Speaker Biographies

ABEL, GYORGY

Dr. Gyorgy Abel is the Director of Clinical Chemistry, Molecular Diagnostics, and Immunology at the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. He also serves as Clinical Instructor in Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Abel is board certified in Clinical Pathology (American Board of Pathology) and Molecular Diagnostics (DABCC), and is a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB), and the Royal Society of Medicine (UK). He has over twenty-five years of experience in molecular biology and diagnostics. His clinical and research interests include the molecular pathology of hepatitis C infection, minimal residual disease detection in cancer, and personalized medicine. Dr. Abel previously served as Vice President of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry. Currently, he is a member of the Genomic Analysis Resource Guide Work Group of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the Clinical and Translational Research Subcommittee of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), the Clinical Immunology Committee of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), and the Clinical Advisory Committee of the Reference Material Institute for Clinical Chemistry Standards (ReCCS) in Japan. Dr. Abel is the author or co-author of approximately 100 peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and scientific conference presentations. He frequently speaks nationally on current issues in clinical pathology and molecular diagnostics.

ABUELHIJA, MAHMOUD

Dr. Mahmoud Abuelhija received his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He conducted postdoctoral studies at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. He has been involved in male fertility studies since 2004, starting with the effect of cytokines and growth factors on the spermatogenesis in mice and humans, as well as in vitro cultures of germ cells that achieved a breakthrough in male fertility. In the USA, he focused on the male reproductive system and how cancer therapy, environmental agents, or genetic mutations affect that process.  He has published articles and abstracts in reproductive biology and toxicology in notable journals.

Dr. Mahmoud Abuelhija is currently the R&D Manager in BioCEP, a startup company that has developed a cell separation platform for rare cell enrichment.  He is also the project head of Noninvasive Prenatal Testing from circulating fetal cells from maternal blood.

 AHN, JOO WOOK

No biography available.

ANSON, JOHN

Dr. John Anson joined OGT in January 2006 after sixteen years at Amersham Biosciences/GE Healthcare where he held positions as Head of Product Development, Lead Discovery, Cardiff; Vice President for Pharmacogenomics; Vice President for Business Development and Programme Manager. John brings an in-depth experience of product development in the life science market having led teams responsible for the launch of several industry-leading products.

ALEXEYENKO, AUDREY

With a background in biology and Ph.D. degree in plant genetics, Andrey Alexeyenko has focused his research interests on understanding normal physiology and pathology with gene network and systems biology approaches. It implies development of computational infrastructure, i.e. tools that integrate diverse high-throughput data across technological platforms and species. One of the first steps was creation of FunCoup: a computational framework where gene networks were reconstructed via systematic integration of heterogeneous public datasets (http://FunCoup2.sbc.su.se). Due to its robust design, comprehensive data collection, and analytic web interface, FunCoup became a biologically sound and practically useful tool for end users – experimental and computational researchers. While only few public resources (e.g. http://string.embl.de/) could offer access to interactome databases of comparable size, FunCoup’s web site possesses unique features such as dynamic sub-network retrieval or multi-species network view.  Using interactome databases and the methodology of interrogating gene networks, the current research is concentrated on functional analyses in the network context. In order to enable statistically sound testing of biological hypotheses, a new method of network enrichment analysis was proposed (Alexeyenko et al., 2012; Merid et al., 2014), where the topology was employed to evaluate functional impact of experimentally derived candidate genes and gene sets.

ALIX-PANABIÈRES, CATHERINE

Dr. Catherine Alix-Panabières received her PhD degree in 1998 at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. In 1999, she moved to the University Medical Centre of Montpellier. During this last decade, Dr Alix-Panabières has focused on optimizing new techniques of enrichment and detection of viable CTCs in patients with solid tumors. She is the expert for the EPISPOT technology that is used to detect viable tumor cells in the peripheral blood and the bone marrow of patients with breast, prostate, colon, head & neck cancer and melanoma. In 2010, she achieved getting a permanent position at the Hospital and at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier. As an associate professor, she recently became the new director of the Laboratory of Rare Human Circulating Cells (LCCRH) in the Department of cell & tissue biopathology of tumors. In this unique platform LCCRH, they isolate, detect and characterize viable CTC/DTC using combination of the EPISPOT assay, CellSearch® system, AmpliSpeed device, CellCollector®, the molecular biology and very soon the DEPArray®. 

BACHMANN, TILL

Till Bachmann is a Reader in Personalised Medicine in Infectious Diseases and Deputy Head of the Division of Infection and Pathway Medicine at The University of Edinburgh. He is an expert in point of care detection of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, conducting research at the interface of biomarkers and novel detection modalities. Currently, he focuses on electrochemical POCTs for CPEs and MRSA, sepsis, UTI, and wound infection, as well as isothermal amplification driven by electrochemistry. Till fullfils a variety of industrial and institutional advisory roles worldwide such as for the UK Longitude Prize.

BARTON, DAVID

David Barton is Chief Scientist (Director) of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the National Centre for Medical Genetics in Dublin, Ireland, and Adjunct Associate Professor at University College Dublin.  Having trained in Trinity College Dublin, and The Queen's University of Belfast, he carried out medical genetics research at Yale University and Cambridge University before setting up the NHS molecular genetics diagnostic laboratory in Cambridge. He returned to Dublin to set up his current laboratory at the National Centre for Medical Genetics in 1995. 

Dr Barton has been involved in work to monitor and improve the quality of genetic testing for many years, working with UK NEQAS, the OECD and EuroGentest. He currently chairs the European Molecular Genetics Quality Network.  He coordinated the EU CRMGEN project, developing certified reference materials for genetic testing. In EuroGentest he continues to work on reference materials development and also has responsibility for examining the role and impact of IVD regulation in genetic testing. David Barton has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals on many aspects of the molecular genetics of inherited disorders.  Research interests include the genetics of vesicoureteral reflux, male infertility and the development of novel DNA diagnostic devices. 

