ICPerMed Conference 2021

Fabrice André

Gustave Roussy, France
Website

Fabrice André, MD, PhD, received his MD in Grenoble in 2002, and a PhD in Biotechnology from Paris University in 2005. He is a past recipient of Young Investigator and Career Development awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is currently Head of Research and Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France. His research work in the field of biomarkers and personalised therapies focuses on biomarker discovery, development of targeted agents and implementation of personalised medicine. His team includes 70 people working on basic sciences, bioinformatics, biotechnologies and clinical research. He is also leading phase I-III trials testing targeted agents in the field of breast cancer and large national trials testing implementation of high throughput technologies in the health care system. Professor André has published more than 200 peer reviewed papers, including papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Science, Lancet Oncology and Journal of Clinical Oncology, either as main or co-author. Professor André is chairman of the biomarker group at UNICANCER (French cooperative group) and was a member of several scientific committees for international meetings, including SABCS, AACR, ECCO, ESMO, and IMPAKT. Professor André has been a member of the Annals of Oncology Editorial Board (2010-2013), Associate Editor since 2014 and in September 2017 became Editor-in- Chief.

Rifat Atun

Harvard University, United States of America
Website

Dr. Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and the Faculty Chair of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. In 2008-12 he served as a member of the Executive Management Team of the Global Fund as Director of Strategy, Performance and Evaluation where he chaired the panel that oversaw annual investments of ~US$3-4 billion. In 2006-2013 he was a Professor of International Health Management at Imperial College London, where he led the Centre for Health Management and was involved as founder, adviser and investor in several biotech and health technology companies. He is a visiting professor at University of Kyoto, Japan. Professor Atun’s research focuses on health system transformation, and innovation. He has published over 350 papers in leading journals. Prof Atun has advised more than 30 governments on health policy and health system reform, and has worked with the World Bank, WHO and leading organizations such as Medtronic, Novartis, Roche, and Merck & Co.

Anne Böhmer

Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), Germany

Dr. Anne Böhmer, biomedical scientist, is working in the Unit Innovation and Change Management at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), Germany. The BfArM is an independent federal higher authority responsible for licensing, improving the safety of medicinal products, detecting and evaluating the risks of medical devices, and monitoring the legal traffic in narcotic drugs. The most important aim of these activities is to increase the safety of medicinal products. Her focus is on the support and advice of academic researchers and start-ups during the early development phases of medicinal products and medical devices. Since 2019, she works in the Coordination Team of the EU-funded coordination and support action STARS (Strengthening Training of Academia in Regulatory Science).

Søren Brunak

University of Copenhagen Medical School, Denmark
Website

Søren Brunak is a leading expert in bioinformatics, systems biology, and medical informatics through invention and introduction of new computational strategies for analysis and integration of biological and clinical data. His group at the University of Copenhagen Medical School is named “Translational Disease Systems Biology” and aims at obtaining mechanistic understanding of disease as well as producing new patient stratification, risk prediction and treatment selection principles. The use of the patient trajectory concept is a major theme that exploits information on the patient-past in terms of prior diseases, comorbidities, prescriptions, lab values, genetics, wearable data, socio-economic data among other types of data.

Magda Chlebus

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), Belgium
Website

Magda Chlebus is Executive Director Scientific & Regulatory Affairs at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), representing the R&D-based pharmaceutical industry in Europe. Magda and her team are in charge of following policy and legislative developments that influence the research and regulatory environments for the healthcare industry in Europe. This includes public private collaborations (inter alia the Innovative Medicines Initiative), enabling and sensitive technologies and the interface between new science and technology and regulation. She joined EFPIA in 1995. Her experience covers public and government affairs mainly at EU level, on a range of legislative and non-legislative files in the area of research, development and access to medicines and enabling technologies. Magda, a Polish national, holds a Master Degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Warsaw.

