Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Guido Jenster is the coordinator of proEVLifeCycle and Professor of Experimental Urological Oncology at the Erasmus MC Rotterdam. He received his PhD in 1994 at the Erasmus University Rotterdam on mapping of the functional domains of the human androgen receptor. As a postdoctoral associate at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (1994-1997), he worked on the newly identified steroid receptor coactivators. As an Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston (1997-1999) and since 1999 at the Erasmus MC, he started his work on the role of genes and pathways in prostate cancer.
Active research lines/research focus
The aim of my research is to unravel the mechanisms of the origin and progression of prostate cancer and identify new biomarkers and therapy leads for urological cancers. We focus on the role of extracellular vesicles, fusion genes, long noncoding RNAs, circRNAs and development of nanobodies against cancer.
Website
www.erasmusmc.nl/en/cancer-institute/research/groups/prostate-cancer-jenster-research-group
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Team leader Endosomal dynamic in neuropathies
Institute of Psychiatry and Neurosciences of Paris
U-1266 INSERM
102 rue de la Santé
75014 Paris
France Tel: 33 1 40789236
Guillaume van Niel is a research director leading the team “endosomal dynamic in neuropathies” at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurosciences of Paris (IPNP) since March 2017. G. van Niel has contributed for 20 years to the understanding of the biogenesis and function of exosomes and multivesicular endosomes from various cell types, their role in antigen presentation and in physiological amyloid formation. His recent work has used cutting edge imaging methods to establish new approaches to investigate exosome biogenesis and fate in vitro and in vivo using zebrafish as a model organism. His current research projects aim at better understanding the dynamic of the endolysosomal system in neuropathies such Alzheimer’s Disease and glioblastoma development.
Diploma
2014 HDR Accreditation to supervise research, University Paris Descartes
2003 PhD in Physiopathology, Dr. M. Heyman, University Denis Diderot
1999 MSc in in Physiopathology, University Denis Diderot
Cursus
Research Director (Full professor), CNRS (2018 – present)
Team leader Endosomal dynamic in neuropathies, IPNP, Paris (2017 – present)
Researcher (Associate Professor), CNRS, Team Dr. G. Raposo, Institut Curie, Paris (2008 – 2017)
Post-doc, Team Dr. G. Raposo, Institut Curie, Paris (2005 – 2008)
Post-doc, Team Dr. W. Stoorvogel, Utrecht Medical Center, Utrecht, Netherlands (2003 – 2005)
PhD student, Team N. Cerf Bensussan, Hopital Necker, Paris. (1999 – 2003)
Active research lines/research focus
- Deciphering the role of CD63 in exosomes biogenesis
- Dynamic of lysosomal reformation in Alzheimer’s Disease
- Reassessment of exosomes origin
- Mapping in vivo distribution of prostate derived exosomes in vivo
- EV mediated cross-communication between glioma and the microenvironment in vivo
- Mapping CNS derived EVs communication in vivo
- Mapping inter-organ communication mediated by EVs in vivo
- Therapeutic EV screening platform in Alzheimer’s Disease
Website
https://cpn.paris5.inserm.fr/recherche/equipes-et-projets/17-equipe-van-niel
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Professor Aled Clayton
Tissue Microenvironment Group
School of Medicine
Cardiff University
1997: PhD (Medicine), Institute of Nephrology, University of Wales College of Medicine.
1998: Diploma in Biomedical methods, University of Wales College of Medicine.
1993: BSc (Hons) Biochemistry, University of Wales College Cardiff
Active research lines/research focus
Aled Clayton has an interest in understanding the complexity of extracellular vesicles and their mechanisms of action in driving prostate cancer progression. Part of this involves understanding how vesicles are made; the cellular factors that regulate these processes. Furthermore, understanding how vesicles interact with varied recipient cell types is important, and the consequences of this form of communication for altering tumour microenvironments is a major theme.
The group has a focus on Prostate Cancer, and has been developing vesicle-based measurement systems for blood serum, thereby hoping to provide clinically useful information. Hence the basic science investigations are linked to translational developments in vesicle biomarkers. The team currently includes six internationally diverse PhD students, encompassing multidisciplinary projects from macrophage biology, vesicle imaging, through to engineering devices, and collaborates broadly to bring diverse expertise to these vesicle-centric investigations.
