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Dr. Exner is the Director of the CWRU Center for Imaging Research, Henry Wilson Payne Professor and Vice Chair for Basic Research in the Department of Radiology, and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. She also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Physics at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Exner is an internationally recognized leader in molecular imaging and theranostics – her multidisciplinary research at the interface of nanomedicine and biomedical ultrasound and focuses on development of novel platform technologies for molecular imaging and image-guided drug delivery. Under this umbrella her research group has pioneered the development of long-circulating ultrasound responsive targeted nanobubbles for biomedical applications. The nanobubbles are a versatile platform with potential use as cancer cell specific agents for early disease diagnosis, as companion diagnostics for prediction of tumor heterogeneity and vascular permeability and as cell specific cavitation agents for ultrasound-mediated therapy. She is also an expert in long acting, intratumoral drug delivery formulations. Her research has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 20 years. Dr. Exner is an elected Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors, Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Distinguished Investigator of the Academy of Radiology Research. At CWRU, Dr. Exner is also an Associate Director of the Case Medical Scientist Training Program, and a co-leader of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Cancer Imaging Program.
Michael J. Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery Systems Group Leader at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. He received a BE in Biomedical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2009, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Michael King from Cornell University in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering with Prof. Robert Langer at MIT from 2014-2017, prior to pursuing his independent career at University of Pennsylvania in 2018. The Mitchell lab’s research broadly lies at the interface of biomaterials science, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering to fundamentally understand and therapeutically target biological barriers. Specifically, his lab engineers new lipid and polymeric nanoparticle platforms for the delivery of different nucleic acid modalities to target cells and tissues across the body. His lab applies their research findings and the technologies developed to a range of human health applications, including the engineering of CAR T cells for cancer immunotherapy, mRNA vaccines, genome editing, cardiovascular disease, and in utero therapeutics to treat disease before birth.
Mitchell has received numerous awards as an independent investigator, including the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, the Rising Star Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Career Award at the Scientific Interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. In 2022 Mitchell was named “Emerging Inventor for the Year” by Penn’s for Innovation in recognition for his lipid nanoparticle technologies and received the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials, the T. Nagai Award from the Controlled Release Society, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and was named a 2023 Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering. He is a co-founder of Liberate Bio, a biotechnology company focused on developing non-viral delivery technologies for genetic medicines, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of numerous biotechnology companies.
Dr. Cécilia Ménard-Moyon is Researcher at CNRS since 2008 in the Laboratory of Immunology, Immunopathology and Therapeutic Chemistry in Strasbourg (France). Her research interests are focused on the functionalization of different types of nanoparticles and carbon-based nanomaterials for biomedical applications, self-assembly of amino acid derivatives and peptides, and formation of hydrogels for on-demand drug delivery. She has published 107 articles and 10 book chapters (h-index: 46, > 5400 citations). She is the coordinator of the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks “Melomanes” project (2023-27) on the synthesis of multifunctional magnetic nanoparticles for combination therapy to treat metastatic melanoma (https://melomanes.eu/).
Gregor Fuhrmann studied pharmacy in Berlin and graduated in 2008 with the final university examination (« Staatsexamen »). He received his doctoral degree in 2012 from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich at the Drug Formulation and Delivery department under the direction of Prof Jean-Christophe Leroux. For his doctoral thesis, he received the ETH Medal and the Rottendorf “Europapreis” award for excellent pharmaceutical research. He then worked as a postdoc at the Department of Materials and Department of Bioengineering at the Imperial College London in the group of Prof Molly M. Stevens (2013-2016). For this, he received both a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship from the European Union and a postdoctoral scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In 2016, he was selected for the « NanoMatFutur » excellence programme of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and has been head of the « Biogenic Nano-Therapeutics » (BION) junior research group at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research.