Guy Cochrane

European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), United-Kingdom
Website

Dr Guy Cochrane is the head of the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). The ENA provides a comprehensive repository for public nucleotide sequence data, attracting users from a multitude of research disciplines and serving as underlying data infrastructure for numerous bioinformatics services. Under Dr Cochrane, the team has launched important new services, including the Sequence Read Archive for raw data from next generation sequencing platforms and the CRAMtools sequence data compression platform. In addition to the leadership of a team of biological curators, bioinformaticians and software engineers, he contributes editorial work to a number of journals and meetings and has been involved in standardisation activities in many areas of bioinformatics. He received his PhD in cancer cell and molecular biology from the University of East Anglia in 1999 and carried out post-doctoral work in the molecular biology of photoreception at Cambridge University prior to joining EMBL-EBI.

Oliver Cornely

CECAD Institute of the University of Cologne, Germany
Website

Oliver Cornely is Professor and Chair of Translational Research at the CECAD Institute of the University of Cologne. He is also Scientific Director of the Center for Clinical Trials, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Department I of Internal Medicine, at the University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. He received his medical degree (1994) from the University Hospital at Albertus Magnus University, Cologne, where he also completed his residency. He is board certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases, haematology, oncology, and emergency medicine. Originating from an HIV/AIDS clinical research group, Oliver Cornely’s research interest centers on infections in immunocompromised hosts, including invasive fungal diseases, antimicrobial resistance and Clostridium difficile infection. Oliver Cornely is past President of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology (ECMM), the roof organization of 24 national mycology societies, and did set up ECMM Guideline Program, ECMM Academy (Fellows program), and ECMM Excellence Center Initiative, designating clinical and microbiological centers after an international audit procedure. He currently serves on the Standards and Practice Guidelines Committee (SPGC) of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and on the Board of Directors of the Mycoses Study Group Education & Research Consortium (MSGERC). He is the founder and chair of the Infectious Diseases Scientific Working Group of the European Hematology Association (EHA). Prof. Cornely has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles. He is a reviewer for numerous medical scientific journals, editorial board member for Haematologica, Infectious Disease, and Editor-in-Chief of Mycoses.

Thierry Damerval

French National Research Agency (ANR), France
Website

Thierry Damerval was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the French National Research Agency (ANR) by Decree of the President of the French Republic dated 8 December 2017. Thierry Damerval has been Inserm’s Vice-CEO since 2011 after holding the position of Deputy Director-General for Strategy from 2007 to 2011. PhD in microbiology from the University Paris Diderot, he began his career at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and joined the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 1993 where he held several leading positions including that of manager of biology research programmes, director of strategy and evaluation and director of a CEA biomedical research centre. He also has been adviser on biological and medical research to the French Minister in charge of Research (1996-1997), adviser on research and innovation to the Prime Minister (2005-2006) and Director of the Office of the Minister for Higher Education and Research (2006-2007).

Anil D’Cruz

President of UICC, Director of Oncology at Apollo Hospitals, India
Website

30 years as an oncologist, current Director of Oncology at Apollo Hospitals, Ex-director at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India, researcher, administrator and crusader in the field of cancer control and now President of UICC for the 2020-2022 term. Anil has held leadership positions both nationally and internationally on Board of Directors/ governing council/ executive committee of numerous hospitals, governmental organisations, cancer care organisations, advocacy group & professional bodies. He is an active researcher with pivotal contributions and over 200 peer reviewed publications. Delivered over 300 lectures, 50 named orations, plenary lectures and keynote presentations around the globe. His main areas of interest apart from his clinical responsibilities are in tobacco advocacy, cost effective treatment and health economics.

Jacques Fellay

CHUV & EPFL, Switzerland
Website

Jacques Fellay is a medical doctor and researcher, with expertise in human genomics, infectious diseases and personalized health. He is the founding director of the Precision Medicine Unit of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV); he leads a genomics laboratory at the EPFL School of Life Sciences; and he is the co-director of the Health2030 Genome Center in Geneva. The aim of his research is to decipher the genetic basis of inter-individual differences in immunity and responses to infections. His group explores the role of human genetic variation in the host-pathogen battle, in the hope of shedding new light on basic biological mechanisms and of paving the way toward more personalized approaches to health. He is currently also a member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force.

