Speakers

Patrick Tan

Prof. Patrick Tan is the Executive Director (ED) of PRECISE and will oversee the implementation of Phase II of Singapore’s National Precision Medicine Strategy, which aims to transform healthcare in Singapore, and improve patient outcomes through new insights into the Asian genome and data-driven healthcare solutions.

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Prof Tan was Programme Director of Operation Stronghold, establishing one of Singapore’s largest COVID-19 testing facilities through a joint effort involving A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), National University Health System, and Temasek Holdings.

Prof Tan is also Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School. He received his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University and MD PhD degree from Stanford University, where he received the Charles Yanofsky prize for Most Outstanding Graduate Thesis in Physics, Biology or Chemistry.

Other awards include the President’s Scholarship, Loke Cheng Kim Scholarship, Young Scientist Award (A*STAR), Singapore Youth Award, Chen New Investigator Award (Human Genome Organisation), President’s Science Award, and the Japanese Cancer Association International Award. In 2018, he received the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Team Science Award as Team Leader, representing the first time a team from Asia has received the award. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC), a Board Member of the International Gastric Cancer Association, and on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science.

Yibin Kang

Yibin Kang is a Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, a founding member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Princeton Branch and an Associate Director of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Dr. Kang graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Fudan University in Shanghai in 1995. After completing his graduate study at Duke in 2000 and postdoctoral training with Dr. Joan Massagué at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, he joined the faculty of Princeton University as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology in 2004. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010 and to Endowed Chair Full Professor in 2012. Dr. Kang has served as the President of the Metastasis Research Society (2016-2018), the Chair of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Tumor Microenvironment Working Group (2018-2019), and President of the Chinese Biological Investigator Society (2018-2022).

Dr. Kang’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis. His work discovered new genes that promote progression, metastasis, immune evasion and treatment resistance of breast cancer, delineated tumor-stromal interactions that are essential for metastatic growth, identified novel regulators of normal and cancerous stem cells, and developed new cancer therapeutic agents. Dr. Kang has published over 200 original articles in leading journals including Science, Cancer Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Cancer and Nature Medicine. Dr. Kang's outstanding achievements have been recognized by many prestigious awards, including an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award (2005), Department of Defense Era of Hope Scholar Award (2006), the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Sciences (2011), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Award for Outstanding Achievements in Cancer Research (2012), the Fidler Innovation Award from the Metastasis Research Society (2014), the Fuller Albright Award from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (2014) and the AACR Outstanding Investigator Award in Breast Cancer Research (2014). Dr. Kang was elected as a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Komen Scholar, and an inaugural inductee of the Duke Graduate School Few-Glasson Alumni Society in 2016 and was selected as an American Cancer Society Research Professor in 2019.

Dr. Kang is a co-founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Firebrand Therapeutics Inc. and Kayothera Inc., two biotech startups based on technologies developed in his group and focusing on novel therapeutics for late-stage metastatic cancers.

Allen (Qiang) Feng

Dr. Allen Feng is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of HebeCell Corp since 2016. Dr. Feng pioneered the development of HebeCell’s proprietary manufacturing platform of hematopoietic cells from human pluripotent stem cells using a 3D suspension culture bioreactor. He is not only the inventor of the iPS-NK manufacture technology but also the scientific and technological leader in HebeCell’s current effort of translating its iNK technology from R&D to the clinical stage.

Prior to HebeCell, Dr. Feng was the Director of Cell Biology of Semma Therapeutics (now Vertex Therapeutics). Before Semma Therapeutics, Dr. Feng worked as R&D Head for Stem Cell Bioprocessing Group at Millipore (a US subsidiary of Merck, KGaA). Before joining Merck Millipore, Dr. Feng was Director and Senior Scientist at Advanced Technology (Now Astellas).

Dr. Feng made many significant contributions in the development of novel stem cells technologies as well the translation of technology from R&D bench to clinical investigations. He is the major contributor to the discovery of the patented Hemangioblast technology, published in journal of Nature Methods. Dr. Feng is also the major inventor of the technology of generating large quantity of red blood cells from human pluripotent stem cells (published in the journal of Blood). Dr. Feng is also the first to report the limitations of the early generation of induced pluripotent stem cells. This discovery was widely cited in the scientific community after published at the journal of Stem Cells.

From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Feng made significant contribution to the development of new technologies of generating platelets from human pluripotent stem cells. More importantly, high quality HLA-negative functional platelets were successfully generated from genome modified iPS cells. Dr. Feng the lead inventor of this patent and the results were published in Stem Cell Reports.

From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Feng studied the onset of ovarian cancer with the distinguished Prof. Nelly Auersperg at University of British Columbia in Canada. Prof. Auersperg is the pioneer investigator to establish the human model for ovarian cancer development.

Dr. Feng graduated from the Biology Department of Beijing Normal University with BSc degree and studied at the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for MSc and PhD degrees. He was an Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology in Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Feng received the prestigious award of Wu Jie-ping Medical Research Award and Paul Janssen Pharmaceutical Research Award in 1995. Dr. Feng was a recipient of Marie-Curie Fellowship from European Union and a Research Fellow supported by the Wellcome Trust in UK.

Dan Roden

Dan Roden, MD, is a Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, and Biomedical Informatics and Senior Vice-President for Personalized Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He grew up in Montreal and received his medical degree and trained in Internal Medicine at McGill University. He then went to Vanderbilt where, after fellowships in Clinical Pharmacology and Cardiology, he joined the faculty, and has remained there since. His research program studies how genetic variation affects human disease susceptibility, with a focus on pharmacogenetics, and genetic determinants of abnormal heart rhythms, especially those induced by drugs. After serving as chief of the division of Clinical Pharmacology for 12 years, he was tasked in 2006 with leading Vanderbilt’s efforts in Personalized Medicine. Under his leadership, Vanderbilt has become internationally recognized for cutting-edge programs in this area, including the large (250,000 samples) biobank BioVU and the EHR-based preemptive pharmacogenetic program PREDICT. He served as Principal Investigator for the Vanderbilt sites of the Pharmacogenomics Research Network (2001-2021), and currently serves as PI for the Vanderbilt site of the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network (2007-2025), and the Data and Research Center for the US All of Us initiative.

Dr. Roden has received the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics’ Leon Goldberg Young Investigator Award, Rawls Palmer Progress in Science Award, and the Oscar Hunter Career Award; the Distinguished Scientist Award and the Douglas Zipes lectureship from the Heart Rhythm Society; the Distinguished Scientist Award and the inaugural Functional Genomics and Translational Biology Medal of Honor from the American Heart Association; the Alumnus Lifetime Achievement Award and the Louis and Artur Lucian Award in Cardiovascular Research from McGill; and the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein prize in cardiovascular sciences from the Ohio State University. He has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dave Brown

Dr. David has worked in the research and commercial areas of the pharmaceutical industry for over 25 years. Having worked on programmes for: AstraZeneca, GsK, Pfizer, Baxter, Novo Nordisk, and Novartis.
Much of this work has involved the implementation of technology to address the gathering and analysis of patient data in clinical trials. In recent years David was the CTO for the BT for Life sciences suite of products designed to provide cost effective cloud solutions for research computing and the Chief Architect at Genomics England. Currently David is the Science and Programmes Director of the Qatar Precision Medicine Institute.

Gorka Orive

I am Gorka Orive, Associate Professor of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria in Spain. I am also a Professor at the University Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Oral Implantology - UIRMI and scientist at Networking Biomedical Research Center on Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine, CIBER-BBN. Recently, I have appointed as Adjunct Principal Researcher at the Singapore Eye Research Institute, The Academia, 20 College Road, Discovery Tower, Singapore.

I am one of the pharmacist (as scientists) with more international articles in Spain by the age of 45, with 320 international papers, 70 national articles, an H-index of 75 (1% top scientists of my country) and more than 20100 citations. In addition, in the recent "Top Scientific Rankings" classification prepared by Stanford University, I head the list of the most influential Spanish researchers in the world in Pharmacy and Pharmacology, and I am among the top 30 scientists in the world in this category, considering active researchers whose first article is in the 21st century. I have been also a relevant science communicator during the pandemic in twitter: @gorka_orive (more than 94,000 followers).
I am scientific advisor of Pharma companies (GSK, Roche, Bayer, BTI,etc). I also founded my own company Geroa Diagnostics (www.geroa.net) about Alzheimer´s diagnosis by salivary biomarkers.

Yu Shrike Zhang

Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer in the Division of Engineering in Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is directing the Laboratory of Engineered Living Systems (www.shrikezhang.com), where the research is focused on innovating medical engineering technologies, including 3D bioprinting, organs-on-chips, microfluidics, and bioanalysis, to recreate functional tissues and their biomimetic models, for applications in regenerative medicine and personalized medicine. Dr. Zhang is an author of >270 peer-reviewed publications (>45 covers; citations >20,000, h-index = 71). His scientific contributions have been recognized by >45 international, national, and regional awards, notable ones including ACS Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture (2022), Materials Today Rising Star Award (2020), C&EN Talented 12 (2018), Society for Mechanical Engineers Marcus Crotts Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2018), IEEE Sensors Council Technical Achievement Award (Early Career) (2018), TERMIS-AM Young Investigator Award (2018), and the Lush Prize—Young Researcher (Americas) (2016).

Stephan Lorenz

Dr. Lorenz graduated in Biochemistry at the University of Leipzig, where he investigated the role of GPCR kinases in the regulation of GPCR activity. He then joined the laboratory of Prof Ralf Paschke in Leipzig for his PhD, studying calcium-binding proteins and their role in benign thyroid tumors. He joined the Single Cell Centre at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge in 2013 to develop novel single-cell whole-genome amplification methods in the group of Thierry Voet. A year on, he started to build and manage one of the first core facilities focused on high-throughput single-cell genome and transcriptome sequencing. He and his team developed methods to rapidly process thousands of cells per experiment using high-end automation to achieve high throughput and minimize assay volumes and cost. Dr. Lorenz joined Sidra Medicine in 2018 as Director of the Clinical Genomics Laboratory, where he enables more cost-effective, rapid, and robust sequencing solutions that support important initiatives like the Qatar Genome Project and the use of sequencing technologies in a clinical setting. In this role, he oversees Genomics, Omics, Genomic Data Science, and the Zebrafish Core.

Blachy J. Dávila Saldaña

Director, Combined Immunodeficiency BMT Clinic; Fellowship Director, Bone Marrow Transplant and Cell Therapy Children's National Hospital

Blachy J. Dávila Saldaña, M.D., is a faculty member in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He received his medical degrees from the University of Puerto Rico and completed residency in both internal medicine and pediatrics at Rush University in Chicago. Following his residency, he completed his pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at Oregon Health & Science University where he developed a specific expertise in caring for patients with immunodeficiency undergoing BMT. After fellowship training, Dr. Dávila Saldaña did an extra year of fellowship in clinical immunodeficiency at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Center. His clinical and research interests are transplant approaches for non-malignant disorders, including primary immunodeficiencies and primary immune regulatory disorders. He is also involved in developing approaches for diversity, equity, and inclusion for several medical organizations, including the American Society of Hematology (ASH).

