Marina is interested in the complex interactions between humans and the microbes in and on our bodies as well as understanding how they impact human health. She has experience in both, at the bench and in the world of data science and bioinformatics, so she can communicate easily with many different types of teams. Marina enjoys learning new things and driving forward in this exciting field.
Skyler Stein leads Gladskin, a biotechnology-driven skincare brand. Gladskin is a leader in global endolysin technology and uses its science to improve inflammatory skin conditions by rebalancing the skin microbiome. Throughout his career, Skyler has advised, invested in and developed businesses across technology-driven sectors. Most recently, at Obvious Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to startups that combine profit and purpose, Skyler focused on companies commercializing microbiome science to improve human health. While seeking investment opportunities in microbiome focused companies, Skyler met the European-based Gladskin team. Gladskin's endolysin technology developed by Micreos B.V. was the most impressive applied science in the space. This inspired Skyler to join the team to further build on Gladskin’s success in Europe and to make the products available to the millions of Americans with inflammatory skin conditions. Previously, Skyler was a Principal at Bregal Investments, a global private equity firm where he was on the board of various high growth portfolio
companies. Skyler has served as an Advisor to Clarity Genomics, which develops computational platforms to elucidate mechanisms of action for human - microbiome interactions. Skyler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Duke University
Larry Weiss is the CEO and Founder of Weiss Bioscience, Inc., a San Franciscobased microbiome research and development company and the manufacturer of Symbiome Skincare products.
Christopher Damman, M.D., is a board-certified gastroenterologist at the Digestive Health Center at UW Medical Center and a UW associate professor of Gastroenterology and Medicine.
Dr. Damman feels that healing is as much listening compassionately and creating an environment of trust and understanding as it is gathering the facts and treating the illness. He has a particular interest in the microbiome & functional foods, and he explores these themes as Editor-In-Chief at Gut Bites MD, (https://gutbites.org/
). Dr. Damman earned his M.D. from Columbia. He is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. His research interests involve understanding the role of endogenous gastrointestinal organisms (the microbiota) in health and disease.
Julius Goepp is the founder and CEO of Scaled Microbiomics, LLC, a pre-clinical stage biotech company focused on passive immunotherapy in the microbiome. Dr. Goepp trained in Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston, and in Pediatric Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins, where he was active in the promotion of Oral Rehydration Therapy for childhood diarrheal disease. In 2017, he founded Scaled Microbiomics after recognizing the potential for microbiome modulation through the use of little-known avian antibodies, or IgY. Since that time, his energies have been devoted to exploring the characteristics of those antibodies and developing a drug discovery platform based on their use as selective immunomodulators of complex microbiome signaling pathways and event cascades. In addition to his work, Goepp is passionate about cooking, flying, and exploring the outdoors.
Katrine is a biochemist interested in human associated microbial and viral communities. She uses metagenomics, metabolomics, microbial genetics and ecological statistics to answer questions about how microbes and viruses affect human health. She aims to understand how individual and persistent human-associated microbial and viral communities affect health. Specifically, she works to understand the role of persistent microbial colonization in triggering inflammatory episodes in Cystic Fibrosis patients. Understanding microbial interactions and changes in microbial physiology that are associated with changes in patient status may lead to the development of biomarkers to diagnose changes in infection earlier and more specifically. She is also interested in how phage shape dynamic host-associated microbial communities, and in characterizing the function of the 70% of phage encoded genes with no known function.