Daniela Gallo

Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli, IRCCS – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, School of Medicine, Rome, Italy
Website

Daniela Gallo completed her first Master Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry & Technology in 1990, her second degree in Pharmacy in 1992, and her postgraduate specialization in Pharmacology and Toxicology in 1998, at the University La Sapienza of Rome. She started her career in a leading Contract Research Organization in Italy (Research Toxicology Centre, Pomezia, Rome, 1991-1997), developing an extensive expertise in drug development strategies. In 1997, she moved to the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, as a research consultant first and with a permanent position as “Dirigente Sanitario I livello”, from 2000. She is currently Head of Unit for Translational Medicine for Woman and Child Health, at the Department of Woman, Child and Public Health, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy. During this 25-year period, as part of a multidisciplinary team, she has led the development of preclinical and translational research in the field of gynaecological cancer, significantly contributing to the achievement of relevant advancements in the area of cancer biology, biomarkers and therapy. She is a Senior Lecturer at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, School of Medicine, Rome. She hold three patents and she has one patent pending international application. She has authored more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals. She is serving as a Referee for many international scientific journals.

Peter Goodhand

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), Canada
Website

Peter Goodhand is a leader in the global health sector, holding senior executive and board member positions in the health research advancement community. Mr. Goodhand played a key role in the creation of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) to accelerate progress in genomic research and medicine. In 2018, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer to reflect the changing responsibilities associated with leading a growing organization with an ambitious strategic roadmap. Mr. Goodhand spent two years as President of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) between 2016 – 2018. He was the President and CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society – Canada’s largest health charity. Before joining the charitable sector, Goodhand had a 20 year career in the global medical technology industry, including strategic leadership roles with multinational healthcare companies such as American Cyanamid and Johnson & Johnson and as the founding Managing Director of the Health Technology Exchange (HTX). Goodhand is currently Co-Chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Global Genes, Co-Chair of the International 100K+ Cohorts Consortium (IHCC), member of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaboration (G2MC) Steering Committee, member of the Ethical and Scientific Advisory Board of EUCANCan, board director of Rare X, member of advisory committee for the Secure Platform for Health and Genomics, a member of the Advisory Committee for Genome Canada’s All for One rare disease initiative and a member of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre Steering Committee. Mr. Goodhand also had a 12-year experience as a patient advocate, caregiver and navigator throughout his family’s battle with a rare cancer.

Aurélie Grienenberger

Eligo Bioscience, France
Website

Aurélie Grienenberger joined Eligo Bioscience as Chief Business Officer in 2019. She comes from Sanofi Business Development department, where her focus was on executing collaboration and licensing deals to support Sanofi R&D pipeline across all therapeutic areas. Previously, Aurélie acquired strategic and operational R&D expertise in biotech and pharma, over 15+ years. She started her career as a consultant in regulatory affairs at Voisin Consulting. She spent 5 years in Cambridge, US as the lead regulatory person at Dyax Corp. for Kalbitor (ecallantide) in the treatment of hereditary angioedema. She participated in bringing this orphan drug from Phase 2 to BLA approval. She joined a French biotech, Fovea, in 2010 as Development Project Director, responsible of early and late-stage clinical development projects, while working at their integration in the Sanofi R&D portfolio, once acquired by Sanofi. She then served as Chief of Staff to Sanofi President of R&D, Dr Elias Zerhouni, where she was providing strategic and operational support to him and his leadership team. Aurélie holds an engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique with a major in Chemistry and Biology, a PhD from the University of Marseilles in genetics and molecular biology, and a Business Master from London Business School.

Ernst Hafen

ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Website

Ernst Hafen (*1956), PhD, is a Professor of Systems Genetics at ETH Zurich (Institute of Molecular Systems Biology) and former President of ETH. He has made seminal contributions to the field of developmental and cell biology and has received several prizes. In addition to over 30 years of academic research, he has founded and advised several biotechnology companies and is the president of the BIO-TECHNOPARK Schlieren-Zurich. Ernst Hafen has a strong interest in human genetics and personalized medicine. He posits, that an individual’s control over his or her personal health data will be a key asset for better and more effective health care. He is the initiator and one of the founding members of MIDATA.coop (https://www.midata.coop). Citizen-owned personal data cooperatives enable citizens to securely store, manage and control access to their personal data and form the basis for a fair and sustainable personal data economy.