Rawad Rihani

Consultant, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation; Deputy Chairman, Department of Pediatrics; Lead, Pediatric Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation Program; President, Jordan Society for Pediatric Oncology

King Hussein Cancer Center, Amman Jordan

Consultant, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation @KHCC since 2005 to date

Master of Science Degree in Global Child Health- Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences/ St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – First Cohort Global Scholars Program, 2021

Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/BMT fellowship- Center for Children’s Cancers and Blood Disorders/ Sydney Children’s Hospital/University of New South Wales

Higher Specialization Degree (master’s degree) in Pediatrics from the Faculty of Higher Education University of Jordan

Bachelor of General Medicine and Surgery Degree (MBBS), from The University of Jordan

Rawad Rihani, MD, MSc (GCH) is board Certified Consultant Pediatric Hematologist/ Oncologist/ Bone marrow and stem cell transplantation. She is a graduate of the University of Jordan, School of Medicine (MBBS), where she also attended her higher specialization/ Masters in Pediatrics and Pediatrics residency Program. Dr. Rihani served as the Chief Resident and a teaching assistant in her last year of residency.

After that Dr. Rihani joined the Center for Children’s Cancers and Blood Disorders at the Sydney Children’s Hospital for her fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation. She was also a conjoint lecturer at The University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.

Dr. Rihani, thereafter, joint the Department of Pediatrics and the Pediatric BMT Program at The King Hussein Cancer Center in 2005 and is currently the Deputy Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and the Lead of the Pediatric BMT Program. Dr. Rihani’s mean interests include Pediatric BMT and cellular therapy and Pediatric leukemia.

Dr. Rihani also hold the position of the President of the Jordan Society of Pediatric Oncology for which she was nominated several terms. She also held the position of the Chairperson of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/BMT Jordanian Board Scientific and Certification Committee.

More Recently, Dr. Rihani completed a 2 year Masters of Science (MSc.) in Global Child Health from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences as part of the First Cohort and is now part of the Global Scholars Program at St. Jude.

Dr. Rihani is also the Liaison officer for all collaboration, agreements and projects between King Hussein Cancer Center and St. Jude Global. Currently Dr. Rihani the Physician Lead of the ongoing PrOFILE project.

Marco Ruella

Assistant Professor of Medicine
Scientific Dir. Lymphoma Program
Division of Hematology and Oncology
and Center for Cellular Immunotherapies
University of Pennsylvania

Marco Ruella, MD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and Scientific Director of the Lymphoma Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the study of the mechanisms of relapse after chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CART) immunotherapies with the goal of rationally designing combined innovative immunotherapies for relapsing/refractory leukemia and lymphoma. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on targeted immunotherapies for hematological cancers and is an inventor in several patents on CAR T therapy. His work has been recognized through numerous awards including the inaugural SITC EMD-Serono Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship (2014), the AACR-BMS Oncology Fellowship in Clinical Cancer Research (2015), the ASH Scholar Award (2016), a NIH K99-R00 award (2017), the “Paola Campese” Award Leukemia Research (2017), the Cancer Support Community Award (2018), and most recently the 2018 American Society of Hematology Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement. Dr. Ruella obtained his medical degree with high honors and completed his specialization in clinical hematology at the University of Torino, Italy. After completing his fellowship, he was an attending physician in the Hematology and Cell Therapy Division of the Mauriziano Hospital and an Instructor at the Biotechnology School at the University of Torino. From 2012, he was a postdoctoral fellow, and then an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies where he worked with Drs. June and Gill until appointment to his current position in 2018.

Yvonne Chen

Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics; Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Dr. Yvonne Chen is an Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also a faculty, by courtesy, in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Yvonne is the co-director of the Tumor Immunology program in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, and a member researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The Chen Laboratory applies synthetic biology and biomolecular engineering techniques to the development of novel mammalian-cell systems for clinical use, and led the first investigator-initiated clinical trial on CAR-T cell therapy at UCLA. The Chen Lab’s work on engineering next-generation T-cell therapies for cancer has been recognized by the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Hellman Fellowship, the ACGT Young Investigator Award in Cell and Gene Therapy for Cancer, the Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award, and the Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR Award. Prior to joining UCLA in 2013, Yvonne was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. She received postdoctoral training at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Yvonne received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

Francesco Marincola

Dr. Marincola received his MD, summa cum laude from the University of Milan, Italy and Surgery training at Stanford University, California. His research interest lies in translational medicine and focuses on the development of strategies for the dynamic study of patients’ response to immunotherapy. His approach has brought seminal observations regarding the mechanisms leading to rejection of tumors, allograft rejection, graft-versus-host disease and autoimmunity.

Dr. Marincola is currently the Global Head of Research at Kite Pharma, Santa Monica, California. He previously was President and Chief Scientific Officer at Refuge Biotechnologies, Menlo Park, California, Distinguished Research Fellow at AbbVie Corporation in Redwood City, California, Chief Research Officer at Sidra Medical and Research Center in Doha Qatar and Tenured Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda Maryland. Dr. Marincola founded in 2003 the Journal of Translational Medicine of which he is currently the Editor-in-Chief. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Translational Medicine Communications and Clinical and Translational Medicine. He is past-president of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and of the International Society for Translational Medicine. Dr. Marincola is editor of several biomedical books including the SITC-affiliated Cancer Immunotherapy Principles and Practice Textbook. Dr. Marincola is an award winning fiction writer author of The Wise Men of Pizzo and the Cat Behind the Window.

Essam M. Abdelalim

Dr. Abdelalim is currently a group leader at QBRI & Assistant Professor at HBKU. He received his PhD in Medical Science from Shiga University of Medical Science (Japan) and was later appointed as Assistant Professor in the same university. He had the privilege to set up the first pluripotent stem cell research program focusing on diabetes research in Qatar at HBKU. Since March 2014, he has been leading the diabetes stem cell research at QBRI, where hisresearch focuses on using pluripotent stem cells to understand pathophysiology underlying the development of diabetes and generating functional pancreatic cells for cell therapy. His team has established several iPSC lines from a wide range of patients with monogenic and polygenic forms of diabetes and established novel protocols for enhancing the differentiation of stem cells into insulin-secreting cells and insulin-target cells. He is currently the chair of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-QBRI Steering Committee overseeing the HSCI-QBRI diabetes/ stem cell program. He serves on the editorial board of “Stem Cells and Development” and “World Journal of Stem Cells” and serves as a reviewer for several funding agencies.He has been awarded several NPRP and Internal Research grants funded by Qatar National Fund (QNRF) and QBRI, respectively. He established strong collaboration in the field of diabetes with the key scientists and clinicians from different institutions inside Qatar. As academia constitutes an integral part of HBKU mission, he is heavily involved in teaching and mentoring. He supervised 6 master’s and 5 PhD students graduated during 2018- 2022. The work of his students has been recognized nationally and internationally as indicated by receiving 8 awards, including the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Merit Award in 2019 and HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani Educational Award being granted to one of my PhD students in 2021.

Franca Ronchese

Programme Leader

Franca trained at the University of Padova, Italy, and then as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Ron Germain at NIH, USA. She then joined the Basel Institute for Immunology in Basel, Switzerland, where she became interested in antigen presentation by dendritic cells in vivo. Since 1994 Franca has been leading the Immune Cell Biology Programme at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington, NZ. Her current work examines dendritic cell diversity during the initiation of CD4+ helper T cell responses with a particular focus on allergic immunity. Franca is a Research Professor at Te Herenga Waka / Victoria University of Wellington, NZ.

Eduardo R. Zimmer

Assistant Professor, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil

Department of Pharmacology, UFRGS, Brazil

Dr. Eduardo R. Zimmer, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Sul (UFRGS), Brazil. In 2015, Dr. Zimmer completed his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at UFRGS with a two-year exchange period at the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging (MCSA), Canada. In 2018, he started his independent laboratory (www.zimmer-lab.org). Dr. Zimmer is also and adjunct professor at McGill University, an affiliate member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, an Instituto Serrapilheira Grantee, and an Associate Researcher at the Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). He is a recipient of multiple awards, including the Alzheimer's Association Neuroscience Next "One-to-Watch" Award (2021), which recognizes the most promising young investigator in the field. Dr. Zimmer has published his work in impactful scientific journals and has been an active speaker at international scientific conferences. In addition, Dr. Zimmer is taking a leading role in mentoring Brazilian students and contributing to promoting diversity and science democratization in the field of Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Zimmer's group focuses on understanding neuron-to-astrocyte communication in neurodegenerative disorders aiming at deciphering precise mechanisms, early diagnosis, and developing innovative therapies. In the last years, his laboratory's work helped refine the biological interpretation of Alzheimer's disease biomarkers, showing the contribution of astrocytes.

Saquib A. Lakhani

Associate Professor, Pediatric Critical Care

Clinical Director, Pediatric Genomics Discovery Program

Yale University School of Medicine

USA

Saquib Lakhani is a practicing pediatric critical care physician at the Yale School of Medicine and Clinical Director of the Yale Pediatric Genomics Discovery Program (PGDP). The PGDP recruits individual patients with suspected rare genetic diseases having a wide range of phenotypes crossing multiple organ systems and physiologic processes. We then use next-generation sequencing (NGS) to identify candidate genes and variants. We further seek appropriate in vitro and in vivo functional analyses to provide support for these candidates, both internally in our program and in collaboration with groups around the world. The PGDP is also dedicated to actively engaging with the families and participants in our study, particularly by sharing individual research results, both NGS as well as basic science functional work.

Giles S.H. Yeo

University of Cambridge

Principal Research Associate & MRC Investigator

Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science-Metabolic Research Laboratories & MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit

Tutor- Wolfson College, Barton Road, Cambridge

Honorary President, British Dietetic Association

Giles Yeo got his PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge in 1998, after which he joined the lab of Prof Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, working on the genetics of severe human obesity. Giles Yeo is now a Professor of Molecular Neuroendocrinology and programme leader at the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit in Cambridge and his research currently focuses on the influence of genes on feeding behaviour & body-weight. In addition, he is a graduate tutor and fellow of Wolfson College, and Honorary President of the British Dietetic Association. Giles is also a broadcaster and author, presenting science documentaries for the BBC, and hosts a podcast called ‘Dr Giles Yeo Chews The Fat’. His first book ‘Gene Eating’ was published in December 2018, and his second book ‘Why Calories Don’t Count’ came out in June 2021. Giles was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 2020 birthday honours for services to ‘Research, Communication and Engagement’.

