Our Guest Speakers
The GGL is proud to announce this year's guest speakers for the annual conference. We are honoured to have them contributing to our conference and offer our sincere appreciation for their efforts.
Prof. Dr. Christian Sina (Section 1)
Institute of Nutritional Medicine, University of Lübeck
The research interests of Prof. Dr. Christian Sina include therapeutic modulation of cellular energy metabolism / Diet-Microbe interactions, as well as biomarker and personalized nutrition. Prof. Sina attended Medical School at University of Rostock, University of Aarhus (DK) and Brown University Providence (USA) in 1996-2003. In 2008-2009 he was a research Fellow (DFG Gerok scholar) at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, University of Kiel. Later on, Christian Sina was appointed as a Head of Molecular Gastroenterology Laboratory at the University of Lübeck. From 2014 he was an Associate Professor of Immunity and Metabolism of GI-diseases (W2), and since 2018 he is appointed as a Professor of Nutritional Medicine (W3) (endowed professorship, Fresenius Kabi).
He is the member of numerous Scientific Associations, such as German Society of Internal Medicine (DGIM), German Society of Digestive- and Metabolic Disorders (DGVS), German Society of Nutritional Medicine (DGEM), German Society of Nutrition (DGE) and European Society of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition (ESPEN).
To see the list of publications click here
PD Dr. Michael D. Mühlebach (Section 2)
Division Veterinary Medicine, The Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines
Dr. Michael Dieter Mühlebach studied Biochemistry at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main and in St. Catherine´s College, University of Oxford in the UK. In his Diploma Thesis he researched „Transduction of resting cells with lentiviral, SIVsmmPBj-derived vectors“. In 2004 Dr. Mühlebach defended the PhD thesis „Lentiviral vectors for stable gene transfer into primary human mononuclear blood cells“. Later on, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester (MN), USA, in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. R. Cattaneo and at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. C. J. Buchholz. From 2009 to 2015 he was appointed as a Head of Sections 6/01, Pr2 and 4/3 at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany. In 2019 he submitted the following thesis for habilitation: „Measles Virus and its Utilization in Biomedicine” at the Faculty of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Pharmacy at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.
Dr. Mühlebach is the author of 36 original research articles, 7 review articles, 4 book chapters and 2 patent applications. In 2021 he was awarded the Langen Junior Science Award, the 1st prize in the category Senior Author. Michael Mühlebach is the member of the Society for Virology (GfV), German Society for Gene Therapy (DG-GT), American Society for Virology (ASV), Advisory Group of the Veterinary Batch Release Network (EDQM).
To see the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Ghazwan Butrous (Section 3)
Professor of Cardiopulmonary Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Ghazwan Butrous is a Professor of Cardiopulmonary Sciences at the University of Kent, an Hon. Professor of Medicine at the Imperial College in London and a President Emeritus at Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute (PVRI). PVRI is an independent, not-for-profit medical research organization whose mission is to increase the awareness and knowledge of pulmonary vascular diseases. Prof. Butrous studied at St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, University of London from 1981 to 1984. Starting from 1991, Prof. Butrous worked as a Clinical Project Manager and later on as a Chief Scientific Officer at Pfizer Central Research as well as a Senior Lecturer in Cardiology at St George’s Hospital Medical School at the University of London. In 2004, he was a patron and a co-founder of Young Scientists Journal; two years later, he was a co-founder and a managing director of Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute.
Ghazwan Butrous is the member of American College of Cardiology, European Society of Cardiology, Royal society of Medicine. In 2018 he received the American Thoracic Society Pulmonary Circulation Leadership Award.
To see the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.
Dr. Kaspar Burger (Section 4)
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Biocentre of the University of Würzburg
Kaspar Burger studied biology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany (2003-2009). In 2013, he completed his PhD thesis working on Cdk9 and human ribosome biogenesis in Dirk Eick’s lab and held a fellowship from the German José Carreras Leukaemia Foundation from 2009 to 2011. For his Postdoc, he joined Monika Gullerova’s lab at the William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, UK to study nuclear Dicer functions in mammals (2013- 2019). In 2019, Kaspar Burger accepted a position as a junior group leader at the MSNZ in Würzburg, where he researches the regulatory principles that link the RNA metabolism with genome stability and tumour immunology. He investigates the production and processing of RNA in response to DNA damage, with focus on transcription, nuclear bodies, and RNA-binding proteins.