BROWN, TREVOR

Trevor is currently the Vice President, Precision Medicine for SeraCare, directing the company’s initiatives towards innovative tools and services for precision diagnostics. He is recently from Luminex Corp. where he spent 5 years leading the global strategic marketing and clinical diagnostics strategy efforts. Previously he spent 7 years in marketing and product development roles at BD Biosciences.

CHARLOT, DAVID

Dr. Charlot is the President and Chief Technology Officer at Biological Dynamics Inc. He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego. He is an expert in optics, automation, industrial design, and molecular diagnostics assays.

CICCARELLI, FRANCESCA

Francesca Ciccarelli graduated in pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Bologna and was trained as a computational biologist in the group of Peer Bork at the EMBL-Heidelberg. She started her research group at the European Institute on Oncology in Milan in 2005 and became Associate Professor at the King’s College London in 2014. Her group applies a combination of experimental and in silico approaches to pursue two lines of investigation. The first aims at characterizing the systems-level properties of cancer genes and to use them to identify novel targets for therapy. The second line involves extensive cancer genome sequencing to characterize the evolution of cancer clones.

COTTEN, MATT

Dr. Matt Cotten has a B.S. and a PhD degree in biochemistry focused on nucleic acid and chromatin biochemistry and my scientific career has been in infectious diseases with research addressing mechanisms of virus entry into host cells, the interactions of viruses with the cell growth, apoptosis and inflammatory signalling. I have worked in the United States, in Europe and in Africa in both academic and pharmaceutical laboratories. I have published 117 scientific papers and have an H-index of 52. I am currently a senior staff scientist in the Virus Genomics group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute with a major focus on developing large-scale, high-throughput RNA virus sequencing.

CROCKARD, MARTIN

Dr. Martin Crockard, Ph.D., Molecular Diagnostics Manager for Randox Laboratories, leads a team of 20 molecular biologists in the company’s Molecular Diagnostics group. He has more than 20 years’ experience leading molecular biology projects, 13 at Randox. Dr. Crockard works closely with the company’s engineering, regulatory affairs, marketing, and manufacturing departments to develop both multiplex arrays and complementary analyzers.

DEMPSEY, PAUL

Dr. Dempsey is an immunologist by training with more than 25 years of experience in biomedical research. Before joining Cynvenio, Dr. Dempsey was an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He brings extensive hands-on research experience in life sciences, molecular biology, and reagent development. Dr. Dempsey was a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Fellow from 2000 to 2003, has published 20 scientific articles and abstracts, and holds patents in technologies designed to amplify the immunogenicity of vaccines and rare-cell recovery. Dr. Dempsey holds a BS in Microbiology and Virology from the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

DRURY, SUZANNE

Suzanne Drury is a Post Doctoral Scientist at the Regional Genetics Laboratory at Great Ormond Street NHS Foundation Trust. Sarah works in a team dedicated to developing and implementing non-invasive prenatal testing in the NHS.

EHRICH, MATHIAS

No biography available.

ELOIT, MARC

Marc Eloit received his DVM from the Veterinary School of Maisons-Alfort and his PhD from University Paris VI. He is Professor of Virology and the former head of the Unit of Virology in Veterinary School of Maisons-Alfort.  He joined in 2008 the Institut Pasteur (Paris) to develop a program of Pathogen Discovery based on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). He is the chairman and the CSO of Pathoquest, a spin-off of Institut Pasteur he has founded in 2010, which develops an NGS-based diagnostic assay for infectious diseases.

FAAS, BRIGITTE

Dr. Brigitte Faas studied medical biology at the Radboud University Nijmegen and performed her PhD study at the Sanquin laboratory in Amsterdam. She obtained her PhD degree in 1998, and her PhD research focused on the noninvasive prenatal determination of the fetal Rhesus blood group genotypes. To this end, she not only studied the genetic background of the Rh antigens, but also studied the use of either fetal cells or fetal cell-free DNA in the maternal circulation for noninvasive prenatal testing.

In 1999, she started her training to become Clinical Laboratory Geneticist, which was finished in 2004. She is working at the Human Genetics department of the Radboudumc since 2001, and her main field of expertise is prenatal diagnosis. Within this field, she is involved in all state-of-the-art laboratory tests, such as karyotyping, QF-PCR, FISH, SNP array and noninvasive prenatal testing.

Brigitte is editor of the Genetics and Genomics section of the Prenatal Diagnosis journal, is chair of the Special Interest Group for laboratory techniques of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis (ISPD) and involved in education activities of the ISPD, such as organizing preconference courses.

GINOCCHIO,CHRISTINE

Christine C. Ginocchio, Ph.D., MT (ASCP) is the VP, Global Microbiology Affairs, bioMérieux, NC and Professor of Medicine, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, NY. Previously, she was Senior Medical Director and Chief, Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics, North Shore-LIJ Health System Laboratories, NY. She has 40 years’ experience in clinical diagnostics and has been the principal investigator for more than 60 industry and pharmaceutical clinical trials.  Dr. Ginocchio’s areas of extra-mural funded research have included HIV, CMV, respiratory viruses, HPV, antibiotic resistance and molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases. Her awards include the President’s Award and Irving Abrahams Award for outstanding basic science research, the PASCV 2012 award in Diagnostic Virology and the ASM 2013 BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology. She is currently the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Clinical Virology. Dr. Ginocchio has published 9 book chapters, over 225 peer-reviewed articles/abstracts and has been an invited speaker at over 200 national and international conferences. 

GOOSSENS, HERMAN

Herman Goossens is a professor of Medical Microbiology at the University Antwerp and the director of the Laboratory of Clinical Pathology of the University Hospital Antwerp. He published more than 450 full papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He coordinates several European projects funded by DG Research, DG SANCO, IMI and ECDC, such as Development of RApid Point-of-care test Platforms for Infectious Diseases (RAPP-ID) and LAB-Net of the Combating Bacterial Resistance in Europe project (COMBACTE). He is the founder of the annual European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD). His main fields of research are antibiotic use and resistance, respiratory tract infections, developing rapid and point-of-care diagnostic tests, and biofilms.