Khalid Fakhro

Dr. Khalid Fakhro is the Chief of Research and Director of the Precision Medicine Program at Sidra Medicine, the largest tertiary care women and children hospital in Qatar. Dr. Fakhro leads the Laboratory of Genomic Medicine, which focuses on bringing emerging genomic technologies from the lab close to the patient’s bedside. Over the past decade, his group has sequenced thousands of genomes from patients and volunteers across the Middle East, leading gene discovery efforts for a wide range of rare disorders, as well as landmark studies on population structure, genome structural variation, and the role of Islamic ethics in genome research. To date, his lab has been awarded competitive grants exceeding $7m to study genome structure and the genetic etiology of rare diseases and Autism, and their discoveries have featured in high-impact journals worldwide. In addition to research and hospital duties, Dr. Fakhro serves multiple leadership roles in Qatar’s growing biomedical ecosystem, including as a Board Member of the Qatar Precision Medicine Institute, and Adjunct Faculty at both Weill-Cornell Medical College and Hamad Bin Khalifa University, where he teaches and supervises Masters and Ph.D. students in genomics and precision medicine.

Younes Mokrab

Dr Younes Mokrab is principal investigator and head of Medical and Population Genomics Lab, Sidra Medicine. He joined in 2015 from Eli Lilly, where he led computational genomics research at the Neurogenetics Discovery Unit to identify/validate drug targets and stratify patients with neuropsychiatric disorders including Schizophrenia, ALS and Parkinson’s, working closely with Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). Dr Mokrab obtained a BSc in Genetics from the University of Sheffield, UK (2003), a PhD in Bioinformatics from Prof. Tom Blundell lab, University of Cambridge, UK (2007), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship from Prof. Mark Sansom Lab, University of Oxford (2010). Next, he moved to the pharmaceutical industry, initially Lonza Biologics performing in silico bio-pharmaceuticals engineering and subsequently Eli Lilly where he led research in early-stage drug discovery in various areas of neuropsychiatry. Upon joining Sidra, Dr Mokrab helped establish research programs in population and medical genetics and is a co-founding member of the Qatar Genome Program Research Consortium. Also, he co-chaired international meetings including Sidra Functional Genomics and CUDOS. He currently holds academic appointments at WCM-Q and HBKU. Dr Mokrab is a co-author of > 45 publications in top tier including Nature and Cell journals and is the recipient of multiple awards and external grants (> 9.1 m QAR).

Omar Albagha

After completing his PhD degree in 2001, Dr. Omar Albagha worked as a postdoctoral researcher until 2002 when he was appointed as an Arthritis Research UK lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Genetics of Bone disease at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK. In 2005 he moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Principal Investigator/Group leader at the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine (CGEM). In 2014, he was appointed the Associate Director of the Paget’s Association Centre of Excellence, Edinburgh. In early 2017, Dr. Albagha joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) as a Principal Investigator at the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) and in 2019 he joined the college of health and life sciences at HBKU as a Professor of Genomic and Precision medicine. His current research focuses on Genomic Medicine, aiming at understanding the genetic determinants of complex diseases with emphasis on Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. He has active collaborations with Qatar Genome Project to investigate genetics of disease-related traits in Qatar. He has published in high impact journals (Nature Genetics, JAMA, Cell Reports) and his work has been featured in news outlets such as the BBC and other international media. Dr Albagha has received many awards from international organizations including the European Calcified Tissue Society (ECTS) and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). He has obtained multiple research grants totalling over US$ 10 million including the highly prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator fellowship.

Puthen Veettil Jithesh

Acting Program Coordinator, Genomics & Precision Medicine;

Chair, Genomics & Precision Medicine Admissions Committee;

Division of Genomics & Translational Biomedicine

Dr. Puthen Veettil Jithesh, FRSB is an associate professor at the College of Health and Life Sciences (CHLS) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). He is also the acting program coordinator of the Genomics & Precision Medicine (GPM) MS/PhD programs and chair of the GPM graduate admissions committee.

Dr. Jithesh holds a Master’s degree in microbiology, an Advanced Diploma in bioinformatics, and received his PhD in bioinformatics from Queen’s University Belfast, UK.

He has over 20 years of research and development experience in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at several prestigious institutes in India, Qatar, and Russell Group research universities in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Jithesh’s research focuses on bioinformatics and computational biology tool development and applications in translational research, pharmacogenomics for the prediction of response and toxicity to drugs, identification of causal variants in rare genetic diseases, and machine learning and data science toward the implementation of precision medicine. He leads the pharmacogenomics stream of the Qatar Genome Program Research Consortium and recently published the actionable pharmacogenomic landscape of the Qatari population.

Before moving to Qatar, he was the head of Bioinformatics for the Oxford Translational Molecular Diagnostic Centre at the University of Oxford and held honorary appointments with the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics and the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Davide Bedognetti

Dr. Davide Bedognetti, MD, PhD is the Director of the Human Immunology Department and Cancer Program at Sidra Medicine and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. Dr. Bedognetti joined Sidra in 2014.

After obtaining the Board Certification in Medical Oncology by the University of Genova and Italian National Cancer Institute (IST) in 2008, he joined the Infectious Disease and Immunogenetics Section (IDIS) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he completed his post-doctoral fellowship. From 2013 to 2014, he served as Director of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) Center of Excellence at NIH Clinical Center. As an Investigator, his main research focus is to define determinants of immune responsiveness in tumors by using integrative genomic approaches.

Khalid Hussain

Dr. Hussain qualified from the University of Glasgow (Scotland UK) and trained in neonatology, metabolic medicine, and endocrinology at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London UK, and in Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne Australia. His research interests focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms of hypoglycemia, rare types of diabetes mellitus, monogenic obesity, and understanding the developmental biology of the pancreas. He has published extensively (over 400 peer-reviewed publications). Prior to joining Sidra, he was the GOSHCC (Great Ormond Street HOSPITAL Children’s Charity) Professor in Pediatric Metabolic Endocrinology at The Institute of Child Health, University College London (UCL) and Honorary Consultant Pediatric Endocrinologist at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. His currently working in Sidra Medicine in Qatar and is the Division Chief of Pediatric endocrinology.

Darren Logan

Darren Logan obtained his PhD at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, UK in 2004, studying the genetics of skin and hair colour. He moved to The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, USA for his postdoctoral studies, where he was awarded a Skaggs Fellowship to investigate the genetics basis of innate behaviours. In early 2010 Darren joined the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge UK, as faculty in the model organism programme. His team studied genes that enable mammals to detect, interpret and respond to their environment with an appropriate behaviour. In 2013 he was appointed an EMBO Young Investigator and subsequently combined his role at Sanger with a faculty position the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, USA.

In 2016, Darren left academia for The Waltham Petcare Science Institute – the global research centre for Mars Petcare. In his current role as Head of Research, he leads a multidisciplinary, international team of over 90 researchers, data scientists and veterinarians that strive to improve the health and wellbeing of cats, dogs, horses and fish, and the people who own them. In addition to publishing and communicating fundamental research, his team develop precision healthcare products and services that are delivered through Mars Petcare’s ecosystem of veterinary hospitals, nutrition, diagnostics, and life-style companies.

Abubakr Imam

Division Chief, Nephrology & Hypertension, Sidra MedicineClinical Professor, Clinical Nephrology, Qatar University

Dr. Imam graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum in 1991. He completed his Pediatric Residency Training and Chief Residency in 1998 in New York and completed his fellowship training in Pediatric Nephrology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2001.

He joined the faculty at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan/Wayne State University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and became the Director of Renal Transplantation Program form 2003-2006. He then joined the faculty of Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio as an Associate Professor and the Chief of Nephrology from 2006-2009. He became the Head Section of Nephrology at King Fahad Medical City in Saudi Arabia from 2009-2012. He was the Head of Pediatric Nephrology at Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar from 2012 to 2017. He is currently the Division Chief of Nephrology at Sidra Medicine in Qatar; a Clinical Professor of Clinical Nephrology at the College of Medicine-Qatar University; and an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.

Dr. Imam is board-certified by both the American Board of Pediatrics in General Pediatrics and its Sub-Board of Pediatric Nephrology. He is also board-certified by the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physician. He is a member of many international organizations and has many publications in the field of Nephrology and Transplantation.

Mirjam Blattner-Johnson

Postdoctoral researcher at the Hopp Children´s Cancer Center Heidelberg (KITZ) and German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Germany.

Dr Blattner-Johnson completed her higher education in biomedicine and biotechnology in Vienna, Austria and the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany followed by a PhD at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, USA. Since 2017, Dr Blattner-Johnson has been the lead analyst for next generation sequencing data for the international pediatric precision medicine program INFORM, which is open across 12 European countries. INFORM has the goal to identify tumor specific targeted therapy by performing and analyzing lcWGS; WES, RNAseq and high throughput drug screen on fresh tumor material from pediatric patients post relapse.

In addition, her special research focus is on the molecular classification of newly identified and rare pediatric brain tumors using state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic tools such as DNA methylation profiling, single cell sequencing technologies and integrative proteome and transcriptome profiling.

Daniela Robles-Espinoza

Assistant Professor
International Laboratory for Human Genome Research
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Juriquilla campus

Mexico Dr. Carla Daniela Robles-Espinoza is an assistant professor at the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and an international fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK. She studied a BSc in genome sciences at UNAM and a PhD in cancer genetics at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research focuses on using large-scale sequencing data for investigating the driver alterations, risk factors and potential therapeutic targets of types of cancer important in Mexico and Latin America, such as acral lentiginous melanoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. She is a Newton Advanced Fellow (Academy of Medical Sciences, UK) and has received the Christopher Marshall Award (Society for Melanoma Research, USA) and Scholar Award (Forbeck Research Foundation, USA).

Clare Slaney

Senior Research Fellow
NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow
National Breast Cancer Foundation Fellow
Immune Innovation Laboratory
Cancer Immunology Research Program
Melbourne, Victoria – Australia

Dr. Clare is a Senior Research Fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Australia. Her current research interests are in understanding the interaction between the immune system and cancer, and in the use of immunotherapy to treat cancer. These interests include the use of genetically modified T cells (CAR T cells) to treat solid cancers. Clare has published over 40 papers in high-impact journals including first and last authorships in Nature Medicine, PNAS, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and Cancer Discovery. She has obtained over $13 million research funding, including 3 fellowships, 6 CIA project grants and a startup grant to form a spinout company Currus Biologics to develop novel CAR T cell therapies. Her accomplishments have been acknowledged with a number of awards including the Seymour and Vivian Milstein Young Investigator Award for notable contributions to basic and clinical research in Switzerland (2012), a Joseph Sambrook Award in Research Excellence (2014), and the respected Mavis Robertson Award (2018) that is given each year to a female principal investigator considered to exhibit the greatest promise as a leader in breast cancer research in Australia.