Skyler Stein leads Gladskin, a biotechnology-driven skincare brand. Gladskin is a leader in global endolysin technology and uses its science to improve inflammatory skin conditions by rebalancing the skin microbiome. Throughout his career, Skyler has advised, invested in and developed businesses across technology-driven sectors. Most recently, at Obvious Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to startups that combine profit and purpose, Skyler focused on companies commercializing microbiome science to improve human health. While seeking investment opportunities in microbiome focused companies, Skyler met the European-based Gladskin team. Gladskin's endolysin technology developed by Micreos B.V. was the most impressive applied science in the space. This inspired Skyler to join the team to further build on Gladskin’s success in Europe and to make the products available to the millions of Americans with inflammatory skin conditions. Previously, Skyler was a Principal at Bregal Investments, a global private equity firm where he was on the board of various high growth portfolio
companies. Skyler has served as an Advisor to Clarity Genomics, which develops computational platforms to elucidate mechanisms of action for human - microbiome interactions. Skyler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Duke University
Dr. Lada Rasochova is the founder and CEO of Dermala Inc., a human microbiome company developing treatments for chronic skin diseases and conditions. Dr. Rasochova has been involved in commercialization of biotech and pharma products for the past 20 years. She spent 15 years in industry where she held various leadership positions, including as the leader of Vaccine Technologies and director of new business development in Dowpharma, a biotech division of the Dow Chemical Company, Mycogen, a biotech startup (acquired by Dow Chemical), and the CEO of Jadus BioScience, an early stage diagnostic company. Dr. Rasochova is also the managing director of the Rady Venture Fund and serves as the founding executive director of the California Institute for Innovation and Development at UC San Diego, founding director of StartR and mystartupXX accelerators, and on boards of several companies, centers and institutes, including the UC San Diego Center for Drug Discovery Innovation and the Qualcomm Institute.
Through decades of experience and personal intrigue, Miguel has studied and worked on the complex interaction between probiotics, the gut and microbiota. His 20+ years at Danone have allowed him to bring his passion and expertise to this field, and as vice president of scientific affairs at Danone North America, he has helped the global food and beverage company translate the growing body of evidence on different probiotic strains into a range of consumer products. Miguel is proud to have been the driving force behind new fermented dairy products containing both probiotics and prebiotics. With a PhD in microbiology, nutrition and cell biology from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, he has published several peer-reviewed studies on microbes and human health, and frequently speak at scientific conferences around the world while designing research protocols for researchers worldwide. He is a professional member of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and American Society for Nutrition (ASN), an advisory board member of Future Food Tech, and a Forbes Health Advisory Board Member 2022. Miguel also serves as director of the Danone Institute North America, a non-profit foundation that helps advance community-based work to promote sustainable food systems globally. For the last seven years, few things have been more rewarding than helping oversee fellowship grants for microbiome research.
Vandana Sharma, based in Los Angeles, CA, US, is currently a Principal Nutrition Scientist at Pharmavite, bringing experience from previous roles at Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Burnham Institute for Medical Research. Vandana Sharma holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) @ Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India. With a robust skill set that includes Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Drug Discovery, Assay Development and more, Vandana Sharma contributes valuable insights to the industry.
Prof. Arun Bhunia (BVSc, PhD) is a professor of food microbiology in the Department of Food Science at Purdue University and is affiliated with the Department of Comparative Pathobiology, Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease (PI4D), and Purdue University Life Science (PULSe). His expertise includes microbial pathogenesis, probiotic bioengineering, and foodborne pathogen detection. He has co-authored 219 peer-reviewed research publications and 2 textbooks (Fundamental Food Microbiology; Foodborne Microbial Pathogens), edited 4 books, and delivered over 160 talks. He served in the USDA National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) and has received Purdue Agriculture Research Award, Purdue Faculty Scholar, IFT R&D Award, Outstanding Graduate Educator, Fulbright Specialist, Maurice Weber Laboratorian Award (IAFP) and elected Fellow of IAFP (2023). He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Foods and an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Microbiology, PLoS One, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and BMC Microbiology.
Ph.D. founded Primal Health, LLC in 2017 to focus on improving the dental health of both humans and animals by producing oral microbiome modulation products. She has spent 12 years developing SMMRT technology at Primal Therapies, Inc., which is focused on using metabolic influencers to re-engineer disease-causing bacterial biofilms into those that are health-promoting, to decrease inflammation and to improve outcomes. Prior to that, she spent 7 years as a research fellow at Stanford University in Rheumatology and Immunology focused on the neuro-endocrine-immune axis in autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases. She holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley where she studied inter- and intra-cellular signaling pathways involved in stress response and community development in bacteria and received her B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Iowa where she studied the interaction between M. tuberculosis and innate immune cells.