Website
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/122903-clayton-aled
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=pgDjFGcAAAAJ&hl=en
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Magda Grudniewska is a Funding Manager at GenomeScan. She obtained her PhD in molecular biology of ageing from the University of Groningen. Subsequently, she worked as a research associate at Rutgers University, studying ageing-associated diseases, and moving forward, investigating the role of translational dynamics in protein folding at Utrecht University. In 2020 she transitioned to industry and joined the Innovation Department at GenomeScan, where she manages (inter-)nationally funded research and innovation projects. She has extensive experience in next generation sequencing technologies, gene regulation studies and protein biochemistry. She actively engages in science communication and outreach activities.
Active research lines/research focus:
Next Generation Sequencing, Gene regulation, Translational dynamics
Website
www.genomescan.nl
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Dr Jason Webber
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Life Science
Swansea University Medical School
Swansea University
Honorary Research Fellow
Tissue Microenvironment Group
School of Medicine
Cardiff University
2009: PhD (Medicine), Institute of Nephrology, School of Medicine, Cardiff University.
2005: BSc (Hons) Biochemistry with Medical Biochemistry, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University
Active research lines/research focus
Jason Webber has a research focus on the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in modulation of the tumour microenvironment and subsequent cancer progression. This includes the delivery of growth factors by EVs and subsequent activation of a tumour supporting stroma. It is known that EVs contain complex and diverse cargoes, which are important for EV function. The current focus of Jason’s research team is on the development of novel biomarkers, and incorporation of machine learning approaches, for non-invasive diagnosis of aggressive tumours.
As the recipient of a Prostate Cancer UK Fellowship grant, Jason established his research team in 2014. Since this time, one of his PhD students successfully completed his PhD and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. He is currently supervising three PhD students exploring various aspects of EV biology. He is also actively involved in several initiatives aimed at supporting and mentoring early career researchers.
Website
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/126828-webber-jasonhttps://www.swansea.ac.uk/
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qmlJpQIAAAAJ&hl=en
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Ikerbasque Research Professor at CIC bioGUNE (Derio, Bizkaia, Spain). Biochemist and cellular biologist with wide experience in vesicular trafficking and high-content omics-based analyses. PhD (Yeast as Cystic Fibrosis model) at the Biomedical Research Institute “Alberto Sols” in Madrid and postdoctoral fellow in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Genetics in Walker-Warburg syndrome) and in Human Genetics Department (UCLA, USA) focused on intracellular vesicular trafficking. In 2005, moved to CIC bioGUNE in Spain initiating the Exosomes laboratory of the center, and currently his affiliations are:
- Exosomes Laboratory & Metabolomics Platform. Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences (CIC bioGUNE), Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA). Derio, Spain.
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de enfermedades hepáticas y digestivas (CIBERehd), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
- IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.
Dr. Juan M. Falcon-Perez has successfully supervised 5 PhD students, currently supervises another 5, and has been a PhD committee member of 15 PhD students. Teacher in the “Biomedicine and Molecular Biology” master of the University UPV/EHU. Board member of Spanish (GEIVEX) and International (ISEV) societies for the study of EVs.
Active research lines/research focus
Functional role of EVs in metabolism
Biomarker discovery and therapeutic applications
Website
https://www.cicbiogune.es/people/jfalcon
https://www.ikerbasque.net/es/juan-m-falcon-perez
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Felix Royo is a post-doctoral researcher at CIC bioGUNE (Bilbao, Spain) supported by a Virtual Research Institution of Liver and Digestive Diseases called CIBER-ehd. He obtained his PhD degree at Veterinary Faculty of Zaragoza University (Spain) and he moved to Uppsala University (Sweden) as postdoc between 2003 and 2005. Since then, he worked at CIC bioGUNE and in 2010 he joined the Exosomes lab where he currently conducts his scientific activity under the leadership of Dr. Juan Falcon.
Active research lines/research focus
His research focuses on different aspects of Extracellular Vesicles, both as a potential source of biomarkers, and as functional agents in the cell to cell communication. Along these years, he had published studies about the characterization of the transcriptome and metabolome of liver-derived EVs, the description of their metabolic activity, and the influence of glycosylation on EVs biodistribution in vivo. Aside from that, he had performed methodological comparisons of EV isolation methods from urine. Currently, he collaborates actively on the supervision of two PhD students and helps with lab routines to visitors.
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Hector Peinado did his PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Amparo Cano in Madrid (Spain, Biomedical Research Institute “Alberto Sols”) where he specialized in analyzing Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition Mechanism. He joined the laboratory of Dr. David Lyden at Weill Cornell Medicine as a postdoctoral associate in 2008 to study the crosstalk between tumor cells and bone marrow derived cells during metastatic progression. His work defined that tumor-secreted exosomes educate bone marrow progenitor cells toward a pro-metastatic phenotype. He joined the CNIO in 2015 as the group leader of the laboratory of Microenvironment and Metastasis. He has authored 71 publications since 2003, with more than 15000 citations and a SCOPUS h-index of 36. He was awarded with the 1st ASEICA young investigator award in 2015, Pfizer award 2016, Fero Fellow 2016, Marie Curie-WHRI-Academy Fellow in 2016 and I3 Excellence Scientific recognition in 2019.