Ana Domingos Jansen

The Domingos laboratory researches neuroimmune mechanisms underlying obesity. They discovered neuro-adipose junctions between white adipocytes and the sympathetic nervous system that are necessary and sufficient for fat mass reduction via norepinephrine (NE) signaling (Cell 2015, Nature Comm 2017). They discovered Sympathetic neuron-Associated Macrophages (SAMs) that import and metabolize NE. Abrogation of SAM function promotes long-term amelioration of obesity independently of food intake (Nature Medicine, 2017). Dr. Ana Domingos is funded byHHMI/Wellcome Trust, ERC, HFSP, EMBO. She trained with Leslie Vosshall and Jeffrey Friedman at The Rockefeller University and graduated in mathematics.

Christian Capitini

Jean R. Finley Professor in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
American Cancer Society Research Scholar
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Co-Leader, Developmental Therapeutics Program
UW Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, WI

Dr. Christian Capitini is the Jean R. Finley Professor of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison and is presently a Hyundai Hope on Wheels Scholar. He also serves as Co-Leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Dr. Capitini has been an active member of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and now serves as an At-Large Director. He is also the Section Editor for the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Dr. Capitini leads an NIH and NSF-supported laboratory focusing on development of cell-based therapies including NK cells and CAR T cells for the treatment of pediatric solid tumors. The laboratory also develops cell-based therapies for complications of bone marrow transplant, including alternatively activated macrophages to treat graft-versus-host-disease and acute radiation syndrome. In the clinic, Dr. Capitini was a site Principal Investigator (PI) for the first multicenter CAR T cell trial, which lead to the FDA approval of tisagenlecleucel-T (Kymriah). Presently he is a site PI for multiple Kymriah trials for the upfront treatment of high-risk B cell leukemia and for recurrent non-Hodgkin lymphoma in children. He is also a site PI for a multicenter GD2 CAR T cell trial for neuroblastoma and osteosarcoma through the Pediatric NCI-CITN

Astrid Moura Vicente

Astrid Moura Vicente, PhD
Head, Department of Health Promotion and NCD Prevention
Senior Researcher, INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE SAÚDE DOUTOR RICARDO JORGE
Lisboa, PORTUGAL

Professor Astrid M. Vicente is a senior researcher in biomedical sciences and public health, Head of the Department of Health Promotion and Non-Communicable Disease Prevention at the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, in Lisbon, Portugal, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. She holds a degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular Biology from University of Coimbra.

Astrid Vicente served two terms as elected Vice-Chair of the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine (ICPerMed) (2018-2022), and is currently a member of the ICPerMed Steering Board. She represents the Portuguese Ministry of Health in the ICPerMed Executive Committee. She also represents the Ministry of Health of Portugal in the European 1+Million Genomes Initiative (1+MG), where she is a member of the Coordination Team. She leads the work package on Personalised Medicine delivery, scientific and societal impact for the 1+MG Coordination and Support Action Beyond 1 Million Genomes. Astrid Vicente is also coordinating the development of the Strategy for Genomic Medicine in Portugal.

As researcher, Astrid Vicente has long been interested in understanding the etiology and biological processes underlying complex non-communicable diseases, with a particular interest in pathologies of the nervous system. Her work focuses in gaining a broad perspective of interactions between genetic and environmental factors to clarify the origins of multifactorial disorders, and employs systems medicine approaches to integrate multidimensional data. She participated in large research consortia and networks to conduct large scale population genomic analysis, and has contributed extensively to the scientific literature in her research area, particularly in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Astrid Vicente is currently very interested in fostering progress towards translation of knowledge into personalised strategies for diagnostics, medical care and prevention. She is very involved the public health aspects of Personalised Medicine, particularly concerning the implementation of genomics in healthcare systems, and on strategies that promote equitable access to Personalised medicine for all.

Eric Bouffet

Eric Bouffet, MD, FRCP(C)

Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics, University of Toronto

Dr Bouffet is an Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics in the University of Toronto. He was the Head of the Neuro-oncology Section in the Division of Haematology/Oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto from 2000 till 2022 and the Garron Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research between 2011 and 2022. He is an Emeritus Senior Associate Scientist in the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children. His research interests are in the area of novel treatments and clinical trials in children with brain tumours and implementation of neuro-oncology programs in countries with limited resources. He is author or co-author of over 550 peer-reviewed manuscripts and author/co-author on numerous book chapters in the field of neuro-oncology. He was President of the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (2016-2019). In 2020, he was elected Member of the Board of Directors of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and the GFAOP (Franco-African Group of Paediatric Oncology.

Lance Kawaguchi

Lance Kawaguchi ,

CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation

Mr. Lance Kawaguchi is an internationally recognized executive leader and board member, with over 25 years of global finance and banking experience, including living and working throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

Lance is the CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (www.curebraincancer.org), a non-profit organization in Australia dedicated to defeating brain cancer. Lance currently serves as the Chairman of the Asian Fund for Cancer Research (www.AFCR.org), and actively supports the organization’s BRACE Award Venture Competition, which provides seed funding to biotechnology companies that develop products for cancers prevalent in the Asian population. He is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Foundation for Cancer Research (www.NFCR.org), a non-profit organization in the US co-founded by Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi in 1973. He is also the strategic advisor for the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund (www.AIM-HIAccelerator.org), a non-profit organization in the US focused on advancing oncology start-ups through venture and impact investments.

As CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, Lance launched the world’s first brain cancer-dedicated Clinical Accelerator program to support early-stage biotechnology companies, researchers, and industry partners to progress innovative therapeutics into the clinic rapidly. Due to Lance’s unwavering tenacity, Cure Brain Cancer Foundation led the critical funding to bring the revolutionary trial GBM AGILE to Australia through the partnership with the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research (www.gcaresearch.org), a non-profit organization pioneering ground-breaking adaptive clinical trial platforms to deliver innovative therapies to patients faster.

Throughout his career, Lance’s outstanding leadership and innovative approach to diversity and inclusion have seen him recognised by many peak global bodies including the Treasury Management International, prestigious BAME100 Board Talent Index and as one of UPstanding’s 100 leading ethnic minority executives.

Fatma Al Jasmi

Professor Fatma Al Jasmi, MBBS,FRCPC,FCCMG, Biochemical Genetics Consultant, Tawam Hospital, Chair of Genetics & Genomics - (CMHS), UAE

Prof. Al Jasmi is Chair of Genetic & Genomic department, at College of Medicine & Health science, UAE University, Al Ain. Metabolic consultant at Tawam Hospital. She did her undergraduate studies at UAE University, UAE and graduated in 2000 with bachelor’s in medicine and health science. She pursued her postgraduate studies at University of Toronto, and Hospital for Sick Children, Canada. In 2006, Prof. Al Jasmi received Canadian Board of Pediatrics after completing the Pediatric residency program. Subsequently, she did her fellowship in biochemical genetics and in 2008 and certified with Canadian College of Medical Genetics Board (Biochemical Genetics). She participated in the expanding of national newborn screening and the premarital screening pilot study using Whole Exome sequencing. She organized and participated in numerous national and international conferences aiming to advance rare diseases community awareness, education and clinical sciences. She collaborated with numerous national and international clinical scientist to enhance rare metabolic disease research and clinical service. Prof. Al Jasmi research involved Oxygen analyzer as a screening tool for disorders of impaired cellular bioenergetics, prevalence of inborn errors of metabolism in United Arab Emirate, Newborn screening in UAE, Whole exome sequencing for inborn errors of metabolism, mitochondrial DNA variation, lysosomal storage disorders, Peroxisomal disorders in addition to identification of biomarker for propionate metabolism. Dr. Al Jasmi is one of the founder of UAE rare disease society. Prof. Al Jasmi established the biochemical Genetic Fellowship at UAEU in collaboration with Tawam hospital and graduated two prominent Emirati consultants. She is recipient of Prime Minister Award for excellence in a specialized job (2017) Chancellors’ Innovation Award (2015) Women in Science (WiS) Hall of Fame as an outstanding woman in science throughout the Middle East North Africa region (2015) and L’Oreal UNESCO For Women in Science Pan Arab award (2013) Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum Award for Excellent Achievements in Medicine (2000).

Vincenzo Iaconianni

Vincenzo Iaconianni is the CEO of ICMED s.r.l., an Italian company specialized in consulting and education in Healthcare. ICMED s.r.l. He is consultant of stem cell transplant centers, biobanks, GMP facilities and support their path until the accreditations and certifications according the international standards. Moreover, ICMED s.r.l.designs and organizes specialized training course in the field of CAR-T, GCP, GMP and quality concepts.

Matthew Porteus

Stanford University, USA

Matthew Porteus MD, PhD is the Sutardja Chuk Professor of Definitive and Curative Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and Maternal-Child Health Research Institute at Stanford. His primary research focus is on developing genome editing as an approach to cure disease, particularly those of the blood (such as sickle cell disease) but also of other organ systems as well. He received his undergraduate degree at Harvard in History and Science where his honors thesis studied the recombinant DNA controversy of the 1970s. He then completed his MD and PhD training at Stanford, clinical training in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital, and post-doctoral research training with Noble Laureate David Baltimore at CalTech. He works as an attending physician on the Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant service at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital where he cares for children under going bone marrow transplantation for both malignant and non-malignant diseases. His goal is to combine his research and clinical interests to develop innovative curative therapies. He served on the 2017 National Academy Study Committee of Human Genome Editing and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for WADA on Cell and Gene Doping and the NIH NexTRAC advisory committee evaluating the emergence of new technologies.

Dorret Boomsma

Prof dr DI Boomsma

Netherlands Twin Register

Dept Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherland.

Professor Dorret Boomsma (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam & Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science) focuses on the causes of variation in human complex traits and disease as a function of genotype and environment. To this end, she established the Netherlands Twin Register, which over the past 30 years recruited >200,000 twins and family members (https://tweelingenregister.vu.nl/). With the participation of these twin families, over 1400 peer reviewed papers were realized, and NTR data have been shared with many consortia and colleagues. She teaches quantitative genetics theory and is a founding member of the International Statistical Genetics workshop (https://www.colorado.edu/ibg/workshop ).

Boomsma supervised over 60 PhD students and her work has led to national and international awards, including the Spinoza Prize which is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands (http://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/programmes/spinoza+prize ). International recognition includes the James Shields and Dobzhansky Award. She established the ACTION consortium (Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies; http://www.action-euproject.eu/ ) and is a board member of the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (https://www.bbmri.nl/ ). In 2022 she was a awarded a honorary degree by the Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki University.

Pedro Beltrao

ETH, Switzerland

Pedro Beltrao has a Biochemistry degree from University of Coimbra (2002) and a PhD in Biology from the University of Aveiro for research conducted at EMBL-Heidelberg under the supervision of Luis Serrano (2007). He did his postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco under the supervision of Prof. Nevan Krogan (2008-2012). He was a group leader at EMBL-EBI from 2013 to 2021 and he is now an Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, ETH Zurich from Jan 2022.