Maritha Kotze

Stellenbosch University and NHLS, South Africa
Website

Prof Maritha Kotze is a Principal Medical Scientist jointly appointed by Stellenbosch University and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) of South Africa. She started her career as a human geneticist in 1981 after obtaining the degrees BSc, BSc honours and MSc cum laude at Stellenbosch University. Since obtaining her PhD in 1990, Prof Kotze trained numerous postgraduate students involved in test development for clinical application of genomics in a wide range of medical conditions. Her work involves the integration of research and service delivery using a pathology-supported genetic testing approach based on research published in more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She collaborate and network extensively and cooperate with clinicians and genetic counsellors in both the public and private sector. Her practical experience in research translation contributed to the development of a framework for tiered informed consent for genomic health research, as well as a policy on the implementation of genomic medicine in Africa. The development of a clinically-enriched genomics database at the interface of the research laboratory and clinical practice creates shared research opportunities, which she continues to oversee, guide and support through joint funding applications. Prof Kotze is currently the primary investigator of five major grants, including a Newton Fund grant for development of novel point-of-care test kits. Her H-index is 30.

Wiebke Löbker

BfArM Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Germany
Website

Dr. Wiebke Löbker, pharmacist with further education in the field of medication information, she is the Head of Unit Innovation, Change management / Personal advisor to the president of the BfArM Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Germany. The BfArM is an independent federal higher authority responsible for licensing, improving the safety of medicinal products, detecting and evaluating the risks of medical devices, and monitoring the legal traffic in narcotic drugs. The most important aim of these activities is to increase the safety of medicinal products and thus that of the patients. She is also the BfArM´s representative at the EU-Innovation Network and the Coordinator of the EU funded Coordination and Support Action on Strengthening Training of Academia in Regulatory Science (CSA STARS).

Vjera Magdalenic-Moussavi

Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation, Medicine at Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Website

Vjera is the Head of Corporate Partnerships for the Faculty of Medicine where she leads the development and management of strategic research collaborations with the healthcare industry with a particular emphasis on building multidisciplinary programmes. Vjera is responsible in supporting the Faculty research strategy by developing and growing industrial engagement of the NIHR funded Imperial BRC College (Biomedical Research Centre) and its related facilities at Imperial College. She also supports growing the relationship with Medcity on behalf of the Faculty. Additionally, she leads the industrial engagement for the Imperial Confidence in Concept portfolio of translational projects. She has College-wide relationship management responsibility for a number of Corporate Partners in the healthcare sector including Pfizer, GSK, AstraZeneca Nestlé and others. She has led the establishment of a number of strategic partnerships with these and continues to work with the Corporate Partners to expand their research and educational engagement with Imperial. Internally, Vjera continues to grow the Corporate Partnerships Medicine team engagement and departmental in-reach with the particular focus on assisting early career researchers in their industrial engagements.

Alberto Mantovani

Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Humanitas University, Italy
Website

Alberto Mantovani, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the Humanitas University in Milan, Scientific Director of the Istituto Clinico Humanitas and Chair of Inflammation and Therapeutic Innovation, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University, London, UK. His attention has been focused on molecular mechanisms of innate immunity and inflammation and on the role in the tumor microenvironment and cancer progression of tumor-associated macrophages (TAM). He has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in the field of Immunology formulating new paradigms and identifying new molecules and functions.For his research activity he has received several national and international awards, such as the Triennial OECI Award from the Organization of the European Cancer Institutes, the Robert Koch Award for his contribution to tumor immunology and immunotherapy, the American-Italian Cancer Foundation (AICF) Prize for Excellence in Medicine and, most recent, the American Association for Cancer Research International Pezcoller Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research. The broad impact of his contributions is testified by citations. As of October 2020 he has over 129,000 citations and an H-index of 168 (Scopus).