Active research lines/research focus
His current research goals are focused on understanding the crosstalk between the tumor and its microenvironment and the role of extracellular vesicles during metastasis.
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Associate professor in Biotechnology, Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku.
PhD in Biotechnology from University of Turku in 2004.
Active research lines/research focus
Urpo Lamminmäki’s research activities primarily revolve around the development and applications of engineered bioaffinity reagents such as recombinant antibodies. His group focuses on developing methods and platforms to facilitate the production of such molecules for applications mainly related to in vitro diagnostics. He is also interested in exploring possibilities of various bioaffinity assay concepts for obtaining easy-to-use and robust detection methods for biomarkers such as EVs. The research group currently includes three post docs and five doctoral students. He has supervised five PhD studies, and is in charge of the Molecular Biotechnology and Diagnostics track within the international MSc programme in Medical Biosciences.
Institution and/or group website link
https://www.utu.fi/fi
https://www.utu.fi/en/university/faculty-of-science-and-engineering/biochemistry/research/biotechnology
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Janne Leivo (Ph.D., adj. prof.)
Division of Biotechnology
University of Turku
Docent (adj.prof.) University of Turku, molecular biotechnology and in vitro diagnostics (2019).
Ph.D. University of Turku, molecular biotechnology and in vitro diagnostics (2016).
M.Sc. University of Turku, molecular biotechnology and in vitro diagnostics (2008).
Active research lines/research focus
Janne’s research interests fall into a rather broad area within the life sciences. Even though he has a strong background in the fields of antibody engineering, molecular biology and in vitro diagnostics, harnessing the full biomarker potential of extracellular vesicles in clinical diagnostics is currently his primary focus. His main goal is to take full advantage of the biomolecular complexity of EVs found in various biofluids, and integrate the multi-omic data derived from different biological processes to create assay methodology and novel test systems which could be used in more reliable cancer diagnostics.
His cancer diagnostic group is an excellent blend of highly skilled and experienced researchers, as well as early stage researchers and technicians who have a quest for learning and transforming the gained knowledge into practice. The group is a part of the Turku University Hospital Cancer Research Laboratory (CRL), a multidisciplinary research facility combining expertise from 11 cancer research groups at UTU, with strong emphasis on clinical collaborations.
Website
https://www.utu.fi/en/people/janne-leivo
https://www.utu.fi/en/university/faculty-of-science-and-engineering/biochemistry/research/biotechnology
https://ficanwest.fi/tutkijoille/tutkimusryhmat/ (only in Finnish atm.)
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
José Manuel Mas is a founder and CEO at Anaxomics Biotech. He has a degree in Biochemistry, a master’s degree in Biotechnology and a PhD in Biocomputing. He was previously the EU Head of Collaborative Research Department at RPS Inc. (2008-2012) and Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Infociencia (1998 to 2008), the leading Spanish Clinical Research Organization, where he managed a team of more than 120 specialists. He gained a wide experience in the development and application of biocomputational tools in clinical research environments and their exploitation. He has supervised the R&D projects of many trainees, master students and is co-supervising 4 PhDs.
Active research lines/research focus
Currently, we are targeting the concept of Clinical Trial Simulation based on Real World Data by means of Systems Biology approaches. Clinical Trial Simulation aims at providing an understanding of the full range of potential outcomes to help investigators better plan and design clinical trials by exploring risks prior to their start.
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Judith Farrés has been Head of Collaborative Research at Anaxomics since 2009. She holds a degree in Biochemistry, a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and a PhD in Biochemical Engineering. She was previously a research fellow for 6 years at the Institute of Biotechnology, ETH Zürich, where she extended her experience in molecular biology engineering. She started her background in collaborative research by working for 2 years as the EU project manager assistant at the IBB of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The industrial experience at Anaxomics has enlarged her background in project management, regulatory issues and biomedical data analysis. While at ETH, she supervised 5 master thesis students and taught in several practical courses. At Anaxomics she has supervised trainee students and all the research done in financed research projects.