Maya Ivanjesku holds master’s degree in chemistry from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn NY (NYU).
One of her passions is creating and developing skincare products. Inspired at the very young age, Maya learned early on that using natural remedies is most effective way to skin longevity.
Her formulation career started at the Estée Lauder companies where she was part of elite team of scientists developing products for Origins, Clinique, Estée Lauder, La Mer, MAC. Over the last 30 years, Maya became a creative visionary, developed formulations for many brands such as TooFaced, Benefit Cosmetics, Laura Mercier, Urban Decay, NARS and Sephora Cosmetics.
Most recently, Maya developed and created one of the first probiotic skincare brands where she was able to incorporate live and active probiotic cultures within the products without the need of refrigeration. Ivanjesku received a patent for this technology.
As a Chief Scientific Officer at M2B Pharma Maya and her team recently launched BLT Numbing cream - a prescription strength numbing cream available without prescription.
Maya is an entrepreneur, consultant and has been speaking at numerous conferences and educational speeches at the prestige spa and esthetician events.
Dana has been using flow cytometry as a tool in cancer research and autoimmune disease for over 30 years. She develops and runs cell-based assays as a CRO to give companies access to high complexity flow cytometry. Dana also teaches flow cytometry to scientists around the world. For the past 8 years, she has been developing flow cytometry-based microbial assays as an improved alternative to CFUs. These assays include enumeration and health evaluation of probiotics at many different stages of development.
Marina is interested in the complex interactions between humans and the microbes in and on our bodies as well as understanding how they impact human health. She has experience in both, at the bench and in the world of data science and bioinformatics, so she can communicate easily with many different types of teams. Marina enjoys learning new things and driving forward in this exciting field.
Katrin is an Application Scientist and Technical Marketing Specialist at Symcel AB. With a robust background in microbiology spanning over 15 years, she has evolved into an expert in Biocalorimetry applications.
In her role, Katrin actively explores new application areas and contributes significantly to methods development in the biocalorimetry field. She takes a keen interest in the probiotics application, working closely with industrial partners. Her primary focus is on refining alternative methods to enhance our understanding of probiotics' viability.
Dr. Robert Hettich is a distinguished research scientist & leader of the Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry Group of the Biosciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a joint faculty member in the Microbiology Department at the University of Tennessee. He has over 34 years of experience in biological mass spectrometry. His research interests involve the development and demonstration of advanced mass spectrometry technology for characterizing complex biological mixtures, such as microbial proteomes, and for examining higher order protein structures. He has authored more than 270 publications, and is active in mentoring graduate students, as well as teaching analytical technology and advanced biological mass spectrometry classes. He is an associate editor for Microbiome, a member of the editorial advisory boards of Mass Spectrometry Reviews, BMC Genomics, and Journal of Integrated Omics, and is an active review member on several NIH review study sections, in particular for NIH-GM and NIH-NCI-IMAT.
Life science strategist and business development specialist, with a passion for biotechnology and the role it plays in transforming our health, our understanding of biology and ultimately the world we live in. Niki takes pride in working with some of the brightest pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic development scientists to bring groundbreaking treatments and cures to market. She loves to successfully overlap her responsibilities to her clients and her organization with strategy and planning, building alliances with commercial and academic partners along the way. Niki has been fortunate to build a career helping some of the most successful and recognized companies in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and diagnostic spaces. She has created and executed sustainable, long-term global sourcing strategies that ensure they are, and will continue to be, the best at what they do.
Niki has also been active in several organizations including Anachem, MichBio, and American Chemical Society(ACS) in Toledo and Detroit sections, and is the past chair the Toledo Section (2007 and 2008). She is also on Henry Ford College Biotechnology Advisory Committee (2010 - present).