Andres Metspalu

Estonian Biobank, Estonian Genome Center, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Estonia
Website

Prof. Andres Metspalu, (MD 1976, PhD 1979) Head of the Estonian Biobank, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu. He was a postdoc at Colombia and Yale University in 1981-1982. His main scientific interests are human genetics (1985 EMBL, 1987 MPI West Berlin)), genomics of complex diseases and population based biobanks and application of the precision medicine in health care, 1993-1994 at BCM, Houston, as a visiting faculty and year 2000 at IARC, Lyon, France as a recipient of the International VSS Award and in 2012 sabbatical at University of Lausanne. From 1996 to 2008 A. Metspalu was also the head and founder of the MD Center of the Tartu University Hospital. Metspalu is the past (2006) president of the European Society of the Human Genetics. 2010 he was elected to the Estonian Academy of Sciences and in 2019 he was nominated as a “Estonian European of the Year” Award. His H-index is 115. He is serving in several national (MSC of Estonian Personal Medicine Project) and international committees (Board member of Mission for Cancer in Horizon Europe) and has received among other awards and honors the Order of the Estonian Red Cross 3rd Class and L’Ordre des Palmes Academiques from the Republic of France. From 2010, he is Doctor Honoris Causa of Vilnius University.

Rizwana Mia

South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), South Africa
Website

Rizwana Mia joined the SAMRC in February 2015. She is responsible for developing the South African Precision Medicine program and incorporating the South African Precision Medicine Think Tank. She has spearheaded strategic partnerships in creating programmatic research as well as core infrastructure to enable and position South Africa in the area of precision medicine. She designed and established the SAMRC Genomics Centre which launched on the 29 July 2019. The Centre boasts a large-scale high through-put workflow to localize large scale human genome sequencing studies on the African Continent. She currently serves as an advisory board member to the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform (KRISP). Rizwana has a strong genetics and product development background having trained as a geneticist. Her prior experience culminates a decade spent building her career at the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). Rizwana continues to strive toward enabling new initiatives in South Africa and is currently focused on further development of the South African Precision Medicine Program, as she participates as a co-investigator in the EU-Africa Personalized Medicine (EU-Africa PerMed) Consortium to drive the ecosystem development of the Precision Medicine Agenda for South Africa.

Ejner Moltzen

Innovation Fund Denmark
Website

Ejner Moltzen is a medicinal chemist by training and has for over almost 30 years been working within R&D at H. Lundbeck A/S in different managerial as well as strategic positions. He has been heavily involved with running efficient drug discovery projects, both in terms of delivering candidates for clinical trials and in terms of optimizing the related processes. He was part of Lundbeck’s global research management and thereby involved with setting the company’s research strategies and activities. He was also responsible for alliance management within R&D and was involved with both company collaborations as well as public-private partnerships, where he represented Lundbeck in EFPIA/IMI context. In 2016 he became independent and founded Somami Consulting ApS, which is a consulting company focusing on providing support within R&D projects, operations, alliance management, strategy and policy initiatives, collaboration contracts and project evaluations. He is supporting public agencies as well as private enterprises, nationally as well as internationally. He is in particular involved with Innovation Fund Denmark where he is this agency’s lead representative within international activities relating to personalized medicine. He is currently elected as Chair of ICPermed which is an EC funded European initiative to promote implementation of personalized medicine.

Axel Mühlbacher

Hochschule Neubrandenburg, Germany
Website

Axel Mühlbacher is professor of health economics and health care management at Hochschule Neubrandenburg. As a secondary appointment he is an adjunct professor in the Duke Department of Population Health Sciences, and a CHPIR Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at the Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University (USA). He serves as a member of the scientific advisory board of the Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Healthcare (IQTiG) and a board member and chair of the International Academy of Health Preference Research (IAHPR). He currently serves as associate editor of Value in Health and on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Choice Modelling (JOCM), PharmacoEconomics, Int. Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) and The Patient – Patient Centered Outcomes Research. Axel Mühlbacher is author of several books and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles.

Irene Norstedt

Director responsible for the People Directorate within the DG for Research and Innovation
Website

Irene Norstedt works at the European Commission where she is the Director responsible for the People Directorate within the DG for Research and Innovation. Irene has been at the European Commission since 1996, and was instrumental in the creation of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in 2008. From 16 December 2014 to 15 September 2015, Irene served as Acting Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Prior to joining the European Commission, she worked for the Swedish life science company Biacore AB and at the Swedish embassy in London. Irene studied biotechnology and polymer science, and holds a Master of Science (MsC) in Chemical Engineering.

