Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM), University of Lisbon
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Winner

Biography:

Joana Neves received undergraduate degrees from NOVA University in Lisbon and a Ph.D. from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. After completing her postdoctoral fellowship at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California, Neves started her lab in the Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon in 2019. Her research uses fly and mouse models to understand the immune modulatory component of tissue repair and develop stem cell–based therapies for age-related disease. 

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Finalist

 

Biography:

Arun Sharma received his undergraduate degree from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Having completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School,Sharma is now a senior research fellow jointly appointed at the Smidt Heart Institute and Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. His research seeks to develop in vitro platforms for cardiovascular disease modeling and drug cardiotoxicity assessment. 

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Finalist

Biography:

Adam C. Wilkinson received his undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He is currently completing his postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, where he is studying normal and malignant hematopoietic stem cell biology with the aim of identifying new biological mechanisms underlying hematological diseases and improving the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders.

Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Winner

Biography:

Born in Haifa, Israel, Dr. Fuchs is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Biology, the Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences & Engineering and the Technion Integrated Cancer Center. Dr. Fuchs is also a Deloro Career Advancement Chair and an Alon Fellow.

He began his academic career at Haifa University where he received a B.Sc., followed by a direct Ph.D. track for outstanding students, which was conducted at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. Upon completion of his doctorate degree, he performed his post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Recently he returned to the Technion where he heads the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Fuchs has had a long-term interest in different modes of cell death and how they regulate diverse aspects of stem cell biology and stem cell-dependent processes. His research has taken advantage of state of the art mouse models where he manipulates and traces different stem cell populations.

Throughout his career, Dr. Fuchs has received more than 20 awards for his scientific excellence and his unique teaching style. He has published in leading scientific journals and has spoken nationally and internationally about his own research focusing on adult stem cells in regeneration and cancer.

Watch Dr. Fuchs’ Lecture

Quebec, Canada
Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology-Physiology at Université de Sherbrooke 
Sartorius & Science Prize Finalist

Biography:

Florian Bentzinger is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology-Physiology of the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada. His lab studies the skeletal muscle stem cell niche in health and disease. Florian received his master's and PhD degree in molecular biology with a minor in pharmaceutical biology under the supervision of Prof. Markus Rüegg from the University of Basel in Switzerland. During his early studies he focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying different forms of muscular dystrophy. He then became a postdoctoral researcher under the direction of Prof. Michael Rudnicki at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI), Sprott Center for Stem Cell Research in Canada, and began to focus on the microenvironmental regulation of skeletal muscle stem cells. Before his appointment at the Université de Sherbrooke, Prof. Bentzinger held a permanent position in the Skeletal Muscle Aging Department of the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Watch Dr. Bentzinger’s Lecture

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sartorius & Science Prize Finalist

Biography:

Ritu Raman is a AAAS L’Oréal USA For Women in Science postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Robert Langer at MIT. She is passionate about understanding and utilizing the dynamic adaptive nature of biological systems, and aims to establish a lab designing responsive biohybrid implantable devices that improve human health and quality of life. Ritu graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2012, and earned her M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2016) as an NSF Graduate Fellow from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has received several awards for her commitment to scientific innovation, including being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Science, nominated as an Innovation and Technology Delegate to the International Achievement Summit, shortlisted for the Nature Research + Estée Lauder Inspiring Science Award, and awarded the Illinois Innovation $15k Prize. Ritu grew up in India, Kenya, and the United States, and learned to appreciate and thrive in diverse and dynamic environments. Her experiences have taught her that technical innovation drives positive social change, and this inspires her to democratize and diversify STEM education around the world. She is deeply invested in science communication, policy, and outreach, and has been recognized with several honors for her commitment to advancing underrepresented minorities in STEM, including receiving the highest collegiate honor from the Society of Women Engineers and being named the Cambridge Science Festival’s Curious Scientist of the Year.

Watch Dr. Raman's Lecture

Barcelona, Spain
Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Spain
Sartorius & Science Prize Finalist

Biography:

Daniele received his degrees (Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences) and his doctorate (Cell Biology) from Utrecht University and the University Medical Centre Utrecht, the Netherlands. During his doctoral research, he used and developed biochemical tools to study molecular mechanisms in receptor-proximal Wnt signaling. While a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) Barcelona, Spain, he developed an immunocompetent, metastatic and transplantable mouse model for intestinal cancer, and leveraged this new platform to uncover the immuno-evasive role of TGFβ in the tumour immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer metastasis. His work may contribute to an expanded efficacy of checkpoint inhibition therapy across patient cohorts and cancer types. In 2019, Daniele will set up his lab at the Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS), Radboudumc in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. There he will continue his immuno-oncological work on overcoming stromal immune evasion mechanisms to improve immunotherapy in cancer.

Watch Dr. Tauriello’s Lecture

University of California, San Francisco
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Winner

Biography:

Dr. Roybal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco, a member of the Parker Institute for Immunotherapy, and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. His lab harnesses the tools of synthetic and chemical biology to engineer the immune cells therapies for cancer and autoimmunity of the future. Roybal received his doctorate in Molecular Immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. There he studied the fundamental cellular and biochemical mechanisms required for immune cell activation and clearance of infections. While a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellow in Wendell Lim’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, he developed a new class of synthetic receptors called synthetic Notch receptors, which provide unprecedented customization of therapeutic cells for the treatment of a broad range of diseases.

The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Finalist

Biography:

Shruti Naik received her B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland and her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania-National Institutes of Health Graduate Partnership Program. Here she discovered that normal bacteria living on our skin, known as the commensal microbiota, educate the immune system and help protect us from harmful pathogens. Her work unveiled how immune cells work with our microbial partners to prevent disease and has opened the door for microbiota-based therapies in the skin. Naik is currently a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at the Rockefeller University. She is studying the interactions between immune cells and stem cells in an effort to develop stem cell based therapies for inflammatory disorders. She is also a strong advocate for women in science, a member of Women in Science at Rockefeller and mentors female trainees in the laboratory. 

University of Cambridge & Addenbrooke’s Hospital, UK
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Finalist

Biography:

Fotios graduated from the University Of Athens in Greece with a degree in Medicine, before relocating to the United Kingdom to continue his specialty training as a hepatologist and obtain a PhD in Stem Cell biology from the University of Cambridge. During his doctoral research he pioneered the use of bile duct organoids to model diseases of the biliary system, test multiple drugs and identify novel therapeutic agents. Currently, Fotios continues his research at the interface between basic science and clinical medicine as a Clinical Lecturer in Hepatology in the University of Cambridge with clinical commitments in Addenbrooke’s hospital. His scientific work focuses on combining organoids, bioengineering and animal studies to regenerate damaged bile ducts in the liver as an alternative.

Frequency Therapeutics Inc., USA
Sartorius & Science Grand Prize Finalist

Biography:

As an undergraduate, Will studied Biology at Tufts University, before going on to attain a Ph.D. at MIT within the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Will’s undergraduate research focused on studying the neurons of the hearing and balance organs of the inner ear. While at MIT, his doctoral research elucidated the distinct progenitor cell types that exist within inner ear and their capacity to form sensory cells and neural cell types. As a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, Will’s research investigated the use of small molecule drugs to manipulate signaling pathways to enable otherwise senescent progenitor cells of the cochlea to divide and form new sensory cells. Will is currently the Vice President of Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Frequency Therapeutics, a company he co-founded with Bob Langer and Jeff Karp. Frequency is currently utilizing insights from Will’s previous work to develop a drug to treat hearing loss by regenerating lost sensory cells.