklaus is a Principal Scientist at Macomics with over 10 years of experience applying genomics to study human myeloid biology. He obtained his PhD in Immunology at Trinity College Dublin studying inflammatory signalling in macrophages. He has an MSc in BioMedicine from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and a BSc in Biology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Prior to joining Macomics, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge as part of the Open Targets consortium investigating neuroinflammation using single-cell genomics in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.


Monica Raimo
Monica Raimo
Senior Research Manager and Team Lead,
Glycostem Therapeutics

Monica Raimo is a Senior Research Manager and Team Lead at Glycostem Therapeutics, developing advanced Natural Killer cell therapies. She has more than 10 years of experience in bridging the progression of innovative therapeutics to clinical stage, with both RNA-based and cell-based products. Her expertise is in molecular cell biology, process development and improvement, cell engineering and bioinformatics.