GUISSART, CLAIRE

Dr. Claire Guissart is a pharmacist at the Regional University Hospital Center of Montpellier, France, where she is involved in the diagnosis of autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxias by exome sequencing. She has been trained in trace human DNA detection for forensic cases at the Medical Genetics Unit - Faculty of Medicine at University Saint Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon. During her pharmacy practice residency, she worked on the development of qPCR methods for quality control analysis of gene therapy products at the French agency for the safety of health products (ANSM). She continued these studies at Florida Biologix, a contract manufacturing organization tasked with commercializing viral vectors for gene therapy applications in the USA, where she further refined qPCR methods for quantitation of recombinant viral vectors. Dr. Guissart combined these two sets of expertise when she joined Dr. Marie-Claire Vincent’s team at the Regional University Hospital Center of Montpellier and worked to repurpose a qPCR-based mutant-enrichment technique originally developed for cancer analysis. Her goal was to apply this technique to analyzing circulating cell-free fetal DNA for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of monogenic disorders such as cystic fibrosis.

GÜNEL, TUBA

Tuba received her degree from Istanbul University in Molecular Genetics. She has been an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University since March of 1992.

HEATH, JOE DON

Dr. Heath is responsible for working with NuGEN’s diagnostic partners to identify appropriate sample prep solutions and serves as a liaison and technical resource during evaluation and integration of those solutions into their production workflows. He has held a number of positions since joining NuGEN in 2003, and his wealth of technical knowledge has been a valuable resource for NuGEN’s diagnostic partners. Prior to NuGEN, Joe Don held a variety of scientific and customer supporting positions at Incyte Genomics. He earned his Ph.D. in microbial molecular genetics from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center and was a post-doc fellow at the University of Washington.

HEIDEMAN, DANIELLE

Dr. Daniëlle A.M. Heideman, Ph.D., is licensed Clinical Scientist in Molecular Pathology and Associate Professor at the Department of Pathology, VU University medical center (VUmc), Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Dr. Heideman gained her M.Sc. degree in medical biology cum laude in 1998, and she holds a Ph.D. degree from VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has a track record of more than 15 years in translational research in oncology, focusing on exploring biomarkers and their possible role in (early) cancer detection and/or therapy response. In addition, she is leading the molecular pathology diagnostic laboratory at the VU University Medical Center. She has established expertise in and infrastructure for fast and reliable mutation analysis to provide accurate molecular companion diagnostics as well as service testing in several clinical trials. Dr. Heideman is (co-) author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications in high-quality journals such as Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, British Medical Journal, Clinical Cancer Research and International Journal of Cancer, and several book chapters.

HEYN, HOLGER

Elucidating the molecular architecture underlying cellular systems and its aberrations leading to disease, displays the challenge that drives my research. Herein, Holger Heyn, Ph.D., is chasing the origin of phenotypic plasticity, through the integration of multi-dimensional biological information. Considering the genetic sequence as hub for cellular communication, my focus lies on regulatory variability.

Moving the field from the epigenetics to the epigenomics era, Dr. Heyn is coordinating multi-disciplinary efforts to determine functional epitype-phenotype associations in the context of cancer, aging and rare diseases. The international team he is leading consists of computational, biological and clinical experts and undergraduate students within and outside the institution. Heyn conceived, conducted and presented studies that transferred epigenetic biomarkers and signatures into clinical valuable tools. The main motivation and the major driving force of his work are the understanding of disease biology and the long-standing promise of a personalized patient therapy.

HILL, MATTHEW

Dr. Matthew Hill is Vice President of Research and Development at Natera, where he leads the development of Natera's growing portfolio of class-leading products. This includes the world’s fastest growing noninvasive prenatal screening test for chromosome 21, 18, 13, X aneuploidies, and microdeletion syndromes. Dr. Hill is an authority on genetics, molecular biology, and the applications of next-generation sequencing. Dr. Hill obtained his B.S. from Cornell University and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

HUDSON, ANDREW

Andrew Hudson is a Clinical Research Fellow from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Insititute. Working in the Signalling Networks in Cancer group led by John Brognard, Dr Hudson is also a Clinical Oncology trainee at The Christie Hospital. Focusing on the treatment of lung cancer, he is interested in using cancer genomics data to identify novel druggable targets and improve outcomes for patients.

IANNELLI, FABIO

Dr. Fabio Iannelli is currently studying the impact of DNA damage on genome and transcriptome as a mechanism responsible for genome instability in cancer. He has a broader interest in genetics of cancer and in particular in the mechanisms linking genome instability to cancer, and in the dynamics of clonal evolution in cancer.

Dr. Iannelli obtained his PhD at the University of Milan, Italy, where he studied the molecular evolution of mitochondrial genome in the group of Graziano Pesole. He then joined as a Postdoc the group of Francesca Ciccarelli at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan, where he guided a project showing that inflammation promotes liver cancer in human and mouse through genomic modifications distinguished from those determined by other etiological factors. During his Postdoc at IEO, Dr. Iannelli also conducted a study rebuilding the proliferation history of colorectal cancers by deep sequencing of their genome, and contributed to a study demonstrating the presence of genomic instability in non-neoplastic tissues of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer patients.

Among several collaborations, he contributed to a study proving L1-mediated retrotransposition as an important etiological factor in liver cancer with the group of Geoff Faulkner (Mater Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia).

In January 2014 he moved as a senior Postdoc in the group of Fabrizio d’Adda di Fagagna at the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology Foundation (IFOM) in Milan, where he is currently involved in several projects related to DNA damage response and genome instability.

