These are the biographies of some of our accepted speakers. Not all our speakers are listed here
Professor Stephen J. Fey, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Stephen J. Fey received his PhD from Kings College, London in 1980 before moving to Denmark to work in the emerging field of proteomics. He was co-founder of the Centre for Proteome Analysis at the University of Southern Denmark in 1997 (the worlds first purpose built proteomics institute) and became CEO when CPA was spun out of SDU in 2006 to become DrugMode ApS and work on toxicology and diabetes. In 2010 SJF moved back to SDU to concentrate on developing 3D tissue mimetic technologies and applications. This led to another biotech spinout – CelVivo IVS. He has 114 publications and filed 34 patents.
Loredana De Bartolo, National Research Council of italy Institute on Membrane Technology, CNR-ITM, Rende, Italy
Loredana De Bartolo, PhD, is senior research scientist at the ITM-CNR and research leader of membrane systems in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. She is founding member of European and World Federation Regenerative Medicine – WFRM and of the World Virtual Institute Preventive and Regenerative Medicine. She is scientific responsible of several European, national, international and bilateral projects. L. De Bartolo is associate editor of the journal Cells Tissues & Organs and served as guest editor of Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy. She is author of over 110 papers published in international journals/books and encyclopaedia and of numerous presentations at international meetings including invited and keynote lectures. She is involved as chairperson in various congress sessions and in several international committees.
Travis Block, StemBioSys, Inc, San Antonio, United States
Dr. Travis Block is an engineer, entrepreneur, and science advocate. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester, he returned to his hometown of San Antonio, TX for his graduate studies in biomedical engineering at the Univ. of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Currently, he serves as senior scientist for StemBioSys, Inc., a biotech start-up aiming to catalyze progress in regenerati ve medicine. In addition, he is a co-founder of MonoMano Cycling, and the founding President of San Antonio Science.
Christopher Heeschen, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
Our complimentary basic and translational research program is focusing on the biology of mouse and human cancer stem cells including their epigenetic and metabolic regulation as well as interactions with the in vivo microenvironment. Driven by our passion for novelty with translational relevance, we were able to make a number of significant contributions to this still young field. Specifically, we have discovered several key molecular mechanisms for stem cell function including metabolism, differentiation, invasion, and trafficking as well as identified and characterised a distinct subpopulation of cancer stem cells with crucial relevance for metastasis and drug resistance. Our work has been published in more than 138 manuscripts in top-ranking journals including N Engl J Med, Nat Med, Nat Methods, Cancer Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Metabolism, J Exp Med, J Clin Invest, Lancet, and PNAS. Multiple patents and patent applications, respectively, have been derived from these studies and several of them are currently being evaluated for further clinical translation in close collaboration with our partners in industry and academic hospitals.
Esmaiel Jabbari, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States
Dr. Jabbari is a tenured Full Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and Director of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at University of South Carolina. After earning his PhD from Purdue University and his post-doctoral training at Monsanto Corp. and Rice University, he began his independent career as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopedic Research at Mayo Clinic. His research focuses on the development of three-dimensional, multi-cellular tissue models to understand the relation between physico-mechanical, biochemical, and cellular factors in the microenvironment and tissue organization and maintenance. He received the Berton Rahn Award from AO Foundation in 2012, Stephen Milam Award from Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery Foundation in 2008, and he was elected to the College of Fellows of AIMBE in 2013. He has published >250 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented >250 seminars at scientific meetings. He currently serves as the academic editor of the prestigious journal of PLOS ONE. He has mentored >120 students and scholars.
Marcel Karperien, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
Marcel Karperien studied biology at Utrecht University. After graduation in 1991 he worked as a PhD-student at the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research. He continued his career at the Leiden University Medical Center working on regulation of longitudinal bone growth and metabolic bone disorders. In 2007 he moved to the MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine where he established the Department of Developmental BioEngineering. He is interested in developing new solutions for treating cartilage related disorders. His work is technology inspired and is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach. In his work in depth knowledge of the molecular and cellular biology of cartilage is combined with state of the art chemical- and nano-technology. Specific research topics are i) the development of injectable hydrogels for (stem) cell based and cell free strategies for repairing the damaged articular cartilage surface and ii) the development of new generations of biomaterials that can be used in a non-invasive manner for cell delivery in the diseased joint. More recently his group has invested in the development of microfluidic based approaches for production of cell laden microgels for musculo skeletal tissue engineering purposes.