Kaspar Burger is a Reviewer for Scientific Reports, Nucleic Acids Research, RNA Biology, British Journal of Cancer and a Guest Editor for Non-coding RNA. Collectively, he published 16 peer-reviewed publications, his h-index is 11 (Scopus) and 14 (Google Scholar) as of June 2021. In 2017 he was awarded a Poster Prize at the 6th EU-US Conference on Repair of DNA Damage, Udine, Italy.
To read the abstract click here.
Dr. Aniko Korosi (Section 5)
Faculty of Science, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam
Dr. Aniko Korosi is a neuroscientist. The main goal of her research group is to better understand the biological mechanisms and environmental factors involved in brain programming by stressful early-life experiences and to test the efficacy of (nutritional) interventions. Dr. Aniko Korosi studied Biology at the University of Turin, Italy, from 1996 to 2001. In 2006 she received a PhD at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After that she was a postdoc at the University of California, Irvine, United States. Starting from November 2010 she served as an Assistant Professor, and from January 2018 Dr. Aniko Korosi has been working as an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
She was awarded numerous grants: an Amsterdam Brain and Cognition grant with Prof Tessa Roseboom and S. de Rooij; JPI NutriCog European consortium; Food Cognition and Behavior (NWO); Meervoud (NWO) and Internationale Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek.
For the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.
Associate Prof. Robin Hobbs (Section 6)
Centre for Reproductive Health, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne
Associate Professor Robin Hobbs established his lab at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University in 2012 before joining the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in 2020. His laboratory is focused on defining molecular mechanisms regulating spermatogonial stem cell (SSC) function and male fertility using the mouse as a model. His interest in the stem cell field was developed during PhD studies in the United Kingdom with Fiona Watt, an internationally recognized expert in the epidermal stem cell field. During postdoctoral studies in the United States at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he characterized a key and unexpected role for the transcription factor and tumour suppressor PLZF in SSC self-renewal and fertility. Robin’s research group has subsequently characterised cellular heterogeneity and dynamics within the undifferentiated spermatogonial population and defined multiple regulatory pathways essential for SSC function. He was recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and an Investigator within Stem Cells Australia.
To see the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Gisbert Schneider (Section 7)
Director of the Singapore ETH-Centre, Singapore, Singapore
Gisbert Schneider’s research focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods into modern drug discovery. Professor Schneider received a doctorate in biochemistry from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, in 1994, where he also studied medicine and computer science. Later on, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Benjamin Franklin University Clinic, Berlin, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, the University of Stockholm, Sweden, and the Max-Planck-Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he worked as a scientific specialist in the Pharmaceuticals Division at Hoffmann – La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland. In 2000, he received the venia legendi for biochemistry and bioinformatics from the University of Freiburg, Germany. From 2002 to 2009, Gisbert Schneider was a full professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany (Beilstein Endowed Chair for Chem- and Bioinformatics). Since 2010, he has been full professor of Computer-Assisted Drug Design at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich. From 2018 to 2020 he served as Associate Vice President for ETH Global and as founding Director of the ETH RETHINK think-and do tank. In 2021, he became Director of the Singapore-ETH Center in Singapore.
He is an elected Fellow of the University of Tokyo, and the recipient of the Herman Skolnik Award for his contributions to de novo design of bioactive compounds, and the Prous Institute Overton and Meyer Award for New Technologies in Drug Discovery. Schneider introduced the concept of adaptive, AI-based drug design to medicinal chemistry and coined the terms "scaffold hopping" and "frequent hitter". He published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, five textbooks, and numerous edited volumes in the field of applied artificial intelligence and molecular design. He is a founding editor-in-chief of the journal Molecular Informatics. Schneider has co-founded several start-up companies including inSili.com LLC, AlloCyte Pharmaceuticals AG, and Endogena Therapeutics Inc, and is a consultant to the life science industry.