JAMES, DAVID

David James is the Senior Vice President of Diagnostics at Invetech, a full spectrum product realization partner that assists companies in creating ground breaking products through excellence in design, engineering and manufacturing. David has more than 25 years of experience providing consulting and development services in specialist areas including Invitro and Point of Care Diagnostics, Life sciences and Cell Therapy automated production systems. David is recognized for his insights and expertise in managing complex projects that are at the forefront of technology, and collaborating with clients and multi-disciplinary teams to develop market-winning solutions. He is a vocal advocate for technical risk management within new product development and specifically the impact of early stage decision-making on the commercial success of a product. David holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Melbourne, is a regular conference speaker, holds several patents and is the author of numerous articles and white papers.

KERSAUDY-KERHOAS, MAIWENN

Dr Kersaudy-Kerhoas is a Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering (IB3) within the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. She is co-directing the Microfluidic Biotechnology group which aims at developing and translating microfluidic sample preparation devices to relevant applications in clinical and environmental areas. She holds a research MSc degree in micro and nanotechnologies from the Technical University of Lille (France), and a MSc degree from the Institut Superieur de l’Electronique et du Numerique (Brest-Lille, France). She was awarded a PhD at Heriot-Watt University in 2010. She developed a microfluidic chip for blood plasma extraction and demonstrated the use of this chip for subsequent circulating DNA amplification. She is proposing novel microfluidic tools for the rapid enrichment of circulating biomarkers. In 2014 she was appointed member of the EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing research.

KOLVRAA, STEEN

Steen Kolvraa, MD, is former Professor in Clinical Genetics and for many years has been scientifically active in the field of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer in ARCEDI Biotech which is developing methods for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis based on fetal cells in maternal blood.

KOUMBARIS, GEORGE

Dr. George Koumbaris is the Head of Research & Development at NIPD Genetics. He received his BSc and MSc degrees in Molecular Biology from Florida State University, USA and a PhD in Human Molecular Genetics from the University of Ioannina, GR.  Before joining NIPD Genetics, he pursued research on the molecular basis of genomic disorders and genome architecture.  He also worked on the design and implementation of new diagnostic methods and innovative biomarker discovery projects. During his ten-year tenure at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics he worked in prenatal diagnosis and carried out research on the development of novel non-invasive prenatal diagnostic methods. Dr. Koumbaris has published several peer-reviewed articles and presented findings at various scientific meetings. He joined NIPD Genetics as the Head of Research & Development in 2011.

KOYAMA, FERNANDA

Dr. Fernanda Koyama is a Research scientist at Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Hospital Sírio-Libanês in São Paulo.  She is a specialist in Next-Generation Sequencing applied for cancer research integrating in Dr Anamaria A. Camargo's group.

KRAMER, FRED RUSSELL

Fred Russell Kramer is Professor of Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics at Rutgers University.  After receiving a doctorate from the Rockefeller University, he was a member of the faculty of Columbia University for 17 years, and then moved his laboratory to the Public Health Research Institute, where he has carried out research with his colleagues for the past 28 years.

LEHRACH, HANS

Dr. Hans Lehrach is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics since 1994. His expertise lies in genetics, genomics, systems biology and personalized medicine. He is founder of the Berlin-based company Alacris Theranostics GmbH, specialising in the development of new approaches for personalised medicine for cancer patient diagnosis, treatment and drug stratification. In 2010 he founded the non-for-profit research institute The Dahlem Centre for Genome Research and Medical Systems Biology (DCGMS).

LITTLE, STEPHEN

Stephen is a successful serial biotechnology entrepreneur. He is the former CEO of DxS, an innovator in the field of personalised medicine, developing and manufacturing companion diagnostics. DxS was funded with £3.5M in 2001 and was sold to QIAGEN BV in 2009 for £85M. DxS pioneered the use of molecular diagnostic tests such as KRAS and EGFR mutation analysis to predict the use of novel cancer therapies. In 2009, DxS was acquired by QIAGEN and Stephen became Vice President of Personalised Healthcare, responsible for developing companion diagnostic partnerships with the pharma industry. Prior to his leading role at DxS, Stephen worked for 20 years in various senior positions in the diagnostic divisions of Astra Zeneca and ICI. He holds a PhD from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

LO, DENNIS

Dennis Lo is the Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, the Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine and Professor of Chemical Pathology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also the Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Medicine of CUHK. Dennis Lo received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge and the Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Oxford.

Following his training at Oxford, he was appointed as the University Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry and Honorary Consultant Chemical Pathologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, the teaching hospital of the University of Oxford Clinical School. He was also a Fellow at Green College, Oxford.

Dennis Lo returned to Hong Kong in 1997. In the same year, he discovered the presence of fetal DNA in maternal plasma. His group has since remained at the forefront of this field. His group was the first to report the presence of cell-free fetal RNA and fetal epigenetic markers in maternal plasma and pioneered the use of such markers for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. Dennis Lo and his colleagues were also the first to show that cell-free fetal nucleic acids in maternal plasma could be used for the noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of fetal trisomy 21 and had devised multiple solutions for this hitherto difficult diagnostic problem, including methods based on plasma RNA-SNP allelic ratios, plasma epigenetic markers, digital PCR and massively parallel DNA sequencing. With the use of massively parallel sequencing and the development of novel bioinformatics strategies, Dennis Lo’s group succeeded at deciphering a genome-wide genetic map of the fetus through the analysis of the small amounts of fragmented DNA floating in the blood of pregnant women. This scientific achievement lays the foundation for developing non-invasive prenatal diagnostic tests for multiple genetic diseases in a non-invasive way.

In recognition of his work, Dennis Lo has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2005 State Natural Science Award from the State Council of China, the 2006 International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) – Abbott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Molecular Diagnostics, the 2006 US National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Distinguished Scientist Award, a Croucher Senior Medical Research Fellowship, the 2007 Sigi Zeiring Award from the American Association of Clinical Chemistry and Fulbright Distinguished Scholar 2009. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011 and as a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2013.