SERRANO LOPEZ-TERRADAS María C is a Doctor in Biology (2006) from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). She was a FPU predoctoral fellow at UCM, a MINECO postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University (USA), a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellow at ICMM-CSIC and a Miguel Servet postdoctoral fellow at the Hospital Nacional de Parapléjicos. Since 2017, she is a tenured scientist at the Group of Materials for Medicine and Biotechnology (ICMM-CSIC). She has published over 70 research articles, co-edited a book for Springer-Nature and contributed to more than 100 scientific conferences. Her research interests are focused on biomaterials, tissue engineering and nanomedicine. At present, she is the coordinator of the ongoing PathFinder Project Piezo4Spine (2023-2026; 3.5 M€).
Dr. Alexandre Ceccaldi is dedicated to the adoption of nanomedicine across Europe, bridging the gap between research, industry, and clinical application. He holds a PhD in biology from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, and an engineering degree from Agro ParisTech. Since 2015, he has been the General Secretary of the European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine (ETPN). He coordinates a community of over 130 member institutions from 27 countries across Europe, including academia, SMEs, industry, healthcare providers, and policy makers. ETPN supports both fundamental research in nanomaterials and nanosciences, as well as fosters their clinical translation. More information: http://etp–nanomedicine.eu
Dr. Ceccaldi has participated in multiple European R&D initiatives, including coordinating the NOBEL project (H2020), which aimed to facilitate the convergence of health technologies across Europe. He is also a work package leader in the METRINO project (focused on standardizing metrology for nanomedicine) and in the NANOSPRESSO project (developing personalized nucleic acid nanomedicine treatments delivered at the bedside for rare diseases). He has played a key role in the creation of the HealthTech4EU Alliance, Europe’s first cross-technology healthcare platform. In 2023, he was elected Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board of the ERA4Health EU funding program.
Dr. Ceccaldi is passionate about fostering connections to advance innovative clinical solutions, transforming them into life-changing outcomes for patients. His main focus is to help making a real difference on unmet clinical needs, keeping in mind that patients don’t care about technology, they care about quality of life
Giuseppe, or as most people call him, Beppe, graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Palermo; after some industrial experience, he got a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Sheffield. Since 2019, Beppe has been a Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) Professor and group leader at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalunya (IBEC). He is also the Honorary Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at University College London (UCL) and a Visiting Professor at the West China Hospital Sichuan University in Chengdu. Beppe is the founder of the Cambridge-based biotech company Vianautis Bio Ltd, whose mission is the development of genetic nanomedicines. Before Barcelona, Beppe held various positions in the UK; from 2013 to 2022, he was the Chair of Molecular Bionics in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for Physics of Living Systems at UCL; from 2006 to 2013, Beppe held positions as Lecturer in -2006, Senior Lecturer in -2009, and Professor in -2011 in the Departments of Materials Sci. Eng. (2006-2009) and Biomedical Science (2009-2013) at the University of Sheffield.
Beppe leads the Molecular Bionics Group at the IBEC, a multidisciplinary team comprising chemists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and biologists. Half of them combine novel microscopic tools with theoretical and computational physics to study biological transport from single molecules and cell membranes to the whole organism. The rest combines soft matter physics with synthetic chemistry to translate knowledge acquired and bioengineer novel nanomedicines.
Professor Nguyễn Thị Kim Thanh, FRSC, FInstP, FIMMM FRSB (http://www.ntk-thanh.co.uk) held a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2005-2014). She was appointed a Full Professor in Nanomaterials in 2013 at University College London. She leads a very dynamic group conducting cutting edge interdisciplinary and innovative research on the design, and synthesis of magnetic and plasmonic nanomaterials mainly for biomedical applications. In 2019, she has been honoured for her achievements in the field of nanomaterials, and was awarded highly prestigious Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Medal. She was RSC Interdisciplinary Prize winner in 2022. She was awarded SCI/RSC Colloids Groups 2023 Graham Prize Lectureship to recognise an outstanding mid-career researcher in colloid and interface science. She is one of only 12 recipients globally of 2023 Distinguished Women in Chemistryemical Engineering Awards, bestowed by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
Currently, she is Vice Dean for Innovation and Enterprise at Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences.
She is in both the Career Long and the Single Year Impact lists (e.g., a percentile rank of 2% or above) of all scientists who have published at least 5 papers.