To see the list of publications click here
To read the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Stephan Becker (Section 8)
Institute of Virology, The Philipps University of Marburg
Stephan Becker’s research is focused on replication, morphogenesis and pathogenesis of zoonotic RNA viruses; development of emergency vaccines. Prof. Dr. Stephan Becker studied Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Philipps University of Marburg. He did PhD in Physiological Chemistry and later Postdoc at Institute of Virology at the Philipps University of Marburg, and after that obtained Habilitation. In 2001-2005 he was working as an Associate Professor and headed High Security Laboratory. From 2005 to 2007 Prof. Becker was a Head of P4 Programme at Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin. Since 2007 he is the Director of Institute of Virology at the Philipps University of Marburg.
Prof. Dr. Stephan Becker is the member of numerous scientific societies and committees: elected Member of Review Board 204 at German Research Foundation (DFG), Elected Member of Scientific Advisory Board, at German Society for Virology, Member of Permanent Senate Commission on Genetic Research, DFG etc. He is an editor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and Ad hoc Reviewer of Cell, Lancet, Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Microbiology, Molecular Cell, PLOS Pathogens, J. Virol., J. Gen. Virol., FEBS-Letters. In 2010 he was awarded a medal “100 years of Virology” by Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
To see the list of publications click here.
Prof. Dr. Lars Tranvik (Section 9)
Limnology/Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University, Sweden
Lars Tranvik received a PhD in 1990 in limnology from Lund University. He did pre- and postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck-Institute of Limnology, Plön, Germany, the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, USA, and Oregon State University, USA, and was an assistant professor at Lund University until 1997, when he became an associate professor at Linköping University, Sweden. Since 1999 he is professor of limnology at Uppsala University, Sweden, where he also has served as head of Department of Ecology and Genetics and dean of the biology section. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
His research has developed from aquatic microbial ecology, in particular the role of heterotrophic bacteria in food webs and as consumers of dissolved organic matter, to a broader focus on the carbon cycle of inland waters, and the control of the persistence and decay of organic matter across aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Recent research is focused on how terrestrial organic matter is transformed in the water column resulting in a subsidy to aquatic food webs, a sediment carbon sink, and emission of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, of global significance.
Prof. Lars Tranvik is a member of the International Ecology Institute, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Class for Biosciences), and a Sustaining Fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. In 2018 Lars Tranvik got an Excellence in Ecology Prize, by the International Ecology Institute (ECI), and Einar Naumann –August Thienemann Medal, issued by the International Society of Limnology. The same year Web of Science/Clarivate Analysis listed him as Cross-Field Highly Cited Researcher.
To see the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hippenstiel (Section 10)
Charité 3R and Department of Infectious Diseases and Respiratory Diseases of the Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hippenstiel is the spokesperson for Charité 3R. The research group of Prof. Hippenstiel is convinced that the investigation of original human tissues and cells is a powerful way to understand human diseases and to foster translation into the clinical practice. Therefore, the group has a strong focus on the development of new experimental techniques for preparation, culture, conservation and investigation of human three-dimensional tissue. The mission of Hippenstiel's group is to understand the mechanisms of human lung failure. The acquired knowledge gives a rational basis to reach the goal to develop new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of severe lung infections.
Prof. Hippenstiel studied Human Medicine at the Justus Liebig University of Gießen and the University of Vienna. After his MD and clinical training in Internal Medicine in Gießen and at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin he obtained his habilitation and specialization in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases (DGI). Since 2008, he is Professor for Experimental Infectiology and Pneumology at Charité. Prof. Hippenstiel is the Scientific Coordinator of the DFG CRC-TR84 “Innate Immunity of the Lung” and steering committee member of the BMBF-funded network Organo-Strat. In the scope of his strong engagement for responsible research, he is also speaker of Charité 3R and the Einstein Center 3R at Berlin.
To see the list of publications click here.
To read the abstract click here.