LUTZ, MICHAEL

Michael Lutz is a serial biotech entrepreneur and has many years of experience in building and managing innovative biotechnology companies. Since 2010 he is CEO of LifeCodexx AG (Germany), a leading NIPT company. Since 2005, he successfully set up six international biotech companies, and, among other tasks, he is a senior advisor for other biotech companies, such as Cytena in Freiburg (Germany). Prior to that, Michael Lutz worked for many years in various management positions at Novartis Pharma and Evotec. He studied chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Constance (Germany) and Grenoble (France). He holds a PhD in bio-organic chemistry from the ETH Zurich (Switzerland).

MAKRIGIORGOS, MIKE

Dr. Mike Makrigiorgos is a Professor of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Medical Physics & Biophysics division at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, Harvard Medical School.  He also directs the DNA technology laboratory and the radiation pre-clinical facility. His research interests include the development of novel DNA technologies for molecular diagnostics in Oncology.  He is the inventor of several novel PCR-based techniques for molecular diagnostics, including Balanced-PCR, Anti-primer-quenching-real-time PCR, Hairpin-PCR, COLD-PCR and DiSSeCT technology.  He is a Member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Chemistry and has published over 120 articles, reviews and book chapters.

MASON, JOANNE

Dr. Joanne Mason is lead scientist at the BRC-funded genomics facility in Oxford Molecular Diagnostic Centre (OMDC). Joanne carries out translational science modernizing clinical diagnostics and bring NGS technologies into clinical practice in the NHS. OMDC NGS Core facility offer next generation sequencing, microarrays and other complementary technologies for use in translational research and clinical diagnostics. As well as providing diagnostic disease specific NGS panels across a range of congenital and acquired diseases, they are also funded to introduce clinical grade exomes and whole genome sequencing into a CPA-accredited diagnostic lab within the NHS and work closely with Genomics England on the 100,000 genome project. Prior to joining OMDC, Joanne set up an NGS Core facility in Malaysia which was used by a range of universities, government and private companies. Projects ranged from large government funded population genome studies to plant transcriptomes, microRNA and metagenomics as well as the role of NGS in bioprospecting. Before moving to Malaysia she worked at the Health Protection Agency, where Joanne lead the Comparative Genomics group using NGS technologies to study novel and dangerous pathogens including her work on the Anthrax outbreak in heroin users across Europe in 2009. Dr Mason holds a PhD from Cambridge in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

MCKINLEY, JOHN

John McKinley is an executive with a successful track record of achievement in both public and private sectors in Life Sciences, Defence, Government and Insurance. He is also a solicitor with extensive IP and commercial expertise; he has built a number of private and public diagnostic healthcare companies including public-private partnerships developing government technologies. He joined Enigma in 2005 and has been responsible for the Company’s development of its flagship ML system from concept to European registration in 2014. He is now spearheading the Company’s global commercialisation plan.

John is an innovator in healthcare, science and technology using new ideas and methodologies to generate next-generation businesses.

MOSHKEVICH, SOLOMON

Mr. Moshkevich is passionate about improving patient outcomes and lowering healthcare costs through non-invasive technologies and innovative reimbursement models. He began his career in New York as a consultant with Bain & Company, and then moved to Moscow, Russia in 2007 to lead a regional growth strategy for SABMiller. Returning to Boston, he joined the investment team at Parthenon Capital Partners where he invested in healthcare and business services companies. Later with the Disease Management team of OptumHealth (a UnitedHealth Group company), he was the first to identify and measure the value of provider engagement in Optum’s disease management services, which led to lower costs and improved patient outcomes. More recently, as a member of the start-up team at Organ-I, he developed a commercialization strategy for a non-invasive genetic test that detects the acute rejection of solid organ transplants. Since joining Natera in 2011, he has been responsible for launching Natera’s brands in more than 40 countries worldwide, and developing key channel partnerships in the United States. Mr. Moshkevich graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics, and has an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

MUIR, PETER

Peter Muir graduated from Edinburgh University with a PhD in Virology, subsequently worked at Kings College London, and is currently Head of Virology at the Public Health Laboratory Bristol, part of Public Health England. His interests include molecular diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections, respiratory infections, and delivery of service improvement using novel diagnostic technologies and algorithms.

MURTAGH, MAURINE

Maurine Murtagh is the CEO of the International Diagnostics Centre (www.idc-dx.org) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Prior to that, she was the Director of Diagnostic Services at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a position she held for almost 5 years. Prior to joining CHAI, Maurine was a corporate partner at a law firm in San Francisco, California, where her focus was on mergers and acquisitions and securities law. She graduated from Georgetown University and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.Phil. (finance) from Columbia University and a J.D. from Duke University.

NOEHAMMER, CHRISTA

Christa Noehammer currently holds the position of a Senior Scientist at the Austrian Institute of Technology where she has been heading the Molecular Medicine research unit before for several years. She holds an MSc degree in Microbiology and a PhD in Biochemistry. Working in the microarray field since 1999, Christa Noehammer has been involved in the design, production and data analysis of various microarray types thereby focusing on cancer- and infectious disease diagnostics. Apart from nationally funded research projects where she has currently the lead, Christa Noehammer has been involved as work package leader in the large scale FP7 project RESOLVE, which has just finished and aimed to elucidate molecular mechanisms involved in fibroproliferative diseases (such as e.g. pulmonary fibrosis) by applying whole genome mRNA-, microRNA- and DNA methylation microarrays on a number of different animal and human fibrotic disease models. Most recently Christa Noehammer is involved in establishing saliva biomarker research at AIT.

O’SULLIVAN, CIARA

Ciara O' Sullivan received a BSc in Analytical Chemistry from Dublin City University in 1992, a PhD in Biotechnology from Cranfield University in 1996 and then went on to lead the sensors group at University College Cork from 1996-99. She then took up a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Universitat Rovira I Virgili (1999-2001) and was then awarded a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship which she pursued for 1 year prior to taking up her current position as ICREA Research Professor and establishing the Nanobiotechnology and Bioanalysis Group at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Her research interests lie in the development of electrochemical and optical biosensors exploiting advances in tailored biocomponents. Presently, my work focuses on reducing to practise cost-effective molecular diagnostics for screening and monitoring of disease, as well as on the development of aptamers for application in optical and electrochemical molecular aptamer beacons. The approaches for molecular diagnostics being developed include parallelised real-time electrochemical next generation sequencing, electrochemical array based primer extension and quantitative paper diagnostics as companion tools for the future paradigm of pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine.