Larry Norton

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA
Website

Medical oncologist and researcher on the basic biology of cancer; the mathematics of tumor causation and growth; and the development of approaches to better diagnosis, prevention, and drug treatment of the disease. He is involved in many areas of research including identifying the genes that predispose people to cancer or that cause cancer, developing new drugs, monoclonal antibodies that target growth factor receptors, and vaccines with a specific focus on breast cancer. He was formerly the Chair of the Breast Committee of the NCI’s Cancer and Leukemia Group B. I was President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) from 2001 to 2002, and was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the National Cancer Advisory Board (the board of directors of the NCI).

Barbara Prainsack

Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, Austria
Website

Barbara Prainsack is a Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna, where she directs the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity (CeSCoS), and the interdisciplinary Research Platform Governance of Digital Practices. Her work explores the social, regulatory and ethical dimensions of biomedicine and bioscience, with a focus on personalised and “precision” medicine, citizen participation, and the role of solidarity in medicine and healthcare (most recent book: Personalized Medicine: Empowered Patients in the 21st Century?, NYU Press, 2017). Barbara is also a member of the Austrian National Bioethics Committee and of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies advising the European Commission, and she chaired the European Science Foundation’s (ESF) Forward Look on Personalised Medicine for the European Citizen (2011-2012, with Stephen Holgate and Aarno Palotie). She is also a member of the British Royal Society of Arts, an elected foreign member of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, and an elected member of the Academia Europaea (AE). She is an affiliate of the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRE), University of Montreal, Canada, and of the Centre for Health, Law, and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX) at the University of Oxford.

Daryl Pritchard

Personalized Medicine Coalition, USA
Website

Daryl Pritchard, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Science Policy at the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), where he leads PMC’s efforts to increase awareness and understanding of personalized medicine; identify and address barriers to the adoption of personalized medicine into the health care system; and develop and promote appropriate clinical, health care infrastructure, regulatory, and payment policies that will help advance patient-centered, personalized health care. Before coming to PMC, Dr. Pritchard served as the Director of Policy Research at the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC). Prior to joining NPC, he served as the Director of Research Programs Advocacy and Personalized Medicine at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

Bettina Ryll

Horizon Europe Cancer Mission Board and Melanoma Patient Network Europe, Sweden
Website

Dr. Ryll holds a medical degree from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University College London, UK. After losing her husband to Melanoma, she founded the Melanoma Patient Network Europe and developed a special interest in patient-centric clinical research, innovative trial designs and novel drug development concepts as well as pragmatic solutions on how to ensure access to innovative treatments in situations of both high unmet need as well as high uncertainty. Between 2015 and 2018, Dr. Ryll chaired the ESMO-PAWG, the first time this position was held by a non-oncologist and was instrumental behind the development of the advocacy track at annual ESMO conferences and joined the Horizon Europe Mission Board for Cancer in 2019. Dr. Ryll is involved in numerous initiatives promoting evidence-based advocacy. She is fascinated by the enormous potential and capacity of patient networks to both educate and support patients as well as to capture data at the primary data source, the patients themselves, to generate evidence at a granularity level non-accessible to outsiders.

Winfried Schlee

University of Regensburg, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Germany
Website

Winfried Schlee was born 1978 in Schweinfurt, Germany. He studied psychology, statistics and philosophy at the University of Konstanz, 2000 – 2006. Research stay at the Taub Therapy Clinic at the University of Birmingham, Alabama 2003 – 2004. Doctorate at the University of Konstanz on the topic of “Towards a Global Model of Tinnitus Perception: Multiple Evidence for a Long-Range Cortical Tinnitus Network” 2006-2009. Academic council at the University of Ulm 2010 – 2013. Since 2013 Scientific Research Coordinator of the Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) and research associate at the Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University of Regensburg at the Bezirksklinikum. Since 2017, coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska-Curie-Action ESIT – The European School on Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research (Grant Agreement No. 722046, 2017 – 2021), www.esit.tinnitusresearch.net. 2018 Habilitation on the topic of “Neuronal oscillatory activity in tinnitus and the ageing brain”. Since 2020, Scientific Coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action UNITI – Unification of Treatments and Interventions for Tinnitus Patients (Grant Agreement No. 848261, 2020 – 2023), www.uniti.tinnitusresearch.net.

