FEBS3+ (15.-17.9.)

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David trained in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge and Computational Biology at ETH Zurich before beginning his work on machine learning methods for omics data in Nir Yosef's lab at UC Berkeley. He continued this research during his PhD with Fabian Theis at TU Munich, where he developed machine learning models for single-cell and spatial omics data. In 2022, he joined the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center and the lab of Alex Shalek as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, focusing on incorporating prior knowledge into machine learning models of omics data. Since 2024, David has been an Assistant Professor at the Institute of AI of the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, where he works at the intersection of AI and systems biology.

Biosketch: Judith Frydman grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she majored in Chemistry and received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires.  The central theme of Dr. Frydman’s research is to understand how cells maintain a healthy and functional proteome by focusing on biological mechanisms controlling cellular protein folding, aggregation and quality control. Major contributions to the field of cellular protein folding include the discovery and characterization of ring-shaped chaperonin  TRiC/CCT and establishing that protein folding in in eukaryotic cells occurs cotranslationally as polypeptides emerge from ribosomes during their biosynthesis. IFrydman's work showed distinct molecular chaperones are specifically recruited to bind ribosome-nascent chain complexes to assist cotranslational folding. These fundamental discoveries have shaped current thinking of protein folding in vivo. She is currently the Donald Kennedy Chair in Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and a professor in the Departments of Biology and Genetics. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Florian Grebien is the Professor of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of leukemia development and progression to identify novel entry points for targeted treatments. Using novel tools and approaches, including transcriptomics, proteomics, functional genomics, and high-resolution imaging, his team studies the cellular and molecular effects of cancer-associated oncoproteins as well as molecular mechanisms that modulate the susceptibility of leukemia cells to anticancer drugs. Florian obtained his PhD from the Medical University of Vienna under the joint supervision of Ernst Müllner (Medical University of Vienna) and Hartmut Beug (Research Institute for Molecular Pathology). During his PhD work, he studied the role of signaling pathways on erythrocyte differentiation. For his postdoctoral training, he joined the team of Giulio Superti-Furga at CeMM. Using a combination of cell biology, protein biochemistry, and chemical biology, he identified molecular mechanisms that underlie oncoprotein-driven leukemia. From 2014 to 2018, Florian Grebien was principal investigator and group leader at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research (LBI-CR) in Vienna, supported by an ERC Starting Grant. In January 2018, he was appointed professor and head of the Institute for Medical Biochemistry at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. In February 2023, Florian Grebien joined the St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (CCRI) as principal investigator and CeMM in October 2023 as adjunct PI.

Prof. Omry Koren is a Full Professor at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University. A leading expert in the human microbiome, his research focuses on the complex interactions between microbiota and the host endocrine system, behavior, and development in both health and disease. He earned his PhD and MSc in Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology from Tel-Aviv University and completed postdoctoral training at Cornell University. Prof. Koren is a highly influential figure in his field, having been recognized as one of the world's most highly cited researchers (top 1%) annually since 2018. He has secured prestigious funding, including an ERC Consolidator Grant for his work on the microbiome and aggression, and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes.

Guido Kroemer is currently Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Paris-Cité, Director of the research team "Metabolism, Cancer and Immunity" of the French Medical Research Council (INSERM), Director of the Metabolomics and Cell Biology platforms of the Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Hospital Practitioner at the Hôpital Européen George Pompidou, Paris, France.

Dr. Kroemer’s work focuses on the pathophysiological implications of cell stress and death in the context of aging, cancer and inflammation. He discovered the ignition of regulated cell death pathways by mitochondrial membrane permeabilization, the decisive role of immunogenic cell death in anticancer treatments, as well as the cytoprotective and antiaging effects of macroautophagy. 

Dr. Kroemer’s contributions have been recognized with numerous distinctions, including the European Union–sponsored Descartes Prize and two European Research Council Advanced Investigator Awards. He has also received the most prestigious cancer research honors from Belgium (Baillet-Latour Health Prize), France (Prix Duquesne, Prix Léopold Griffuel, Grand Prix Ruban Rose) and Switzerland (Brupbacher Prize), as well as most generously endowed national science awards from Italy (Lombardia è Ricerca Prize) and Portugal (BIAL Biomedical Research Award).

Nico Lachmann is Professor at Hannover Medical School and leads a translational research group focused on human stem cell technologies, macrophage biology and immune-cell manufacturing. He is also affiliated with the Fraunhofer ITEM, where his work connects advanced cell-production technologies with biomedical research, safety assessment and therapeutic development. His scientific training included research experience at Yale University, followed by postdoctoral work at Hannover Medical School and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He subsequently established an interdisciplinary research programme at the interface of pluripotent stem cells, hematopoiesis, innate immunity and regenerative medicine. A major focus of his work is the development of scalable and standardized processes for generating human immune cells from induced pluripotent stem cells. His group has established hematopoietic organoid systems that function as renewable production units for macrophages and other immune-cell populations, enabling continuous cell harvesting and providing a basis for decentralized and potentially off-the-shelf manufacturing. His research spans immune-cell therapies, disease modelling, organoid technologies, inhalation toxicology and the engineering of immune cells with defined therapeutic functions. Particular emphasis is placed on translating fundamental knowledge of human hematopoietic development into robust biotechnological manufacturing platforms and clinically relevant cell products. His work has been supported by national and European funding programmes, including three ERC grants.