PANTEL, KLAUS

Prof Klaus Pantel graduated in 1986 from Cologne University in Germany and completed his thesis on mathematical modelling of hematopoiesis in 1987. After his postdoctoral period in the USA on hematopoietic stem cell regulation (Wayne State University, Detroit), he performed research on cancer micrometastasis at the Institute of Immunology, University of Munich for 10 years. Currently, Prof Pantel is Chairman of the Institute of Tumour Biology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. The institute is part of the University Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH). The pioneer work of Prof Pantel in the field of cancer micrometastasis, circulating tumor cells and circulating nucleic acids (ctDNA, microRNAs) is reflected by more than 300 publications in excellent high ranking biomedical and scientific journals (incl. NEJM, Lancet, Nature Journals, Cancer Cell, PNAS, JCO, JNCI, Cancer Res.) and has been awarded recently (AACR Outstanding Investigator Award 2010, German Cancer Award 2010, ERC Advanced Investigator Grant 2011). Moreover, Prof Pantel was co-ordinator of the FP6 EU STREP “DISMAL” (Disseminated Malignancies, www.dismal-project.eu), coordinates now the European TRANSCAN group “CTC-SCAN” and serves on the Editorial Boards of international cancer journals (e.g., Clin. Cancer Res., Breast Cancer Res., Cancer Res.).

PATERLINI-BRECHOT, PATRIZIA

Patrizia Paterlini-Bréchot studied medicine at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. In 1978, she defended a thesis on Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which was awarded the title of « Best medical thesis » of the year 1978. She pursued her training and validated a double specialization in Hematology (1981), awarded the prize of « Best research in Hematology » of the year 1979, and in Oncology (1984). Patrizia Paterlini-Bréchot obtained a permanent academic position in the University of L'Aquila (1981), then Bologna (1984) working in the departments of Hematology, Gastroenterology and Oncology. In 1988 she moved to Paris(France) for a training in molecular biology in Professor Christian Bréchot’s laboratory. In 1993, she defended her PhD thesis, Fundamental bases of oncogenesis at University of Paris XI. She quit her academic position in the University of Bologna in 1993 and in 1994 she obtained an equivalent position in Paris Descartes University in Paris. In 1994, she demonstrated the clinical impact of a new marker of cell proliferation, cyclin A, discovered in the same laboratory. In 1995, she was awarded the Prize of Scientific excellence Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris. Her work in Christian Brechot’s team demonstrated the pro-carcinogenic impact of hepatitis B Virus (HBV) genome integration into cellular DNA both in patients having serological markers of HBV infection and in patients lacking serological markers but having persistence of the HBV DNA in their liver. The work of her team thus demonstrated a mechanism involved in the direct tumorigenic effect of this virus. In 2004 she was appointed full Professor of Cell Biology in the same University. With her team, she published studies showing the primary role of calcium signaling deregulation in HBV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) - related liver oncogenesis and in pathologies related to ER stress. From 2002 to 2006 she served as interim Director of INSERM Unit 370, previously directed by Professor Christian Bréchot. In 2006, she was appointed Director of INSERM Unit 807.[2] In addition to fundamental research studies, her activity has been focused to clinically applied research, targeting the domains of predictive oncology and non-invasive prenatal diagnosis.

PEELING, ROSEANNA

Dr. Peeling is currently Professor and Chair of Diagnostics Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Trained as a medical microbiologist, Dr. Peeling had been acting Research Coordinator and head of Diagnostics Research at the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme on Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), based in the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Chief of the Canadian National Laboratory for Sexually Transmitted Diseases before assuming her current position.  She has a strong interest in ethical issues associated with conducting research in developing countries and was appointed the Chair of the WHO Research Ethics Review Committee 2004-6.  She was the recipient of a YM-YWCA Women of Distinction Award, a 5NR Award for Canadian Leaders of Sustainable Development. Her research was featured in a Discovery Channel documentary on Chlamydia infection and infertility, and in Fighting Syphilis, a documentary in the highly acclaimed BBC Kill or Cure series.

PIERGA, JEAN-YVES

Jean-Yves Pierga is Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology at Paris Descartes University since 2005. He is a full time medical oncologist at the Institut Curie, Paris Cancer Center. His main research interests are breast cancer treatments, early clinical trials and translational research. Pr Pierga trained as a medical oncologist and obtained a Silver medal from Paris Medical School in 1994. His PhD thesis focused on disseminated tumor cells detection and characterization in breast cancer patients (2003, Paris University XI; Thesis Director: Dr Jean-Paul Thiery). After a post-doctoral fellowship in 2004 at the Royal Marsden London in the Breast Cancer Unit of Pr IE Smith and the Academic Biochemistry Department of Pr M. Dowsett, Pr. Pierga became head of the Day-clinic at the Institut Curie until 2007. He is currently Head of the research program on disseminated and circulating tumor cells at the Institut Curie since 2010. He has contributed to over 120 peer-reviewed publications. He is member of Société Française de Cancérologie (SFC), European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Breast Cancer Group of the EORTC.

POON, LEONA

Dr. Leona Poon is a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics at Division of Women's Health, King's College London, UK. She was awarded MB BS from King's College London, University of London, in 2002 and undertook her specialty training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London. She gained a 3-year training fellowship from the Fetal Medicine Foundation (UK Charity) and during this time, established a major screening programme for early detection of preeclampsia, which led to a Doctorate of Medicine (Research) in 2011. She then undertook subspecialty training in maternal fetal medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. 