Rimas Orentas

Rimas J. Orentas, PhD

Scientific Director, Caring Cross, Inc.

Professor, University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Hematology-Oncology

Investigator, Seattle Children’s Research Institute

Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research

Rimas J. Orentas, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology-Oncology, at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology where he mentors graduate students in the M3D program (Molecular Medicine and Mechanisms of Disease). Dr. Orentas’ research is based in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research, at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Dr. Orentas is also Board Chair and Scientific Director of Caring Cross (caringcross.org) whose mission is to develop and implement curative cell and gene therapy approaches in low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Orentas’ has worked in industry, at the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, and began his independent research career at the Medical College of Wisconsin, after earning a PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular Science from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Orentas’ research has focused on the immune response to EBV-associated cancers and he was one of the first investigators to clone and express a recombinant TCR using a retroviral vector. His research broadened to include investigating the immune response to pediatric solid tumors, focusing on neuroblastoma, and is currently researching CAR-T approaches for rhabdomyosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma with the goal of unraveling the solid tumor microenvironment in pediatric tumors in order to see curative responses in solid tumors similar to those now being developed and optimized for hematologic malignancies. The CAR-T cells developed by Dr. Orentas have led to five first-in-human trials. The CD22-specific CARs developed at the NCI have made significant clinical impact, as have those specific for CD19 (using an alternate structure to those featured in approved products) and a tandem CAR specific for CD19/CD20 developed at Lentigen, a Miltenyi Biotec Company, where he served as Scientific Director.

Nathalie K. Zgheib

Nathalie K. Zgheib, MD.

Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Pharmacogenetics lab

Leader, Program for Research and Innovation in Medical Education (PRIME)

Vice-Chair, Institutional Review Board (IRB)

American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Zgheib is Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine (AUBFM). She launched and has been directing the Pharmacogenetics (PGx) lab at AUBFM since 2007. Her current area of research focuses on the PGx and pharmacoepigenetics of non-communicable diseases with a special interest in cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Zgheib has been applying the “candidate gene” PGx approach, and started using higher throughput analysis. Her more recent research projects are geared towards performing more extensive genotyping and including bigger and more representative population samples such as by developing research registries and prospectively following up patients. Furthermore, many technologies and research applications, such as next generation sequencing and epigenetics that complement and enhance PGx research and applications, are being actively pursued.

Dr. Zgheib’s lab is funded by intramural and extramural grants. In 2020, she received the prestigious Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers for Pharmacogenetics. https://www.aub.edu.lb/articles/Pages/Nathalie_Khoueiry_2020_Arab_Researchers_Award.aspx

https://www.aub.edu.lb/Pages/profile.aspx?memberid=nk16

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57195804538

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vMile4UAAAAJ&hl=en

Michael F. Wells

Michael F. Wells, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the UCLA Department of Human Genetics. He earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2008, and a PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University in 2015 under the guidance of Dr. Guoping Feng. In 2021, he completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Kevin Eggan at Harvard University and the Broad Institute. Michael’s research focuses on discovering the disease mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders of genetic and viral origin using human stem cell-derived neural models and cerebral organoids. His work has been published in such high-impact journals as Nature, Cell, Neuron, and Cell Stem Cell, and has been funded by a F31 Predoctoral Fellowship, a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award, and a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Program award. His laboratory specializes in the generation and analysis of multiplexed “villages” of neural cells to understand the role of human genetic variation in molecular and phenotypic heterogeneity, especially in the context of autism spectrum disorders. Outside of the laboratory, Michael serves as the creator and co-director of the COVID-19 National Scientist Volunteer Database (covid19sci.org), which is a resource for health officials and decision-makers around the country looking to solve COVID-19-related problems. In addition, he is the Chair of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Trainee Advisory Committee and has previously participated in the SfN Early Career Policy Ambassador program.

Batu Erman

Batu Erman, Ph.D.

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics

Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Batu Erman received his BA degree from Hamilton College, Clinton NY in 1991 and his PhD from Brandeis University, Waltham Massachussetts in 1998. He trained as a postdoctoral scientist in the Experimental Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute/NIH in Dr. Alfred Singer's laboratory from 1998-2004. He joined Sabancı University in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004 to set up his own research lab focussing on immunology and molecular biology. In 2020, he moved his laboratory to the Molecular Biology and Genetics Department at Boğaziçi University also in Istanbul. His research interests include: a) modelling human disease in tissue culture and transgenic models using genome editing tools, b) development of novel anti-inflammatory biologics using nanobody based reagents and c) targeting signal transduction pathways and transcription factor proteins relevant to cancer.

Ali Gharavi

Ali Gharavi, M.D.

Columbia University, USA

Ali Gharavi, M.D., is the Jay Meltzer Professor of Nephrology and Hypertension and serves as Chief of the Division of Nephrology, Director of the Center for Precision and Genomics in the Department of Medicine and Interim Director of the Institute of genomic Medicine. After receiving his medical degree from George Washington University, Dr. Gharavi completed residency in internal medicine and fellowships in hypertension and nephrology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in human genetics at Yale University and joined Columbia University in 2003. Dr. Gharavi’s research is focused on the molecular genetics of kidney diseases and his work has led to the discovery of genes and loci for IgA nephropathy and congenital defects of the kidney and urinary tract. His recent research has demonstrated the utility of clinical sequencing in the diagnosis and management of patients with kidney disease and he is extending this work to other adult constitutional disorders. His ultimate goal is to bring personalized genomic medicine from the laboratory into patient care. He is the principal investigator of multiple scientific projects funded by the National Institute of Health, including the “All of Us” program. He was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians.

Youssef Idaghdour

NYU Abu Dhabi

Dr. Youssef Idaghdour is an Assistant Professor of Biology and Co-Principal Investigator of the Public Health Research Center at New York University Abu Dhabi. Dr. Idaghdour received a Ph.D. in Genetics at North Carolina State University under a Fulbright Fellowship. He was awarded a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship and worked on population and cohort studies including the International 1000 Genomes project and the CARTaGENE public health biobank project in Canada where he was awarded the Prize of Excellence in Postdoctoral Research by the Foundation of Stars. Dr. Idaghdour established a research program on population and medical genomics of complex traits in the UAE, Morocco and West Africa. His research group uses quantitative, population and statistical genetic approaches to analyze multi-omics high-dimensional datasets. His current work focuses on immunometabolism and population and medical genomics of the UAE population with a focus on infection and cardio-metabolic disease. Dr. Idaghdour is the Vice-Lead of the UAE National COVID-19 Diagnostic Committee and the recipient of the 2022 NYUAD Faculty Distinguished Service Award.

Alice Chen

Alice P. Chen, M.D.

National Cancer Institute, US

Dr. Chen directs the Developmental Therapeutics Clinic (DTC) at the National Cancer Institute since 2014. Within the DTC, NCI facilitates the discovery and development of new anticancer drugs and drug targets, as well as piloting novel clinical trial designs that can be applied to the development of molecularly targeted agents on a national and international basis. She is the director the Advance Developmental Therapeutic Training Program which trains medical oncologists in early phase drug development. Fellows in the program have won major awards including one of the 2020 ASCO Young Investigator awards. In the field of precision medicine, she is the co-primary investigator for the largest precision medicine trial, NCI-MATCH, primary investigator for the Molecular Profiling-Based Assignment of Cancer Therapy (MPACT) and mentor for an investigator leading an arm for the ComboMATCH. Dr. Chen is also the Chief Specialty Editor for the Frontiers Medicine: Precision Medicine. Her other experiences include nine years as Senior Investigator at the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), DCTD, NCI handling a portfolio in DNA repair and antiangiogenic agents. Interest in improving early phase clinical trials, Dr. Chen has led 2 revisions of the Common Toxicities Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) and is a member of the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) committee. Her other area of expertise includes rare tumor and sarcoma, leading as the primary investigator for several multicenter sarcoma studies testing immunotherapy and new novel agents. She has authored over 160 manuscripts and made presented by invitation to major oncology meetings internationally on early phase clinical trials, precision medicine, DNA repair and CTCAE.

Eleftheria Zeggini

Prof. Eleftheria Zeggini, FMedSci

Eleftheria Zeggini obtained a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Immunogenetics of Juvenile Arthritis from the University of Manchester. Following a statistical genetics post doc at the Centre for Integrated Genomic and Medical Research in Manchester, she moved to the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford to undertake a post doc in type 2 diabetes research. There, she received the Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship to work on analytical and empirical approaches in large-scale association studies. In 2008, she joined the Wellcome Sanger Institute Human Genetics Faculty where she built a programme of work to advance analytical genomics of complex traits. In 2018, she moved to the Helmholtz Center Munich as founding Director of the Institute of Translational Genomics and since May 2020 holds the TUM Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professorship at the Technical University Munich School of Medicine. In 2021, she took on the role of programme speaker for the Programme Oriented funding ENABLE at Helmholtz Munich where she now is responsible for scientific strategy and core funding of the centre (3000 employees). Her research leverages big biomedical data and aims to translate insights from genomics into mechanisms of disease development and progression, shortening the path to translation and empowering precision medicine.

Houari B. Abdesselem

Houari B. Abdesselem, Ph.D

Laboratory Manager, Proteomics Core Facility

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute

Hamad Bin Khalifa University

Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar Dr. Houari Abdesselem obtained his B.Sc degree in Biology from Oran 1 University (Algeria) and Paris-11 University (France). He then attained his Master degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Louis Pasteur University. In 2005, he moved to Germany for his doctoral studies where he pursued his PhD training in Neuroscience under Prof. Claudia Stuermer supervision at the University of Konstanz. His PhD work focused on the function of myelin associated proteins in vertebrate neuronal regeneration. After completing his PhD in 2009, he conducted postdoctoral trainings at Weill Cornell Medicine-New York and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where he investigated the role of neuronal guidance molecules in developing nervous system and neuronal cell death. In 2012, he moved to Qatar to join Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar as a postdoc research fellow to study the function of Sirt1 protein in obesity, and adipocytes senescence. In 2016, Dr. Abdesselem was offered a position of Laboratory Manager at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) to manage Dr. Omar El Agnaf’s research group working on Parkinson’s disease, and the Neurological Disorders Research Center (NDRC) as well. Dr. Abdesselem has enormously contributed to the success of his research group. He has also established from scratch and managed the new NDRC laboratories at HBKU LAS and RDC-2 buildings and has successfully built the new Proteomics core lab facility, and transferred new proteomics technologies to QBRI, such as OLINK, SENGENICS, and SIMOA biomarker technologies. Dr. Abdesselem has proven ability to lead and manage the Proteomics core lab facility, that became certified and fully operational since 2020. Beside his high management performance, his scientific performance records are accentuated by his peer-reviewed papers published in high impact factor journals.

