Our Guest Speakers
The GGL is delighted to announce this year's guest speakers for the annual conference. We are honoured to have them contributing to our conference and offer our sincere appreciation for their efforts.
Prof. Dr. Regina Verena Taudte (Section 1 & 5)
Institute for Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiochemistry, Molecular Diagnostics, Philipps University Marburg
Prof. Dr. R. Verena Taudte studied Chemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg. For her PhD, she joined the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, where she worked on the development of standard operating procedures for the collection and analysis of inorganic and organic gunshot residues. During this time, she received comprehensive training in modern mass spectrometry techniques, which she started to apply to metabolomics research during her postdoc at the FAU back in Germany. In 2022, she joined the Philipps University Marburg as Assistant Professor with her research focus in mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Currently, her research group investigates intercellular communication within the tumor microenvironment via metabolites as well as immunological metabolic alterations due to infections.
In her talk Metabolomics in Biomedical Research – The influence of ꞷ-3 fatty acids on the brain metabolome during systemic inflammation she will cover background and principles of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and demonstrate its applicability and benefits through a recent study.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Friedrich Frischknecht (Section 2)
Center for Infectious Diseases and Parasitology, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. Friedrich Frischknecht is a biochemist by training from the Free University of Berlin, and did his PhD at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg on the interaction of Vaccinia virus with the cytoskeleton. During his PhD, he developed an interest in Parasitology, specifically in host-pathogen interactions and moved to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for a postdoc to study about the migration of malaria parasites during transmission from mosquito to vertebrate. In 2005 he returned to Heidelberg as a group leader and since 2014 he is a professor at Heidelberg University, where his laboratory at the Centre for Integrative Infectious Disease Research aims at understanding how malaria parasites form and move. His research group also investigates new ways to diagnose and potentially control malaria. They currently invest heavily in 3D visualisation of parasite formation and in generating genetically-attenuated parasites with the aim of performing clinical studies in humans.
In his talk Malaria research: from basic insights into parasite migration to new intervention methods he will guide through a number of recent studies focusing on specific proteins involved in different aspects of parasite migration.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Jaya Krishnan (Section 3)
Center for Molecular Medicine, Institute for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Prof. Dr. Jaya Krishnan is a biochemist specialised in Molecular Oncology and since 2015 professor in Molecular Oncology and group head at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. After gaining his degree at the Imperial College London, he has been active in the Cardiology field and has now more than 20 years experience in preclinical models and cardiovascular disease research: he led research at the ETH-Zurich, Medical Research Council UK and Imperial College London. His research interests are in the area of Cardiovascular and Cardiometabolic drug development and repositioning.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Dr. Andreas Diepold (Section 4)
Department for Ecophysiology Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg
Dr. Andreas Diepold is a microbiologist and since 2017 research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg. After gaining his doctoral degree in the area of infection biology at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, he worked at Oxford University from 2011 to 2017 at the Department of Biochemistry and the Centre for Integrative System Biology, under the supervision of Prof. Judith Armitage. His research interests are cellular biology of bacteria and eukaryotic cells, dynamics and adaptation of protein complexes and molecular machines and Engineering and application of bacterial molecular machines for basic research and biotechnology.
In his talk on Dynamic protein interactions control toxin injection through the bacterial type III secretion system he will show the use of optogenetics in a new approach for the application of bacterial molecular machines.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Jorma Toppari (Section 6 & 8)
Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Finland
Professor Jorma Toppari is an international expert in environmental endocrine disruption, male reproduction and type 1 diabetes. He is a principal investigator in a NIH-funded cohort study The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) and in the Finnish Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Study (DIPP). He is leading a joint Finnish-Danish birth cohort study exploring the genetic and environmental aspects of human reproduction.
After his Medicine studies and Doctor of Medical Science achieved at the University of Turku, he has been specialising in the fields of Paediatrics, Andrology and Diabetes. He is currently Chief Physician of Paediatrics at the Turku University Hospital, Visiting Professor of the University of Chile and Professor of Physiology at the University of Turku. With more than 500 publications, he is an active member of de Medical community in Europe and worldwide supporting organisations like the European Society of Endocrinology, European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, and Endocrine Society in addition to European Academy of Andrology.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Dr. Angela Meccariello (Section 7)
Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Dr. Angela Meccariello is a molecular biologist working on novel strategies to control Ceratitis capitata, also known as “medfly”, the most important global pest affecting fresh fruits and vegetables within the Eastern Mediterranean basin. Already during her doctoral research at University of Naples Federico II, Italy, Angela Meccariello investigated embyonic sex determination in Ceratitis capitata using genomics, transcriptomics and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. She contributed to the Ceratitis capitata genome project and has pioneered DNA-free genome-editing by CRISPR/Cas9 in the medfly and the olive fruit fly.
Since 2017 she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London, UK and has been awarded a prestigious 4-year Imperial College Research Fellowship (ICRF2020) that allows her to work on development of efficient genetic approaches of pest control that have the potential for transferability to other agriculture species using medfly as model insect.
In her talk Making males: from medfly biology to medfly control she will illustrate her work towards the establishment of precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) in the medfly.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Dr. Martin Hartmann (Section 9)
Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Schweiz
Martin Hartmann is a Senior Scientist at ETH Zurich and a distinguished researcher specialized in microbial ecology and soil science. His research centres around the pivotal role of soil biodiversity for the functioning of agroecosystems and the impact of human activities and climate change on this vital resource. His primary interest lies in leveraging microbial functions to enhance soil health and promote sustainable crop production. Dr. Hartmann received his PhD in Microbial Ecology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in a joint thesis together with the Agroscope agricultural research institute in Zurich. His PhD research focused on the influence of different agricultural management practices on soil bacterial diversity in the DOK long-term agricultural field trial. As lecturer at ETH Zurich, he is passionate about educating the next-generation of scientists. Dr. Hartmann is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Soil Biology and a member of the International Society for Microbial Ecology.
In his talk Organic and conventional agriculture promote distinct soil microbiomes with contrasting metabolic potentials he will explore how different organic and conventional farming systems shape diversity and functional potential of the soil microbiome.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.
Dr. Patricia Altea Manzano (Section 10)
Laboratory of Cellular Metabolism and Metabolic Regulation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Dr. Patricia Altea Manzano is originally from Spain. She obtained her PhD in Biomedicine in Granada (Spain) at the Centre for Genomics and Oncological Research (GENYO) in 2017. After, she obtained a second Master's degree in Clinical trials at the University of Sevilla (Spain) and worked for one year at the Department of Internal Medicine and Endocrinology. In 2018, she moved to Belgium to start a postdoctoral position in the Lab of Prof. Sarah-Maria Fendt at VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology. There she worked unraveling the metabolic advantages of tumor cells during the formation of metastasis in order to improve therapeutic strategies for patients with metastatic cancer. Her multi-faceted background and skillsets - in metabolism, cancer cell biology, nanotechnology, and biochemistry as well as my professional development in both academia and biotech companies, have enabled her to become a competitive skilled investigator in the field of cancer research. Thanks to the recently awarded ERC Starting Grant, Dr. Manzano will start her own lab in Spain focused on unconventional roles of metabolites in signaling pathways in cancer.
To see the list of publications click here.
To see the abstract click here.