Her main research interests are in the prediction and prevention of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. These include developing screening models for the prediction of aneuploidies, preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, macrosomia, stillbirth and spontaneous preterm birth. She has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications, 28 with first authorship, in the top quartile of international journals in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Hypertension. Her work in the area of preeclampsia has led to a double-blinded randomised controlled trial of low-dose aspirin in pregnancies identified as high risk of preeclampsia following first trimester multi-marker screening. This study has been awarded a grant from the European Commission 7^th Framework Programme.

POTHIER, KRISTIN

Kristin Pothier is the Head of Life Sciences Strategy Services in Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) at EY. She has over 18 years of experience in management consulting and genomics research in the life sciences industry. Her primary areas of focus are company and investor commercial strategy and M&A support for diagnostics, pharmaceutical, and consumer health companies. She is a noted speaker, workshop leader, and writer in the life sciences space. She is also a founder of DxInsights, a non-profit organization designed to educate on the impact of diagnostics in improving health care outcomes to the nation's healthcare communities. Earlier in her career, Kristin was a partner and owner of Health Advances, a healthcare consulting firm, and a research scientist at Genome Therapeutics and at Genzyme. She earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Smith College and a graduate degree in Epidemiology, Health Management, and Maternal and Child Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

ROBINSON, WILLIAM

Dr. William Robinson, a native of Colorado, earned his medical degree from University of Colorado Medical School. He completed an internship and residency at The Massachusetts General Hospital and then returned to the University of Colorado as the Chief Resident in Internal Medicine in 1965. He then did a PhD in Medical Biology and completed his fellowship at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia. He was one of the pioneers in the study of WBC regulation and was the first to describe and characterize human G-CSF. Dr. Robinson joined the faculty of University of Colorado Denver in 1968 and was the first head of the Division of Medical Oncology.

During his career, Dr. Robinson has received many teaching and research awards and has been honored numerous times for his contributions to medicine, specifically medical oncology. He has also spent time in India as a Fulbright Scholar training junior doctors and doing research.

RODRIGUEZ DE ALBA, MARTA

Research Fellow for the FIS 97/0338 Project and Conchita Rabago Foundation. Genetics Service of the Fundación Jiménez Díaz. 1996-2001. Deputy Genetics Service from Year 2002. Degree: Doctor of Biological Sciences

RUANO-LÓPEZ, JESUS

Dr. Jesus M Ruano-López had his PhD in Microsystems from The University of Glasgow in 2000. During the following 14 years at IK4-Ikerlan and CIC microGUNE, He has been creating and managing international teams to develop diagnostic systems based on microfluidics (e.g. OPTOLABCARD, LABONFOIL). As a result of this work, he has contributed to the creation of two start- ups: microLIQUID and POC microSOLUTIONS.  Two years ago, he got a new European project based on the development of diagnostic systems for Non Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis called ANGELAB.

Along all these years, he has combined a research profile in combination with a customer orientation and system focused approach.  Recently, he has been chosen Chair of the Applied Micro Nano Bio Systems Working Group within the European Technology Platform Smart System Integration (EPoSS).

SCHMID, MAXIMILIAN

Maximilian Schmid, MD is Associate Director of Medical Affairs at Ariosa Diagnostics, a leading global molecular diagnostics company that is part of the Roche Sequencing group. He also holds a position as assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria. Previously, he served as consulting obstetrician and gynecologist at Vienna General Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Fetal-Maternal Medicine. Dr. Schmid’s research interests focus on fetal medicine and prenatal genetics. Dr. Schmid has published several articles in renowned peer-reviewed journals including Obstetrics and Gynecology and Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has contributed to a scientific book on fetal MRI and is a regular speaker at national and international scientific congresses.

Dr. Schwartz is board certified in medical genetics, clinical cytogenetics, and clinical molecular genetics. He earned a PhD in medical genetics from Indiana University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. His major areas of interest include molecular cytogenetics, the delineation and characterization of neocentromeres, phenotype/karyotype correlation in the 9p deletion syndrome, the etiology of structural chromosome abnormalities, the characterization of de novo and complex reciprocal translocations, and high-resolution chromosome methodology. In addition to authoring a number of book chapters, Dr Schwartz has authored more than 160 articles for peer-reviewed journals.

SIRAVEGNA, GIULIA

Dr Giulia Siravegna graduated in Biotechnology at the University of Torino Medical School in 2006. Her training includes molecular and mutational profiling of tumour samples, functional analysis of cellular models to assess the role of individual cancer mutations in the response to targeted therapies. Dr. Siravegna is responsible for the liquid biopsy project in Prof. Alberto Bardelli’s lab of molecular genetics at the Candiolo Cancer institute. She is co-authors of high profile journal publications in the topic. She is an expert in the detection of mutations in tissue and plasma samples using sensitive technologies as BEAMing, digital PCR and Next Generation Sequencing platforms.

TALY, VALERIE

After graduation as a Molecular Toxicologist, Dr Valerie Taly (Abecassis) performed her PhD research at the Center of Molecular Genetics (CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, FR) on applications of combinatorial methods (generally used for proteins directed evolution) to the study of the functional plasticity of human Cytochromes P450. She joined Andrew Griffiths’ group in 2003, in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in the Medical Research Council in Cambridge (UK), to work on in vitro compartmentalization of biological and chemical reactions in emulsion droplets and participated to the development of High-throughput selection procedures of double-emulsions by FACS. In 2005, she integrated the Laboratory of Biological Chemistry directed by Pr. A. Griffiths in the ISIS institute (Univ. Strasbourg) as a permanent CNRS researcher to work on HTS procedures using droplet-based microfluidics. Since 2008, she develops droplet-based digital procedures for Cancer diagnosis. Recently, her team developed highly sensitive quantitative procedures for the detection of Cancer Biomarkers in droplets in a collaboration involving the clinical laboratory of Pr. P. Laurent-Puig (hEGP hospital, Univ. Paris-Descartes), the team of Dr J.-C. Baret (Max Plank Institute, Goettingen) and Raindance Technologies (US). She has recently created (January 2012) a new Group, named Translational Research And Microfluidics (TRAM), within a clinical oncology research unit in the university Paris-Descartes. Her research is dedicated to the clinical validation of the developed droplet-based procedures for the non-invasive detection of Cancer biomarkers, the highlighting of new Cancer Biomarkers and the development of original tools and procedures for their detection with applications in personalized medicine, cancer recurrence detection and cancer diagnostics.