Diogo Manoel

Staff Scientist - Assistant Level

Laboratory of Neurometabolism and Functional Genomics,

Sidra Medicine, Qatar.

is a Staff Scientist at the Laboratory of Neurometabolism and Functional Genomics led by Luis Saraiva at Sidra Medicine, Qatar. Throughout his career, he has been interested in the use of animal models like Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode worm), Drosophila melanogaster (fruitfly), Mus musculus (mouse) and Danio rerio (zebrafish) as organismal model systems to answer concrete biological questions, particularly in disease contexts. Specifically, Diogo has been using gene expression, genetic and genomic manipulations to generate the necessary tools for resolving biological and medical puzzles. Currently, Diogo applies these tools to perform functional studies underlying human disease, as a part of a state-of-the-art precision medicine pipeline that is being developed at Sidra Medicine. To achieve this, Diogo takes advantage of two major aspects he developed throughout his 16-year experience working in scientific research environments. On one hand he uses the accumulated expertise in working with animal models as C. elegans, Drosophila, mouse and more recently Zebrafish to generate organismal phenotypes with relevance to answer medical questions in particular clinical contexts. On the other, Diogo uses the accumulated technical and scientific expertise in developmental biology, molecular genetics, transcriptional regulation, transgenics, molecular biology, microscopy, biochemistry, and immunohistochemistry, among others, to measure these phenotypes at multiple levels.

Albino J. Oliveira Maia

Albino J. Oliveira Maia, MD, MPH, PhD

Group Leader @ Champalimaud Research

Neuropsychiatry Director @ Champalimaud Clinical Centre

Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal

Albino J. Oliveira Maia is a physician trained at Universidade do Porto, in Portugal, with a doctorate in neuroscience, developed at Duke University, USA, under the supervision of Miguel Nicolelis and Sidney Simon. Upon returning to Portugal for psychiatry residency, he was engaged in postdoctoral training with Rui Costa at the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, in Lisbon. During psychiatry residency and postdoctoral work, Albino completed a master’s degree in public health at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, where he trained with Alvaro Pascual-Leone.

Currently, Albino J. Oliveira Maia is director of the Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Champalimaud Clinical Centre, Group Leader at the Champalimaud Experimental Clinical Research Programme, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at NOVA Medical School. The clinical unit he directs is specialized in mental health care for patients with cancer, as well as treatment resistant depression (TRD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder, for whom he set up the first organized transcranial magnetic stimulation clinic in Portugal. He has also served as national coordinator for several international multicentre clinical studies on TRD, providing access to these trials at the Champalimaud Clinic.

The Oliveira-Maia laboratory leads research in these clinical areas, as well in translational work to understand brain and peripheral determinants of reward-related feeding behaviors in health and disease. The methods used in his laboratory span from psychological and behavioral assessment in patients and healthy volunteers, to optogenetic stimulation of central and peripheral neurons in mice, and brain imaging in both species. Albino published in journals such as Neuron, Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Brain Stimulation, and his work is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal), Fundação Champalimaud, Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation and Horizon 2020 programme. In 2020 he was awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council.

Michaela Semeraro

Michaela Semeraro, MD PhD

Necker Children's Hospital, France

Dr Michaela Semeraro studied Medicine in the University of Bologna (Italy) with a specialization in pediatrics and pediatric onco–hematology. After completing the clinician fellowship at Gustave Roussy cancer campus (Villejuif-France) in pediatric oncology, she started a PhD in immunology in the Tumor immunology and immunotherapy lab directed by Pr L Zitvogel followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunology in the Metabolism, cancer and immunity lab directed by Pr G Kroemer (University Paris Cité-France).

Since 2013 Dr Semeraro is responsible of the Center of Clinical Investigation (Director Pr JM Tréluyer) in Necker Hospital in Paris (greater pediatric hospital in France) where she is in charge of more than 100 clinical trials from the phase 1 to the phase 4 mostly in the field of rare diseases. Her clinical research activity and translational research is particularly focused in developing gene therapy for rare diseases and for non-tumoral hematological disorders.

In 2008 Dr Semeraro became Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Paris Cité University. She is mostly involved in the education of clinical research in the Paris Cité University and she is in charge of several educational programs for clinical research training.

Dr Semeraro is principal Investigator or scientific director of several clinical trials, member of the French clinical research network (PedStart) and review editor for numerous journals in the field of immunology, oncology and gene therapy.

Xiling Shen

Dr. Xiling Shen

Terasaki Institute, USA

Dr. Shen is currently a professor and the chief scientific officer of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and the chief executive officer of Xilis Inc. He was formerly the Hawkins Family Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University and the director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from Stanford University and the NSF career award at Cornell University. He was the steering committee chair of the NCI Patient-Derived Model of Cancer Consortium, co-chair of the NCI Tissue Engineering Consortium, and cancer track chair of Biomedical Engineering Society 2019. His lab studies precision medicine from a systems biology perspective. Areas of interests include cancer, stem cells, the but-brain axis, and microbiome.

Bruno Reversade

Prof. Bruno REVERSADE

GIS, A*STAR, Singapore

KOÇ University, Turkey

KAUST, Saudi Arabia

www.reversade.com

Bruno was trained as a developmental biologist at the HHMI in UCLA (USA).

After his PhD, he was awarded the inaugural A*STAR investigatorship and set up his team at A*STAR in Singapore. There, he switched to human genetics, placing emphasis on monogenic, fully penetrant and unique genetic traits as a means to understand complex and common diseases. Combining the power of Mendelian genetics, patient-derived organoids, and animal modeling, his team has ascertained the aetiology of orphaned human disorders affecting embryogenesis, metabolism, aging, cognition, immunity and familial cancers. Some of these discoveries have been licensed or are being developed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Bruno is a Research Director at A*STAR in Singapore, a fellow of the Branco Weiss (Switzerland) and National Research Foundations (Singapore), the first EMBO Young Investigator based outside Europe, and a Professor of Genetics at Koç University (Turkey) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KSA).

Can Alkan

Dept. Computer Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

Can Alkan is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent University since January 2012. He graduated from Bilkent University Dept. of Computer Engineering in 2000, and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University in 2005 after a brief visit to Simon Fraser University. During his Ph.D. he worked on the evolution of centromeric DNA, RNA-RNA interaction prediction and RNA folding problems. He then joined the Department of Genome Sciences of the University of Washington as a postdoctoral fellow. Since then his work includes computational prediction of human genomic structural variation, and characterization of segmental duplications and copy-number polymorphisms using high throughput sequencing data, and acceleration of genome analysis through hardware/software co-development.

Ibrahim Mamoun Ibrahim

Ibrahim Mamoun Ibrahim FRCP, MBBS, MD

Dr Ibrahim Joined Sidra as a Senior Attending Physician in Endocrinology in May 2017 and is currently the lead for Diabetes in pregnancy in the Hospital. He has vast experience in managing All endocrine conditions, including thyroid disorders, calcium and osteoporosis, pituitary disorders, prolactin, and reproductive Endocrinology. He has a special interest in Obesity and weight management and the role of new technology in the management of Diabetes and set up new services in Sidra Medicine.

Amel Hassan

Dr. Amel Hassan MBBS, MSC pediatric & FRCPCH UK is a Senior Attending Physician in Pediatric Immunology & Allergy at Sidra Medicine. Beside her clinical commitment, she works closely with the Medical Education Office as a Director Of Undergraduate Medical Education. She is also the Vice Chair of the Children Clinical Guideline Committee (C-CGC)

Dr. Hassan has over 17 years of extensive experience in caring for children with complex inherited primary immunodeficiency and their corrective stem cell therapies, including; HSCT, Gene therapy & Thymus Transplant. Her passion for the specialty field has been demonstrated by her contribution to research and publication in high impact journals.

Before joining Sidra Medicine, she worked as the Clinical Division Head in the Qatar Genome Program (QGP), an ambitious population-based project aiming to position Qatar among the pioneering countries in the implementation of Precision Medicine. She has a passion for the application of precision medicine to improve the outcome of children with Primary Immunodeficiency (PID).

Bernice Lo

Bernice Lo, PhD

Principal Investigator
Laboratory of Immunoregulation

Dr. Bernice Lo is a Principal Investigator in the Precision Medicine program at Sidra Medicine and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University (Doha, Qatar). She has contributed to the discovery, diagnosis, and molecular understanding of inherited autoimmune disorders. Bernice performed her post-doctoral training under the leadership of Dr. Michael Lenardo in the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institutes of Health in the US. She is trained in cell and molecular biology and genomic approaches for genetic diagnosis. During her fellowship, she helped discover and understand the etiology of two new diseases of immune dysregulation. She received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology at Duke University under the mentorship of Dr. Jo Rae Wright, where she began her appreciation for the immune system and the critical role of immune tolerance and regulation.

Nicholas van Panhuys

Dr. Nicholas van Panhuys, PhD

Principal Investigator – Assistant Level
Laboratory of Immunoregulation

Dr. van Panhuys completed his BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Bio

logy, Cell and Developmental Biology at Victoria University (New Zealand). Following this, completed the Honors program in Molecular Biosciences at Victoria University. Before being awarded Rex and Betty Coker Post Graduate Scholarship to conduct his PhD studies at the Malaghan Institute for Medical Research (New Zealand) where he investigated the role of IL4 and STAT6 in protective immunity and T helper 2 immune responses.

He was then awarded the NZ Foundation for Research Science and Technology post-doctoral fellowship award, to work as a visiting fellow at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA) in the Laboratory of Immunology with Dr. Ronald Germain. Consequently he was appointed as a research fellow in the Laboratory of Systems Biology at the NIAD, NIH.

Since 2015, he has led the Laboratory of Immunoregulation at Sidra Medicine.

Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed

Dr. Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed, MD

Head of Professional Development and Scientific Research Department

Qatar Cancer Society

Qatar

Dr. Hadi is the Head of the Professional Development and Scientific Research Department at the Qatar Cancer Society (QCS); and the representative member of the QCS in the National Cancer Committee in Qatar, the Gulf Federation for Cancer Control, the Union International for Cancer Control, the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition, and the All.Can International.

Dr. Hadi graduated from the University of Aleppo – Faculty of Medicine in Syria and completed his post-graduate training at the University of Iowa in the USA.

Souhaila Al Khodor

Souhaila Al Khodor, MSc, PhD

Principal Investigator – Associate Level
Director – Maternal and Child Health Department
Laboratory of Microbiome and Biomarkers Discovery

Dr. Al Khodor is the Director of Maternal and Child Health Department in the research branch at Sidra Medicine, Qatar, since July 2019 and an Investigator-associate level since January 2015. Dr. Al Khodor is in charge of the Microbiome and Biomarkers discovery lab. She received her bachelor’s degree in Medical Lab technology from the Faculty of Public Health at the Lebanese University in 2001. Soon after, she started her master’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology at the American University of Beirut (2002-2004). Dr. Al Khodor received her second master’s degree and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA (2005-2008). Before joining Sidra, Dr. Al Khodor worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Signaling systems Unit, laboratory of Systems Biology, at the National Institute of Allergy and infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland, USA.
Dr. Al Khodor is an adjunct Assistant Professor at the College of Health & Life Science in Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Health Sciences in Qatar University.
Dr. Al Khodor has over 48 peer-reviewed publications. She serves as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Translational Medicine since 2017.

