Stephane Budel is a partner at DeciBio Consulting with over 20 years of combined experience in life science business consulting, entrepreneurship and academic research. Dr. Budel specializes in the analysis of start-ups to large-cap companies with established to emerging technologies in the life science research tools and molecular diagnostics spaces. He has supported precision medicine clients facing a broad range of challenging business development issues, including R&D prioritization, go-to-market strategy and evaluation of disruptive technologies. Stephane specializes in the cutting edge of these markets, with a deep understanding of the technical and business potential of innovative technologies such as spatial omics and NGS.

Dr. Anguiano obtained her PhD in Biomedical Science from Baylor University and also holds a dual business degree (MS-MBA) from Temple University. Her two decades of experience in molecular biology and genomics span across industry, academia and biotechnology organizations. She is passionate about harnessing innovative technologies and science to understand human disease and advance therapies. Dr. Anguiano played a key leading role in building blood transcriptomics as a tool to study human immune mediated diseases working with Dr. Jacques Banchereau and other world renowned scientist at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research. In her current role at BMS, she assesses and develops emerging and mature genomics technologies for application in translational research and precision medicine. She also leads BMS’ Translational Science organization’s effort in evaluating spatial biology methods.

Omer did his postdoc with David Rowitch at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Cambridge as a Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellow. During his postdoc, Omer developed a large-scale spatial transcriptomic pipeline to map single cell gene expression and neural subtypes in situ. Using this approach, he discovered the heterogeneity of astroglial cells across the layers and areas of the mammalian cerebral cortex. He identified that astrocyte layer patterns diverge from classical neuronal laminae, revealing the complex neuroglial architecture of the cerebral cortex.

Omer did his PhD with Chris Doe at HHMI to understand the developmental specification of neural diversity using Drosophila. He characterized a new neural stem cell model in the fruit fly brain that shares similarities with human neural stem cells. He discovered that multiple temporal patterning progarsams act in a combinatorial fashion to expand the neural diversity output of transit-amplifying progenitors. This work revealed a new concept in neural patterning that could expand neural cell type diversity in the human brain.

Dr. Evan Newell is an immunologist who employs new technologies for identifying specific, accurate biological signatures of human health and disease, including cancer. His search for these biomarkers is focused on antigens, a wide variety of small proteins recognized by immune cells called T cells. The shape of these antigens on cell surfaces help T cells determine if something is foreign, abnormal or potentially dangerous. Dr. Newell’s team is cataloging the different ways in which T cell respond to different antigens, particularly those associated with cancer cells.

Peter Sorger PhD is the Otto Krayer Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, Head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Sciences (HiTS) and Director of its Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology. Peter received his AB from Harvard College, PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge University U.K., under the supervision of Hugh Pelham and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco with Harold Varmus and Andrew Murray. Prior to coming to HMS Peter served as a Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at MIT.

In 2004, I have been recruited to the Neuro-Oncological Laboratory as a molecular biologist with a strong background in molecular screens with subsequent functional analysis of candidates. My lab is part of the Erasmus MC Cancer Center and forms an integral part of the ‘hersentumorcentrum’. Within the Erasmus MC, we have strong collaborations with the neuro-oncology clinic and other departments investigating primary brain tumors. The lab has many (inter-) national research collaborations, and is strongly embedded in the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and Dutch Neuro-Oncology working group (LWNO). One of the goals of our lab is to identify clinically relevant subgroups of glioma which has evolved from discovery screens to validation on randomized phase III clinical trial material. Our strong association with the clinic, the EORTC and LWNO enables us to perform molecular analyses of material from large phase II and III randomized clinical trials and other large sample cohorts. The analysis on clinical trial samples lab helps develop the molecular diagnostics and treatment guidelines for gliomas. To improve the dismal prognosis of glioma patients, it is imperative to better understand the pathobiology of gliomas. Our lab therefore performs functional analysis on genes involved in glioma-genesis. To this end, I have established a facility that allows high-throughput, high-content functional and drug screens within the Erasmus MC cancer institute. We have used this facility to identify altered functions of individual cancer mutations and highlight therapeutic vulnerabilities. This fundamental understanding of glioma-biology will ultimately enable the development of novel treatment strategies for patients.

Dr Arutha Kulasinghe completed his PhD in 2017 at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2019, Dr Kulasinghe began a Peter Doherty NHMRC Early Career Fellowship to develop predictive biomarkers of immunotherapy response in head and neck and lung cancers. Dr Kulasinghe aims to spatially map these tumours to understand the tumour/immune contexture using novel digital spatial mapping technology. This data may be a powerful tool to determine a personalised course of treatment for individual cancer patients. Dr Kulasinghe is supported by a number of funding agencies including the NHMRC, Cure Cancer, Can Too Foundation, Translational Research Institute (TRI), Princess Alexandra Research Foundation (PARF) and the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation (GPRWMF) and has published his work in over 25 Cancer/Oncology journals with multiple invited National/International presentations. More recently, he's been awarded a 'Scholar-in-Training' award to present at AACR 2020.

Twitter: @aruthak
 

A King Scholar, an MIT class of 2011 from HST medical engineering program and a former post-doc in the Systems Biology department of Harvard Medical School, Somponnat was trained to be a geek, a tech-savvy from the start. He also co-founded the Siriraj Laboratory for Systems Pharmacology for research on precision medicine, biosensor technology and innovative diagnostics. I also initiated the new Master and Doctoral curricula on Systems Pharmacology.

Vasilis is a medical doctor who studied molecular biology at Imperial College before completing his junior surgical training in Oxford and London. He is currently doing a PhD on prostate cancer at UCL under Professor Mark Emberton and Dr Hayley Whitaker. The main focus of his research is defining how the tumour microenvironment and inflammation can affect the appearance of the prostate on multiparametric magnetic resonance images. 

Vasilis has been awarded a Clinical Research Training Fellowship by the Medical Research Council and recently completed an MSc in Applied Statistics at the University of London. He is currently using modern statistical methods to analyse histological, genetic and imaging data in order to improve prostate cancer diagnosis and management.

Paolo Cravedi, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Paolo Cravedi is a scientist physician with a strong interest in kidney transplantation and autoimmune glomerular diseases. During his clinical training as nephrologist in Italy, he designed clinical research studies in kidney transplant recipients and in individuals with renal diseases aimed at prolonging survival of the graft or the native kidneys, respectively. His studies have contributed to defining the organ allocation system currently used in many countries around the world. 

He subsequently completed his postdoctoral training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he identified unanticipated immune effects of erythropoietin. While Dr. Cravedi’s lab is still interested in understanding the mechanisms of alloreactive immune responses, it has more recently expanded its focus to study the pathogenesis of autoimmune glomerular disease.