THIERRY, ALAIN R.

A.R. Thierry has a strong background in synthetic DNA complex formation and its use for in vivo gene therapy. His specific expertise is particularly applicable to research focusing on the study of the diagnostic capacity of circulating nucleic acids and the development of methods towards supporting personalised medicine. His team has developed an animal model to specifically quantify ctDNA from its different origins and it has demonstrated the crucial importance of detecting short ctDNA fragments to improve the high specificity and sensitivity of ctDNA analysis. This observation has enabled dominant intellectual property and the design of the IntPlex test. A.R. Thierry has coordinated the first clinical validation of the analysis of circulating DNA in oncology, in a prospective blinded multicentric study for the detection of KRAS and BRAF mutations from colorectal patients plasma samples. Aims of his research are now focusing on various aspects of the potential of ctDNA: (i), detecting the emergence of the mutations following targeted therapy ; (ii), developing the Intplex test for the multimarker quantitative analysis of ctDNA; (iii), studying the follow up of CRC patients; (iv), the prognostic power of ctDNA and (v) the diagnostic power of ctDNA.

TSUI, DANA

Dana studied Molecular Biotechnology and obtained PhD in Chemical Pathology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her doctoral research focused on the development of non-invasive prenatal diagnostic test for fetal trisomies using circulating fetal DNA in plasma under the supervision of Prof Dennis Lo. She then joined Dr Nitzan Rosenfeld as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, UK. Her work focuses on the development of sequencing-based approaches to study circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) in plasma of cancer patients, in order to non-invasively monitor the patients' response and resistance to cancer therapy. Dana’s work involves the use of ctDNA for monitoring of different cancer types, mostly lung, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. Dana was recently elected a Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge in 2014.

VAN DER SCHOOT, ELLEN C.

Research of the Department of Experimental Immunohematology is focused on the immunohematological aspects of cellular therapy. We are studying the immune responses to classical blood products such as red cells and platelets, and perform research on the development of new cellular products. The department also accommodates the Immunocytology diagnostic sub-laboratory and the certified Laboratory for Stem Cell Transplantation.

VAN OPSTAL, DIANE

Diane Van Opstal studied Biology at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and received her Ph.D. from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam (The Netherlands) in 1998. After her study, since 1987, she has worked in the Prenatal Cytogenetics Laboratory of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam (The Netherlands). Besides being a Laboratory Specialist Clinical Genetics, performing the daily cytogenetic diagnostics in pregnancies at increased risk for a chromosome aberration and being a tutor of Laboratory Specialists Clinical Genetics since 2005, Dr. Diane Van Opstal has a long-standing interest in the phenomenon of chromosomal mosaicism, the mechanisms of origin of chromosome aberrations and the development and application of new molecular techniques for the rapid detection and identification of chromosome aberrations.

VERMEESCH, JORIS

The constitutional cytogenetics laboratory, embedded within the clinical genetics unit of the university hospital, is responsible for the chromosome analysis for preimplantation, prenatal and postnatal diagnosis. Aberrant chromosome number and/or morphology are associated with miscarriages, congenital malformations, developmental disorders, mental retardation, behavioural problems and infertility. The identification of such chromosomal aberrations helps the diagnosis, determines the molecular cause of many disorders and helps family planning in affected families. Besides it’s routine diagnostic activities the laboratory is actively involved in research. The research activities focus on two areas. On the one hand, the laboratory is involved with the development of novel technologies in the area of chromosome analysis and genomics. On the other hand, in collaboration with the clinical geneticists, the laboratory actively seeks to define the molecular causes of developmental, mental and behavioural disturbances. To this end the laboratory takes advantage of the many chromosomal aberrations that are identified in patients and the advent of the human genome project. The international collaborative human genome project has provided us with the sequence of the human genome, the identification of the putative genes within our genome and with the tools to analyse this genome. Using these tools, we can readily analyse chromosomal aberrations at the molecular level and identify the genes causing the observed phenotypic aberrations.

VOCKLEY, JOE

Joe Vockley, PhD, is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of the Inova Translational Medicine Institute. Dr. Vockley brings 25 years of experience in academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology CROs and government research. He has broad and deep expertise in the fields of genetics, genomics, molecular diagnostics, bioinformatics and large program management. Dr. Vockley is a results-oriented manager and scientist. He is an inventor on numerous US and International genomic and bioinformatic technology patents in the areas of DNA diagnostics, laboratory methods for microarray analysis, gene discoveries and bioinformatic tool development. His basic research interests are in the fields of cancer and inborn errors of metabolism. Dr. Vockley has previously held positions of Chief Scientific Officer, Vice President of Research, Director of Genomics and Director of Bioinformatics. Most recently, he was the Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Genome Atlas Project and the Cancer Genome Atlas Program Office.

YU, GROVER CONG

Dr. Grover Cong Yu earned his Ph.D. from life science school, Sichuan University and joined BGI in 2010 and turned out to be a CEO of BGI - Europe & Africa at BGI Diagnostics. His research interests are in genetics and next generation sequencing for genome research. His background includes leading strategic planning and business development initiatives within the NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) sector and healthcare services industry. He introduced NGS service and NIPT to many Europe countries successfully and brought great influence to these region. At the meantime, he devoted to the research and the application of progestation, newborn and hereditary cancer related screening development.

ZHENG, SIYANG

Dr. Siyang Zheng is currently an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. He graduated from Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology at Tsinghua University in China and received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of technology in USA. His recent work has focused on developing innovative micro and nano technologies, applying these technologies to study complicated biological systems, and providing engineering solutions to current and future healthcare. He was awarded US National Institute of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award in 2012.