William Mifsud

William MifsudFRCPath, MD, PhD

Dr. William Mifsud is a Attending Physician in Anatomical Pathology at Sidra Medicine, where he is part of the team delivering paediatric and perinatal pathology services. Prior to joining Sidra Medicine, he worked as a paediatric pathologist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, after training in paediatric and perinatal pathology at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College Hospital, London, and general histopathology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. At Great Ormond Street, he held a UK National Institute of Health Research Academic Clinical Lectureship, which allowed him to pursue research in paediatric tumour genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the UCL Institute of Child Health. Before training in pathology, Dr. Mifsud qualified in medicine and surgery from his native country of Malta and then did his PhD in Developmental Biology at the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Mifsud’s clinical work spans the entire range of diagnostic paediatric and perinatal pathology, with special interest in the diagnosis of medical renal biopsies and paediatric renal tumours. His main research interests are in paediatric tumour evolution and its impact on clinical outcome, and more recently in the emerging area of digital pathology and specifically its impact on paediatric tissue diagnosis.

Wouter R.L. Hendrickx

Wouter R.L. Hendrickx, PhD

Principal Investigator – Assistant Level Pediatric Cancer Omics Laboratory

Dr. Wouter Hendrickx is an investigator in the immunology, Inflammation and metabolism department and member of the Cancer Precision Medicine Working Group at Sidra Medicine. He is the PI of the Pediatric Cancer Omics Laboratory and has experience in stem cell and cancer research at the universities of Brussels (VUB), Leuven (KUL) and Norwich (UEA). Where he gained an MSc in biomedical Science (2004) and an MSc Bio-informatics (2005) and a PhD in Medical Science respectively (2012). He has worked on several different projects relating to the tumor micro environment including extensive work on the role of MMP’s and the degradome. He has experience with classic molecular biology techniques as well as advanced 3D cell culture and proteomics technology. At Sidra he has focused since 2014 on the tumor immune micro environment deploying bio-informatic tools to analyze gene-expression data form bulk tumor for immune related signatures and other determinants of the immune phenotype and translating the findings to the wet lab environment. He was a participant of the EU FP6 and PF7 grant framework and is a 2015 QNRF JSREP awardee. Since 2019 he leads Sidra Medicine’s efforts in establishing a Biorepository for Pediatric cancer Patients.

Steven Pipe

Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology
Laurence A. Boxer Research Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases
Pediatric Medical Director, Hemophilia and Coagulation Disorders Program
Director, Special Coagulation Laboratory
University of Michigan

Dr Steven Pipe is a Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He is the medical director of the Pediatric Hemophilia and Coagulation Disorders Program and medical director of the Special Coagulation Laboratory. His clinical interests include bleeding and thrombotic disorders and congenital vascular anomalies. Dr Pipe also directs a basic research lab investigating coagulation factor VIII and the molecular mechanisms of hemophilia A. He currently also serves as Chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council to the National Hemophilia Foundation.

Dr. Pipe's research has focused on several aspects of the structure and function of coagulation factor VIII in an effort to generate a form of recombinant factor VIII with either increased specific activity or longer half-life. He has also investigated the factor VIII secretion pathway, characterizing some of the molecular interactions of factor VIII with protein shcaperones within the endoplasmic reticulum. Insights in this area have lead to interventions that improve the efficiency of factor VIII secretion and may have application to recombinant factor VIII manufacturing and hemophilia gene therapy applications.

Alessia Cavazza

Alessia Cavazza, PhD

Assistant Professor in Gene Therapy

Group Leader | Gene Editing for Rare Diseases

Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Diseases in Children

Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

University College London

Dr Cavazza is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Gene Therapy at University College London and leads a research team focused on the development of gene editing platforms for rare diseases at the University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Alongside her research activities, Dr Cavazza teaches at the UCL MSc courses in Cell and Gene Therapy and in Child Health. She is a scientific consultant for biotech companies in the field of gene therapy and editorial member of scientific journals focussed on molecular medicines.

Marcelo Dietrich

Marcelo Dietrich, M.D., Ph.D

Associate Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine

Marcelo O. Dietrich, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Comparative Medicine and Neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine. His research seeks to elucidate molecular, cellular, and system-level mechanisms that contribute to the regulation of physiology and behavior in mammals.

Dr. Dietrich studies the intersection between the fields of neurobiology, metabolism, behavior, and genetics. His laboratory studies the development of homeostatic systems, focusing on neuronal circuits involved in feeding and energy balance regulation. Additionally, he develops new methodological tools using computational methods to quantify animal behaviors and physiological processes. Moreover, Marcelo collaborates with other investigators to understand the participation of peripheral tissues in the communication with the brain in physiological and pathological processes.

Dr. Dietrich received his M.D. and Ph.D from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil with a period of research training at the Cajal Institute in Madrid. He then moved to Yale University, where he trained with Dr. Tamas Horvath during his postdoc.

Davide Bedognetti

Davide Bedognetti, MD, PhD

A/Executive Director, Translational Medicine Department

Director, Cancer Program and Human Immunology Division

Principal Investigator, Cancer Immunogenetics Lab

Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar.

Dr. Davide Bedognetti, MD, PhD is the Acting Executive Director of the Translational Medicine Department (TMD) which includes the Human Immunology (HI), Human Genetics (HG) and Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Divisions.

After obtaining the Board Certification in Medical Oncology by the University of Genova in 2008, he joined the Infectious Disease and Immunogenetics Section (IDIS) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he completed his post-doctoral fellowship. From 2013 to 2014, he served as Director of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) Center of Excellence at NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Bedognetti is an active member of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), serving as a member of the Cancer Immune Responsiveness (CIR) Committee. He joined Sidra Medicine in 2014 with the aim of developing the first cancer immunology program in the country. His main research focus is to define determinants of immune responsiveness in tumors by using integrative genomic approaches.

Adam Kennedy

Adam D. Kennedy, Ph. D.

Associate Director, Clinical Metabolomics

Metabolon, Inc.

Dr. Adam Kennedy, Ph.D. is an accomplished biochemist and immunologist with more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and five patents, awarded and pending. In his current tenure at Metabolon, he has led over 200 projects from conception to completion, made significant contributions to interdisciplinary research projects, and generated over $10 million in revenue. As the Associate Director of Clinical Metabolomics, he leads a team of scientists to create a rare disease screening test using Metabolon’s HD4 LC-MS platform, resulting in more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and the identification of over 100 different disease signatures. As a postdoctoral fellow, he researched host-pathogen interactions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically focusing on the interaction between Staphylococcus aureus and human neutrophils, as well as identified a vaccine target that has since passed a successful Phase I clinical trial. Prior to his work at the NIH, he studied antibody therapies to leukemia/lymphoma at the University of Virginia, culminating in the completion of a Phase III clinical trial using a modified dosing schedule of the antibody Rituximab.

Sarah Abdullah Albasha

Sarah Abdullah Albasha, a third year bachelor student of medical laboratory science at Mohammed Al-Mana College for Medical Sciences (Dammam, Saudi Arabia). She has recently received the highest student academic award (dean's honor award) for the recognition of her excellence in the academic achievement (cumulative GPA above 4.90 out of 5). Sarah was involved in few research projects related to epigenetics mechanisms, especially DNA methylation and it's hidden role on various diseases such as COVID19 and childhood solid tumours. Sarah participated in many research activities within her college and nationally.

Zeina Al-Mahayri

ZEINA Al-MAHAYRI, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Genetics and Genomics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences

Zeina is a passionate pharmacogeneticist determined to make precision medicine implementation
a reality, particularly in the Middle East. She received her Ph.D. in “Pharmacogenomics” from the United Arab Emirates University, her Master’s degree in genetics from Syria, and her Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Jordan. Through more than ten years of research in medical genetics and gene-drug interactions, she has 17 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and has presented at several national and international conferences. Since 2016, she has been devoted to research on genome-drug interactions. Her main interest is in investigating the landscape of pharmacogenomic variations among Arabs. She published her findings on the rare and novel genetic variants among Emiratis with insights on how these findings can affect precision medicine practice in the region. Currently, she is leading and coordinating the researchers in the first pharmacogenomics implementation trial in UAE. This research challenges the practice of genetic-guided dosing and drug choice in patients with cardiovascular diseases. By the end of this study, which is planned to include 1500 patients, a model of precision medicine practice in the UAE will be built, evaluated, and optimized. Zeina is an active member of the Clinical Pharmacogenomics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) and a registered implementer of its guidelines. She is also a member of the Pharmacogenomics variation database (PharmVar) consortium and the Pharmacogenomics Network (PGRN). She is a pharmacogenomics and precision medicine advocate, eager to commence international collaborations and bridge the knowledge gap resulting from the lack of diversity and underrepresentation of Arabs in genomic studies.

Sarah Warren

Dr. Sarah Warren, Senior Director, Research Technology and Business Development Planning, Kite Pharma

Dr. Sarah Warren joined Kite Pharma in 2022 as the Senior Director of Research Technology and Business Development Planning where she focuses on identifying novel technologies to address the pressing and emerging needs of cell therapy. Prior to joining Kite, she spent 6 years at NanoString Technologies leading the Translational Science program where she applied multiplexed, molecular profiling technologies to research and diagnostic projects spanning oncology, immunology, and beyond. She was also a founder and Director of Research at Oncofactor Corp, a biotechnology company focused on novel immune checkpoints. She is active in the immuno-oncology research community, having published more than 60 manuscripts and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer. She has a PhD in immunology from the University of Washington and performed her graduate work at the Institute for Systems Biology.

Rami Mehio

Rami Mehio, Head of Global Software and Informatics

Rami Mehio is the Global Head of Software and Informatics at Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN). Formerly Vice President of Engineering at Edico Genome, the creator of the DRAGEN BioIT processor, Rami is currently responsible for the development of all software and bioinformatics at Illumina globally, spanning the Illumina Connected Analytics data platform, interpretation solutions for rare disease and oncology, bioinformatics methods for the DRAGEN Bio-IT platform, primary analysis for base calling, sequencing instrument software development and FPGA compute acceleration. With a strong track record of managing multi-disciplinary development teams and taking products to market, Rami has more than 20 years of technical management experience in various fields, including bioinformatics, software development, signal processing and FPGA development.

Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi

Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi is trained as a molecular and cell biologist. Her research program aims at understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development, physiology and diseases of the brain. Her laboratory focuses mainly on the function of cilia, cerebrospinal fluid flow and glia biology. To this end, she uses a multidisciplinary approach combining state-of-the-art cellular and molecular biology, genetics, microscopy, fluid dynamics, neural imaging, behavioral assays and quantitative data analysis. She mainly employ zebrafish due to its transparent body and brain that are amenable to optical imaging and genetic manipulations. Prior to leading her own team, she has worked on transcriptional regulation and paracrine signaling involved in cell survival (PhD, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany), high-throughput drug-screens and chemical biology to interfere with cellular differentiation (postdoc, Harvard Medical School, USA), and cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases (postdoc, VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium). Since 2015, she has been leading her own team, first as a senior researcher within the Yaksi Lab (Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, NTNU, Norway), and since 2019, as an independent Group Leader at NTNU’s department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine

Shaikha Almazrouei

Dr. Shaikha Almazrouei obtained a Bachelor of cellular and molecular biology and a Master on the genetic basis of familial hyper cholesterolemia from UAE University.

She then achieved her PhD from the King's College London (KCL) on liver transplant using hepatocyte microbes.

Dr. Shaikha is the founder of UAE society at KCL and a member of the International Society for Stem Cells (ISSR) and International Cryobiology Society .

She is the Head of UAE Stem Cell Group with research interests in multiOMICs genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and pharmacogenomics, stem cell, gene therapy and organs 3D printing.

She participated in many projects such as:

- Establishments of UAE population genome project;

- DNA fingerprinting for UAE Armed Force;

- AD police fingerprint Unit and research assistant in Kalifa University.

Dr. Shaikha aims to establish personalized medicine tools for UAE population, i.e. a biobanking, clinical trials on regenerative medicine and stem cells.

Frank Schmidt

Dr. Dipl. Ing. Frank Schmidt is currently Associated Professor of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine and Hon. Professor at the IMC Krems Austria. As the Director of the WCMQ proteomics core he establishment high end proteomics instrumentations for sequential and multiplexing protein analyses. For about 20 years he has been working in the field of proteomics and immunoproteomics and gained a profound knowledge in the biochemistry of proteins and their analysis with high-resolution mass spectrometry, FLEXMAP 3D, and Olink. In previous work he mainly investigated the patho-mechanism of organisms after contact with human cells at the proteome- and peptide-level. For about 10 years he extended his research to human liquid biopsy and examined cohort materials from various infection-related studies. Besides the measurement of proteins, he is also specialized in their bioinformatic analysis and holds two patents. He has published more than 120 original research papers in the field of proteomics in top tiers journals, including Nucleic Acid Research, Nature Genetics, PNAS, Analytical Chemistry, and Molecular & Cellular Proteomics among others. He is well recognized internationally in the field of proteomics and data analytics and an active member and chair of the HUPO BD-HPP Team. Over the past 13 years, he accumulated more than $9 M extramural funding. His group consist of 10 members, and they are operating a unique state-of-the-art proteomics platform, which includes all the above-mentioned methods.

Shana Jacob

Dr. Jacob is a specialist in mass spectrometry based analytical chemistry. She obtained her PhD in Separation Sciences from Kings College London in 2008. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology where she developed various analytical methods in conjunction with Metabolomics Australia for the analysis of the metabolome of mammalian cells, bacterial cells, yeast and plants. In addition, Dr Jacob has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry and in clinical research organizations.

At Sidra Medicine Research, Dr. Jacob heads the Analytical Chemistry Core Facility which specializes in the identification and quantification of elements and trace metabolites based on chromatography with mass spectrometry or optical spectrophotometry. The team has established several quantitative assays for metabolic profiling as well as the metabolomics and lipidomics platforms. Dr Jacob actively assists Sidra’s Investigators, Clinicians, and other Qatari research institutes in comprehensive chemical analysis for phenotypic classification.

Abbirami Sathappan

Advanced Imaging Core Facility, Advanced Cell Therapy Core, Sidra Medicine.

Abbirami Sathappan is a Research Specialist at Sidra Medicine since 2016. She obtained her MS in Bioengineering, specializing in Medical Physics and Bioimaging at Imperial College London, UK, in 2012. She worked at Qatar Cardiovascular Research Centre in the field of Cardiac Electrophysiology until 2015 where she built and developed optical mapping systems to study action potential and calcium transients in cardiac arrhythmias. At Sidra Medicine, she was involved in projects exploring olfactory cues and their effect on animal behavior through image processing tools. She has extensive experience in the field of image processing, biophysics, bioimaging, optical mapping, and microscopy. Currently, she leads the Advanced Imaging Core Facility, which is equipped with world-class confocal and dual-photon optical microscopes. Her projects focus on spectral unmixing of multiple color panels, correlation spectroscopy, confocal microscopy, deep tissue, and super-resolution imaging. She is involved in developing sample preparation methods, imaging algorithms, and analytical techniques for projects in collaboration with scientists from the Pathology, Anesthesiology, and Research departments of Sidra Medicine. Her scientific interests lie in understanding and characterizing the tumor microenvironment using multiplex immunofluorescence panels in pediatric tumors. She teaches and provides hands-on training for clients on imaging equipment within the facility and accepts collaborative projects.

Giusy Gentilcore

Dr Giusy Gentilcore holds a Doctorate in Clinical Pathology from University of Chieti, a Masters in Cancer and Environment, a Masters in Biotechnological Sciences, a post-graduate certificate in Nutrition from Federico II” University, Naples, and finally a Hospital Management certificate from SDA Bocconi School of Management.

She has been trained in cancerology in Naples by the top European oncologist Dr. Paolo Ascierto, a pioneer of immune- and targeted-therapy in melanoma. She gained experience in flow cytometry applied to translational research and immune-monitoring and worked as Pharmacist in double-blinded clinical trials. She moved to the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, in the laboratory of Rolf Kiessling, the discoverer of NK cells. She obtained the GMP certification and prepared patient-grade Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs) expansions for autologous transplantation in melanoma patients. She participated in several clinical trials to study immune check-point molecules in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) using Dentritic Cells vaccination, new drugs and conventional therapies.

In 2014 she moved to Sidra Medicine and actively developed the Deep Phenotyping Core Laboratory under the supervision of Dr Jean-Charles Grivel. She has enriched her knowledge by participating to several International Schools of Cytometry and applied her experience in the Flow Cytometry Unit that she is currently managing. Concurrently, under the supervision of Dr Chiara Cugno, she is working on the phenotypic characterization of pediatric patients and the deep characterization of Mesenchymal Cells by flow cytometry.

Jilbin George

Jilbin George currently works as a Research Associate at the Imaging and Flow Cytometry Core Facility at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute. His current area of focus involves immunology, stem cell and EV sorting which is unique in Qatar. He is also currently working on specifics of rare particle analysis utilizing the capabilities of the flow cytometry technology. He was earlier instrumental in the setting up of the flow cytometry core facility, at the College of Medicine, Qatar University, where in the focus of research was predominantly in areas of immunology, cancer under the QU-Health Cluster and algae cell analysis and sorting for the College of Environmental Sciences, Qatar University. He has been extensively involved in the training of post-doctoral candidates, PhD students, graduate, and under-graduate students in flow cytometry at Qatar University

Maryam Matar

Physician. Scientist. Healthcare Influencer. Leadership Mentor
A representative of scientific community of the Arab world promoting knowledge exchange
Represent the Arab women scientists and leaders and work towards increased participation of women leaders in global scientific community
She is serving on the board and committees of organisations and academic institutions such as; wherein shares her scientific experience in strategic planning, public policy and advocacy as well as community empowerment campaigns.

• Represents the Arab scientific community as Co-chair and committee member of the Global Commission to End the Diagnostic Odyssey for Children with a Rare Disease.
• Member of the Panel of Experts in WHO Collective Global Network for Rare Diseases (WHO CGN4RD)
• Steering Committee Co-Lead for the NNEdPro Middle East Regional Network.
• Among two chosen Arab Women members of Selection Committee of Zayed Sustainability Award.
• Ambassador of Science Regional magazine & Women in STEM by Springer Nature.
• Advisory Committee Member of different Universities in UAE and other organization.

Precision Medicine and Functional Genomics 2022

Guest Speakers

Patrick Tan￼

Yibin Kang

Allen (Qiang) Feng

Dan Roden

Dave Brown

Gorka Orive

Yu Shrike Zhang￼

Stephan Lorenz

Blachy J. Dávila Saldaña

Rawad Rihani

Marco Ruella￼

￼Yvonne Chen

Francesco Marincola

Essam M. Abdelalim

Franca Ronchese￼

Eduardo R. Zimmer

Saquib A. Lakhani

Giles S.H. Yeo￼

Khalid Fakhro

Younes Mokrab

Omar Albagha

Puthen Veettil Jithesh

Davide Bedognetti

Khalid Hussain

Darren Logan

Abubakr Imam

Mirjam Blattner-Johnson￼

Daniela Robles-Espinoza

Clare Slaney

Ana Domingos Jansen￼

Christian Capitini￼

Astrid Moura Vicente￼

Eric Bouffet￼

Lance Kawaguchi￼￼

Fatma Al Jasmi￼

Vincenzo Iaconianni

Matthew Porteus

Dorret Boomsma

Pedro Beltrao

Rimas Orentas

Nathalie K. Zgheib

Michael F. Wells

Batu Erman

Ali Gharavi￼

Youssef Idaghdour￼

Alice Chen￼

Eleftheria Zeggini

Houari B. Abdesselem

Diogo Manoel

Albino J. Oliveira Maia￼

Michaela Semeraro￼

Xiling Shen￼

Bruno Reversade

Can Alkan

Ibrahim Mamoun Ibrahim

Amel Hassan

Bernice Lo

Nicholas van Panhuys￼

Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed

Souhaila Al Khodor￼

William Mifsud￼

Wouter R.L. Hendrickx

Steven Pipe

Alessia Cavazza

Marcelo Dietrich

Davide Bedognetti￼

Adam Kennedy

Sarah Abdullah Albasha￼

Zeina Al-Mahayri￼

Sarah Warren

Rami Mehio

Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi

Shaikha Almazrouei

Frank Schmidt

Shana Jacob￼

Abbirami Sathappan￼

Giusy Gentilcore

Jilbin George

Patrick Tan

Yu Shrike Zhang

Marco Ruella

Yvonne Chen

Franca Ronchese

Giles S.H. Yeo

Mirjam Blattner-Johnson

Ana Domingos Jansen

Christian Capitini

Astrid Moura Vicente

Eric Bouffet

Lance Kawaguchi

Fatma Al Jasmi

Ali Gharavi

Youssef Idaghdour

Alice Chen

Albino J. Oliveira Maia

Michaela Semeraro

Xiling Shen

Nicholas van Panhuys

Souhaila Al Khodor

William Mifsud

Davide Bedognetti

Sarah Abdullah Albasha

Zeina Al-Mahayri

Shana Jacob

Abbirami Sathappan