Active research lines/research focus
ANAXOMICS has developed proprietary technologies for building and modelling biological networks, along with hand-curated databases. They build predictive models on the basis of a human protein functional network incorporating multi-parameter inputs, and apply these models in a clinical setting to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Winfried Neuhaus studied Food- and Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. After establishing an industrial plant for enzymatic lactose hydrolysis based on hollow-fibre reactors, he started his PhD in Pharmacy at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the University of Vienna. After his time as University Assistant and lecturer at the FH Campus Biotechnology, he headed the group “Alzheimer and Blood-Brain Barrier Research” in the pharmaceutical company PharmaCon for two years. Before he started at AIT in 2016, he worked at the University Hospital Würzburg for six years and was at the same time PI at the University of Vienna and scientist at the Medical University of Vienna. During his time in Würzburg he was granted his habilitation in Molecular Medicine.
Currently, he is the president of the European Society for Alternatives to Animal Testing (EUSAAT) and responsible as Co-Chair for the EUSAAT conferences. Since October 2017 he is Principal Scientist at AIT in the Center Health and Bioresources, Competence Unit Molecular Diagnostics.
Active research lines/research focus
His main research fields are biological barriers in health and disease with a current focus on the blood-brain and the blood-saliva barrier. The development and qualification of in vitro models of biological barriers and connected tissues in several different set-ups are a cornerstone for his work focused on cross-validation to in vivo models (e.g. stroke, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic inflammation, rare diseases) and clinical data. Topics are the application for drug transport and elucidation of transport mechanisms, disease models and investigation of underlying mechanisms, crosstalk between barrier forming cells and their microenvironment, influence of shear stress, application of disease models for the development of therapeutic strategies and their evaluation in according in vivo models; species differences of biological barriers; biomarker discovery and assessment of biomarker’s relevance for disease’s etiology and subsequent clinical applicability.
Website
https://www.ait.ac.at/ueber-das-ait/researcher-profiles/?tx_aitprofile_pi1%5Bname%5D=Neuhaus%20Winfried
https://homepage.univie.ac.at/winfried.neuhaus/index.html
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s),
Christa Nöhammer works as Senior Scientist at the Austrian Institute of Technology where she has been heading the Molecular Medicine research unit for several years. Holding a master degree in Microbiology and a PhD in Biochemistry, she has been working in the biomarker field since 1999. Since then she has been using microarrays and other high throughput technologies (e.g. NGS) for the development of minimal-invasive diagnostic assays in cancer as well as in infectious- and metabolic/cardiovascular diseases.
Active research lines/research focus
Her most recent research focus is on saliva and EV-based diagnostics for complex diseases. Beside having more than 15 years of experience in leading and participating in collaborative national/international research projects she has been supervising many PhD- and Master students along her scientific career.
Website
https://www.ait.ac.at/en/
https://www.ait.ac.at/en/research-topics/saliva-and-blood-biomarkers/
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Pieter Vader graduated in Chemistry (B.Sc., 2005) and Drug Innovation (M.Sc., 2007) from the University of Utrecht. He earned his PhD degree in 2012 from the University of Utrecht on the subject of targeted delivery of siRNA to inhibit tumor angiogenesis.
From 2012 to 2014, Pieter was employed as a (senior) postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, in the lab of Prof. Matthew Wood, supported by an NWO Rubicon fellowship. The research topic was development of small RNA-loaded extracellular vesicles for targeted delivery. In 2014 he moved back to the Netherlands to continue his work at the University Medical Center Utrecht. Currently, he is Principal Investigator at the CDL Research and at the Department of Experimental Cardiology.
Active research lines/research focus
Pieter’s main research interests are in the field of therapeutic applications of extracellular vesicles, including unraveling the mechanisms underlying extracellular vesicle-mediated cargo transfer. His research has been supported by a NWO VENI fellowship (2014), ERC Starting Grant (2019) and Dutch Heart Foundation Dekker Senior Scientist Grant (2019).
Website
https://www.umcutrecht.nl/en/research/researchers/vader-pieter-p
https://nanomedicinelab.eu/
Personal background/education, current affiliation(s)
Sander Tuit is a Funding manager at GenomeScan. He conducted his PhD work in computation tumor immunology at the University of Bonn. Thereafter, he worked as researcher at the Leiden University Medical Center, analyzing multi omics data to unravel targets for T-cell therapy of cancer and predictive biomarkers for response to GvHD treatment utilizing mesenchymal stromal cells. In 2021 he joined GenomeScan as project manager R&D, where he manages (inter-)nationally funded research and innovation projects. He has experience in next generation sequencing technologies and analysis, mostly in the context of immunological questions. Within the consortium, he is engaging in science communication and outreach activities.
Active research lines/research focus
Next Generation Sequencing, Transcriptomics, Computational Immunology
Website
http://www.genomescan.nl