She published >170 research papers, book chapters, theme issues, proceedings. and is an Editor in chief of 17 books so far. Among them 18 papers were featured in cover pages. With total >20300 citations, i10 index of 110 and over 27 papers with over 100 citations among them 1 attracted > 4000 citations. She has been Visiting Professor at various Universities in France, Japan, Singapore. She has been invited to speak at > 320 institutes and scientific meetings. She has been chairing and organising over 45 high profile international conferences.
She is Editor-in-chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry book Series, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and associate editor for RSC Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances Journals. She edited 7 theme issues including: Design and scaling up of theranostic nanoplatforms for health: towards translational studies. Nanoscale, RSC (2023); Advanced Functional Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications. Nanoscale, RSC (2021); Multifunctional nanostructures for diagnosis and therapy of diseases. Interface Focus, The Royal Society (2016); Volume 175: Physical Chemistry of Functionalised Biomedical Nanoparticles. Faraday Discussions, RSC (2014); Special issue: Functional Nanoparticles for Biomedical Applications. Nanoscale, RSC (2013); Nanoparticles Theme, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, The Royal Society (2010).
She is the sole editor of two seminal books on Magnetic Nanoparticles from Fabrication to Clinical Applications (https://tinyurl.com/y5bgxb3r) and Clinical Applications of Magnetic nanoparticles (https://tinyurl.com/yyjawnz2).
Pierre Cordelier is Class I Director of Research at INSERM and former President of the French Society of Cell and Gene Therapy (SFTCG). He is currently the Director of the Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT) and heads the ImPACT research team, for therapeutic innovation in pancreatic cancer. He is renowned for his translational and transdisciplinary research into pancreatic cancer. He authored 106 papers so far, for a total of nearly 5000 citations and h-index of 37. He is the author of 5 patents.
Karsten Haupt is a Biochemist from the University of Leipzig, Germany. After obtaining a PhD in Bioengineering from Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC), France, he was a researcher at Lund University, Sweden and at INSERM, Paris, and an assistant professor at the University of Paris 12. Since 2003 he has been a full professor of Bioengineering at UTC, which is part of the Paris Sorbonne University Alliance, where he is the Head of the CNRS Laboratory for Enzyme and Cell Engineering. Karsten Haupt is a Senior Member of Institut Universitaire de France, and the co-founder of the companies PolyIntell (2004) and SensWay (2021). His present research interests include affinity technology, chemical sensors, synthetic antibodies (molecularly imprinted polymers), biomimetic polymers and nanomaterials for biomedical applications.
Orcid: 0000-0001-6743-5066
Louis Buscail MD, PhD is Professor of Hepato-Gastroenterology at Department of Gastroenterology, CHU Rangueil, Toulouse and at School of Medecine Toulouse Rangueil, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse 3 (Head of the Department). He is former Director of Research at INSERM. He is also responsible of the of the Center of Clinical Investigation for Biotherapy CHU/ INSERM and Scientific referent and advisor for INSERM General Direction. He is member and researcher in the Research Team # 10 of the Center of Research for Cancer of Toulouse – INSERM U1037 (P. Cordelier Team).
PUBLICATIONS and BIBLIOMETRY: h-index 54, Original papers and reviews: 187, Chapters in book and books: 34, Communications at Scientific Meetings and conferences: 275 Patents: 4.
MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: National French Gastroenterological Society (SNFGE), French Society of Digestive Endoscopy (SFED), French Pancreatic Club, French Association for Pancreatic Cancer Research (AFRCP – Past President)
MAIN TOPICS OF RESEARCH: Pancreatic Diseases, Gene therapy, Cellular Therapy, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
Gabor Tamas Szabo M.D., Ph.D. is an interventional cardiologist with experience in conducting cardiovascular clinical and preclinical research. In 2019, he joined BioNTEch SE, Mainz, Germany, as a member of the RNA Protein Replacement Therapies Working Group led by Professor Katalin Kariko. His current projects focus on optimizing mRNA technology for various applications. In addition to his work at BioNTech, Dr. Szabo is also a lecturer at the Center for Biomedical Research, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
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