Marcel Karperien has received awards from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (Young investigator award, travel grant awards), Dutch Society for Endocrinology (NVE), the European Calcified Tissue Society and the MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine for his work. His work is supported by an unrestricted research grant from the Dutch Arthritis Foundation.
Athanasios Mantalaris, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Sakis Mantalaris is Professor of BioSystems Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. He received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Rochester. His expertise is in modelling of biological systems and bioprocesses with a focus on mammalian cell culture systems, stem cell bioprocessing, and tissue engineering. He has published over 150 original manuscripts, co-edited one book, and holds several patents with several more pending. He has received several awards: Junior Moulton Award for best paper by the IChemE in 2004, Fellow of AIMBE in 2012, an ERC) Advanced Award an 2013, and the Donal Medal by the IChemE for his contributions to biochemical engineering in 2015.
Aline F. Miller, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Aline F. Miller is a Professor of Biomolecular Engineering in the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at the University of Manchester. Alines current research interests lie at the life-science interface with emphasis on applying physical principles to mimic, manipulate and improve biomolecular self-assembly. In this area she has published over 100 refereed papers, authored 5 patents and has won > 8M from research councils, EU, charities and industry to support her research group. Some of this work is now being commercialised through PeptiGelDesign Ltd which she co-founded in 2014.
Aliasger Salem, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
Aliasger Salem, Ph.D, is the Bighley Professor and Head of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Translational Therapeutics (PTT) at The University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. Since 2012, Aliasger Salem has also been Leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center (HCCC), University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Aliasger Salem was educated in Applied Chemistry at Aston University of Science and Technology, Birmingham, UK (BSc 1998). He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham, UK in 2002. He then received postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore until 2004.
Urszula Stachewicz, AGH, University of Science and Technology, Krakw, Poland
Urszula Stachewicz is an assistant professor at AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland, working also in the International Centre of Electron Microscopy for Materials Science. She received a doctorate from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and completed her postdoctoral study at the Queen Mary, University of London, UK. She worked in Philips Research Laboratories and the university spin-out company Nanoforce Technology Ltd. She is a peer reviewer for several funding agencies and journals and she is author of 20 peer reviewed publications. Urszula was granted a prestige polish The Polityka Science Awards in 2016, in technical science, which is given to young researchers with outstanding scientific achievements.
Filippos Tourlomousis, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, United States
Filippos Tourlomousis earned his B.S. in Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Patras (Greece) and his Masters in Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Brussels. He graduated from the Environmental & Applied Fluid Dynamics Department of the institute with a concentration in Experimental Fluid Mechanics and extreme PIV techniques. He is currently, pursuing a Phd degree within the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ, USA). Current work focuses on the development of electrohydrodynamics-based high resolution 3D printing technologies for cell-scaffold dimensional metrology studies and the creation of in vitro blood-brain barrier models for neuroendocrinology studies.
Eirini Velliou, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom
Dr Velliou is a Lecturer (assistant professor) at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering and founder and PI of the Bioprocess and Biochemical Engineering group (BioProChem) of the Univeristy of Surrey. She is a bioprocess engineer and her research interests focus within the bioprocess optimisation under the impact of environmental stress. Her research group is studying a variety of different biological systems (cancer cells, bacterial cells, green micro-algae). in the domain of healthcare, Dr Velliou is focusing on the development of tissue engineering platforms for the ex vivo study of healthy and diseased (cancerous) stem cells. Dr Velliou joined the University of Surrey in 2014 after spending 2 years at Imperial College London where she was a research fellow. She obtained her PhD in KULeuven, Belgium and her masters in chemical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
Guillaume Vidal, Celenys, Rouen, France
Guillaume has a PhD in cell biology, began his R&D career in the field of cellular responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. He carries on with the interactions between scaffolds & cells to design smart biomaterials. He has a strong background in mammalian cell culture and is specialized in cell-material interactions for the development of biomimetic scaffolds