Serena Scollen

ELIXIR, Intergovernment Organisation
Website

Serena is the Head of Human Genomics and Translational Data at ELIXIR, the European infrastructure for bioinformatics and life-science data, based in Hinxton, UK. Her vision is to ensure data that can be shared, will be shared responsibly. She is working with scientists across Europe to establish standards and infrastructure to facilitate discoverability, access, sharing and analysis of genomics data, linked to other data types and at a scale that has not previously been achieved. Developing infrastructure will unleash new possibilities for genomics and health. Serena is the coordinator of the B1MG project, a €4M EU H2020 Coordination and Support Action that is aligned with the 1+ Million Genomes Initiative (1+MG). This initiative is a commitment of 24 European countries to give cross-border access to one million sequenced genomes by 2022. She is also project lead for the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) FAIRplus project, an €8.3M collaboration that sets out to improve data sharing and reuse in life science research. Prior to joining ELIXIR, she was a Director within the Human Genetics and Computational Biomedicine group at Pfizer. In this role, she led and implemented a genetic and precision medicine strategy to support drug target selection and clinical programmes for the Pain and Sensory Disorders Research Unit. She was also a member of the ABPI Stratified Medicine Working Group. Earlier in her career, she worked within the Toxicogenomics group at GlaxoSmithKline. She gained postdoctoral experience at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London and a PhD from the University of Cambridge, with a focus on the genetic susceptibility to disease.

Eric Solary (Moderator)

Université Paris Saclay / Gustave Roussy
Website

Eric Solary is MD, full-Professor in Hematology at Paris-Saclay University, is teaching clinical and biological hematology as well as cell biology. He created a first Inserm Unit « Cell Death and Cancer » in 1999, which became the Inserm Research Centre “Lipids, Nutrition, Cancer” in 2007, and headed a doctoral school in life Sciences and two federative Institutes of Research. He was the Scientific Director of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center from 2011 to 2020 and, since 2010, presides over the Scientific Committee of Foundation ARC, a cancer research dedicated charity. His research has been dedicated initially to leukemic cell resistance to cytotoxic drugs, then to cell death mechanisms and the link between cell death and differentiation in the hematopoietic system. His current research is focused on monocyte differentiation in normal and pathological conditions and the pathogenesis of chronic myeloid malignancies, with a special interest in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia.

André Albergaria

André Albergaria is a researcher specialized in Oncobiology. His scientific expertise is focused on epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in breast cancer, cancer therapy resistance, and on biomarker discovery and validation. André holds a PhD from the Institute of Health and Life Sciences from University of Minho and was a PhD resident at the Imperial College School of Medicine of London, UK, between 2006 and 2008. André has a Post-Graduation in BioBusiness, from AMC Graduate School and Amsterdam BioMed Cluster, Netherlands and worked as an Investment Consultant in the LifeSciences & MedTech Team of the company Portugal Ventures.

During the last 18 years of scientific career, André has published more than 32 papers in peer-reviewed international journals. Actually, André is a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto and is the coordinator of the i3S Translational Research and Industry Partnerships Office (Research and Innovation Unit), a group that work on the interface between the health care/pharma industry, clinicians and academic research teams. André is member of the Portuguese Coordination of the Research & Innovation Agenda on Health and Clinical and Translational Research. He is a project evaluator for several public and private entities, including pharma companies, and is an expert member of the H2020 SC1 Programme Committee, an health expert at Perin – Portugal in Europe Research and Innovation Network and developed and contributed as scientific expert to several European Organizations/Consortium such as EATRIS and ICPerMed (contributor to the ICPerMed Vision Paper 2019).

Eduardo Cazap

Eduardo Cazap is an Argentinean medical oncologist, founder and first President of the Latin American & Caribbean Society of Medical Oncology (SLACOM), past-President of the International Union against Cancer (UICC) and member of the Executive Committee of the National Cancer Institute of Argentina.

He published over 190 papers, and was president of the UICC World Cancer Congress in 2012. He received in 2013 the distinguished achievement award of the Conquer Cancer Foundation (USA) and bestowed as fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO). In 2018, he received the Harvard Distinguished Leader Award from the Harvard Medical School. He is Co-chairman of the Global Policy Committee (ESMO), Editor-in-Chief of Ecancer (Bristol, UK), co-editor of the Global Health section of The Oncologist (USA) and emeritus Professor of the Latin-American School of Oncology (ELO).

