Our Guest Speakers

Institution: Competence Center for Nutrition, Freising and Kussmann Biotech GmbH, Nordkirchen, Germany

Dr. Martin Kussmann originally studied Chemistry and completed his doctoral degree in 1995 in a collaboration between the Universities of Konstanz and University of California, USA. Since then he has accomplished a 30-years dual corporate/academic career with experience in nutrition, pharma, and biotechnology. He held professorships at EPF Lausanne, Switzerland; Aarhus University, Denmark; and The University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he was also Scientific Director of the National Science Programme ‘High-Value Nutrition’.

In 2022 Martin Kussmann founded his own company Kussmann Biotech GmbH offering consulting in the areas of biotechnology, nutrition, health and sustainability. Since 2023 he is also ‘Head of Science & Innovation’ at the Competence Center for Nutrition (KErn) within the Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry. KErn is a platform bringing together agriculture, food production and retail, consumers, science, and education to facilitate integrated solutions for a healthier and more sustainable food system.

In his talk he will share his vision on how bioactives research may help to address pressing population and planetary health challenges.

To see a detailed CV and list of publications, please click here. 

To see the abstract, please click here.

Institution: National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, UK 

Prof. Allan Lawrie completed his PhD “The effects of ultrasound on vascular gene delivery” in the Department of Cardiovascular Science at the University of Sheffield in 2002. He spend two years in a post-doctoral position at Stanford University, California where he developed an interest in the molecular mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension. He returned to the University of Sheffield in 2004 to establish a translational science research programme in Pulmonary Hypertension. There he obtained several early career and senior fellowships and also obtained a Medical Research Council DPFS award to co-develop a novel therapeutic antibody targeting osteoprotegerin for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. He also co-launched and directed the formation of the Donald Heath Centre for Pulmonary Hypertension Research. In April 2022 he became Professor for Pulmonary Vascular Disease at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London where he maintains a strong interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying pulmonary hypertension with a firm focus on translation in areas of novel therapies.

To see the list of publications click here.

Institution: Biozentrum - Center of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland

Prof Anne Spang studied Chemical Engineering at University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt and performed her doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Genecenter, Martinsried. She spent 3 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, USA. From 1999 to 2006 she worked as an independent group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society in Tübingen. Since 2005 she is a professor at University of Basel, where she works in the Biozentrum - Center for Molecular Life Sciences. In 2021 she became Elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Her research centers around questions like: how intracellular traffic regulates cellular asymmetry and stress response and how RNA localization, translation and metabolism contribute to asymmetry and defense against stressors. To answer these questions her group takes advantage of different model systems such as yeast, C. elegans and tissue culture to study these problems from the single cell to organ and animal level.

To see the list of publications click here.

To se the abstract click here.

Institution: Institute of Comparative Molecular Endocrinology, Ulm University

PD Dr. Sabine Vettorazzi studied biology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and started her doctoral project in 2009 as a member of the Leibniz Graduate School on Ageing and Age-related diseases in Jena, Germany. In 2013 she moved to the Institute of Comparative Molecular Endocrinology (CME) at the University of Ulm where she first was a postdoctoral fellow and became a junior group leader in 2020. Among her academic awards are the Hugo Schottmüller Award from the German Sepsis Society as well as the Mileva Einstein-Marić-Preis from Ulm University.

In her research she aims to investigate novel hormonal driven mechanisms in inflammation. With the aim to identify and target new regulators for anti-inflammatory processes, and pro-resolving mechanisms to accelerate the resolution of inflammatory processes.

To see the list of publications click here.

To see the abstract click here.

Institution: Institute of Life Science Engineering, University of applied sciences, giessen

Prof Dr. Michael Wolff studied Biotechnology at Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM) and performed his doctoral research at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA. He spent 2 years as a postdoctoral researcher at Pfizer Inc., Ann Arbor, USA. From 2005 to 2018 he worked as senior scientist and head of the downstream processing team at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, while also holding the same position at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg from 2008 to 2016. Since 2016, he is a professor at University of Applied Sciences in Giessen for downstream processing of biologicals. In 2020, he also joined the Frauenhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) as a research associate.

His research centers around cell culture derived viral vectors and cell culture derived oncolytic viruses. As part of his research, he focuses on the development of chromatographic methods for the purification of nanoplexes and the development of vaccine formulations.

To see the list of publications click here.

To see the abstract click here.

Institution: University of Perpignan, France

Prof. Claudia Pogoreutz studied biology at the University of Vienna and started her doctoral research in 2013 as a member of the Leibnitz Centre for Tropical Marine research in Bremen, Germany. In 2017 she moved to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia where she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Biological, Environmental Science and Engineering Division. In 2019 she returned to Europe to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz and later at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Since February 2023 she holds the ANR Junior Professor Chair at the Université de Perpignan, France working at the Centre de Recherches Insulaires et observatoire de l'environnement (CRIOBE). She is an avid academic editor among others for PLOSE ONE and PeerJ.

In her research, Claudia Pogoreutz focuses on host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions on coral reefs and their major ecosystem engineers, the reef-building corals. She is particularly interested how these interactions are affected by global environmental change, and how they in turn affect the ecosystem at different levels of biological organization, specifically the molecular, microbial, and holobiont scale.

To see the list of publications as well as her CV, please click here.

To see the abstract click here.

Institution: Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) Education & Research Centre, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

After completing his PhD in 2013 in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and finishing his clinical training in Dublin, Prof. Kilian Hurley moved to the US to undertake an Academic Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship in Boston University. In 2015, he started his postdoctoral work in the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) in Boston University. There, he was a key contributor to work leading to the derivation of type 2 alveolar cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), cells which can now be used to model genetic lung diseases including pulmonary fibrosis and alpha-1antitrypsin deficiency (AATD). In 2017 he was awarded the Alpha-1 Foundation’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant for his research. Also since 2017 he is associate professor and consultant physician at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where he runs a specialised clinic in pulmonary fibrosis.

The overarching theme of his clinical and research work is to better understand the molecular and clinical heterogeneity seen in genetic lung diseases and thereby find better treatments and cure for patients.

To see the list of publications click here.

To see the abstract click here.