Kathi is the Global Biobanking Lead at Brooks Life Sciences. She has over 20+ years of experience leading biorepository programs and advising on the design of biorepositories, quality systems, and optimal methods for collection, preservation and annotation of biospecimen collections. Kathi is also the author of peer-reviewed publications, former President of ISBER, a current member on the technical, legal and ethical committees, and an active member of the College of American Pathologists Biorepositories Accreditation Programme.

Markus Albertini is the General Manager & Director European Region Services at Brooks Life Sciences. He earned his Diploma in Biology in 1993 and holds a PhD in Cell Biology (1997) from the University of Bochum, Germany. From 19997 to 2002 Markus received his postdoctoral Training from Günter Blobel - one of the pioneers in molecular cell biology and the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Medicine - at the Rockefeller University in New York. Leaving the bench in early 2002 Markus became a senior scientific officer at a major German research promotion and funding organization; the starting point for his more than two decades long lasting and continuing passion to enable and support state-of-the-art science and research. He was essentially involved in the strategic development and implementation of genome and health research programs and research programs for innovative therapies. For more than five years he managed the prestigious German Genome Research Network on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In 2002 Markus expanded his expertise to the pharma sector. Taking on responsibility for external collaboration management and coordination of the European biomarker consortium SUMMIT, Markus developed a deep understanding of the challenges, demands and opportunities of good biosample management. Consequently, he became the Head of Biobanking at Boehringer Ingelheim in 2016. In Brooks Life Sciences' comprehensive biosample life cycle management expertise, Markus found his perfect match in early 2019. Markus was a DFG scholar and published several peer reviewed articles, amongst others in Cell and the Journal of Cell Biology. He also served as the editor and Co-author of various publications on genome and health research for the lay audience.