Salah-Dine Chibout

Salah-Dine Chibout is the Global Head of Discovery & Investigative Safety (DIS) and Global Head Therapeutic Areas in Preclinical Safety (PCS) at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). The DIS group focuses on problem solving and issue resolution related to drug safety during all phases of discovery and development of new medicines. He is responsible for a cross-functional global organisation operating from Cambridge, East Hanover and Basel. The Preclinical Safety Therapeutic Areas are managing all Novartis projects from discovery to registration and consist in project team members representing PCS in early and late-phase project teams. They are preparing all relevant documentation for health authorities and respond to regulatory requests.

Salah-Dine has more than 22 years of experience in drug development and obtained a PhD in molecular immunology from the Biozentrum in Basel Switzerland. He joined Sandoz in 1990 in the Toxicology Department. From 2008 to 2010 he was deputy Head of Translational Science in Europe. Salah-Dine represents Novartis at the Research of Director Board in the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). He is a Board Member of the Innovative Medicines Initiatives (IMI), which is the largest public-private partnership with the European Commission.

David Haerry

David Haerry has been a treatment writer and conference reporter since 1996. He co-authors a database on travel and residency restrictions for people living with HIV, www.hivtravel.org. He is Secretary General for the Swiss Academic Foundation on Education in Infectious Diseases SAFE-ID, a core team member in the Patvocates Network and a member of the Executive Team at the Patient Focused Medicines Development Initiative. He is involved with the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation Innovative Medicines Initiative project EUPATI-IMI since 2012. In the current EUPATI project, David is co-chairing the Futures Group and he is Work Package leader in EFOEUPATI-IMI. David Haerry has also been involved in the working group updating the CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines for Health-Related Research involving Humans published in December 2016. From 2013 to 2016, he co-chaired the Patient and Consumer Working Party at the European Medicines Agency.

In Switzerland, David Haerry is the co-chair of the Swissmedic working group for patient and consumer organisations. He is a member of the ELSIag at the Swiss Personalised Health Network, the Expert Committee on Cancer Screening, the Data Ethics Board at the MIDATA cooperative midata.coop and a board member for the UNALONE Association. He is the founder and Chair of Positive Council Switzerland and he is closely involved with the Swiss Hepatitis Strategy. David has been involved in HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug development since 2005, as well as being active in HIV/AIDS-related aspects of regulatory affairs, research ethics, personalised medicine, risk communication, pharmacovigilance, observational studies, biomedical prevention and research. He has co-authored a number of peer-reviewed publication in infectious diseases, doctor-patient communication and pharmacovigilance. David has been living with HIV since 1986.

Mette Hartlev

Mette Hartlev is a professor of Health Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen and affiliated with the research centre WELMA (Centre for Legal Studies in Welfare Market). Her research focus on new health technologies and big data, patients’ rights, health and human rights, legal aspects of public health, and law science and technology studies. She has been partner in a number of national and international interdisciplinary research projects, including projects concerned with obesity and other lifestyle diseases, genetic technology, stem-cell research, data protection and patients’ rights. Mette Hartlev’s research network include researchers from Europe, North America, and Australia. She has been vice-chair and member of the Danish Council of Ethics, and is currently Chair of the Danish National Committee on Health Research Ethics.

Alfonso Valencia

Alfonso Valencia is a Biologist by training with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is ICREA Research Professor and Director of the Life Science Department Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC), Director of the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB) and head of the Spanish Node of the European Bioinformatics Infrastructure ELIXIR. A. Valencia has served in numerous Scientific Advisory Boards, including the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory; the Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics, Biozentrum- Basel; the EBI INTERPRO and chemical database, Curie Bioinformatics Unit among others. I have also been part of a number of evaluation committees, including the Spanish Grant Evaluation Agency (ANEP) and the European Research Council ERC. He is Co-Executive Editor of Bioinformatics, the main journal in the field of bioinformatics, and member of the editorial boards of eLIFE, PeerJ and FEBS letters and F1000 Prime. He has published more than 400 articles with an h-index of 84 (Scopus profile).