Dr. Ajasja Ljubetič is a Research Assistant Professor and group leader at the Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia.

His research focuses on designing dynamic proteins and molecular machines by combining the Rosetta platform with state-of-the-art deep learning approaches. His team is developing a pipeline for de novo protein design (https://github.com/ajasja/prosculpt) with the aim to make protein design easier for noncomputational scientists. Dr. Ljubetič was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship to train in protein design in the laboratory of Nobel laureate prof. David Baker. He is currently the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project PROPEL, which aims to engineer protein-based molecular machines. More information about his research is available at  https://ljubetic-lab.si/.

Dr. Carlos J. Peniche Silva is a postdoctoral researcher at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine, Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He obtained a Licentiate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Havana, Cuba, in 2014 and subsequently worked on in situ drug delivery systems at the Center of Biomaterials of the same university. In 2017, he received a DAAD scholarship to conduct research on dendriplex-based therapeutics for bone tissue engineering at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

He joined Maastricht University in 2019 as a PhD candidate and obtained his PhD in 2024 with the Thesis work “Advancing tendon-to-bone enthesis tissue engineering, from biomimetic constructs to microRNA modulation”.  As a recipient of the Kootstra Talent Fellowship for Postdocs, his current research investigates the role of microRNAs in tendon mechanobiology and regeneration.

Dr. Peniche Silva has received several competitive awards and grants, including the ON Kick Starter Grant 2020, the ESCI Mobility Grant 2022, the ON/EORS Education Grant 2023, the TENET COST Action Short-Term Scientific Mission Grant 2024, the ON/TERMIS Education Grant 2026, and the TERMIS EU PhD Award 2026.

We investigate the functional organization of the mitochondrial inner membrane, in particular the functions and crosstalk of proteins and phospholipids that give rise to the complex architecture, functional asymmetry and dynamics of the mitochondrial inner membrane.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Schillberg is Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME and heads the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen University. He has more than 30 years of experience in biotechnology, with a focus on the production of recombinant proteins in various expression systems, the development of metabolic pathways, strategies for scaling biological processes, and contained environment agriculture. He is the author of more than 200 publications and patents. A key goal of his work is the translation of research and development into industrial applications. Several processes developed at his institute are already being used in industry, including plant stem cells for the cosmetics industry, a cell-free expression system based on tobacco cells, and a new concept for vertical farming for the cultivation of crops.

Christa Schleper is professor of Microbiology and Genetics at the University of Vienna since 2007. She has studied Biology in Germany, was postdoc in California, assistant professor in Darmstadt, Germany, and full professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, before she came to Vienna. Her research interests focus on the ecology and evolution of different groups of archaea, in particular she studies currently the role of the widespread group of amonia oxidizing archaea in the global nitrogen cycle and the biology of the recently discovered Asgard archaea from shallow marine sediments. Schleper is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, the EMBO society and the Austrian and European Academies of Sciences. She received the Austrian Wittgenstein price for her research in 2022.

Dr Stärkel is full professor of hepato-gastroenterology at the Université Catholique de Louvain.  He co-founded and is currently the head of the alcohol withdrawal unit at Saint Luc University hospital in Brussels which is a multidisciplinary clinical and research entity. He is also head of the hepato-gastroenterology research laboratory and vice-president of the clinical and experimental research institute of the university. His main clinical focus lies in hepatology and in particular in alcohol-associated liver disease. His principal research aims are to establish a bridge between preclinical animal models and translational/clinical research in human subjects suffering from alcohol-associated liver disease and alcohol dependence. Dr Stärkel is leading several research projects with particular focus on the gut-liver and the gut-brain axis in alcohol dependent patients. He established several national and international collaborations in the field of hepatology and alcohol research. As an active clinical and basic science researcher, he published more than 150 papers in high ranked peer-reviewed journals and contributed several chapters to books in the field of hepatology and alcohol research. He is a member of several national and international scientific societies and acts as an associate editor for international journals.

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Daniel Volke is a Senior Researcher and Co-PI at the Center for Biosustainability since 2023. From 2021 to 2023, he completed a tenure-track at the Technical University of Denmark. His work focuses on genome and metabolic engineering tool development in environmental bacteria as well as on enzymatic activity screening through growth-coupled assays and prototyping in cell free transcription and translation reaction. He uses these tools to develop efficient cell factories and to analyze the native metabolism in soil bacteria. He has authored more than 45 publications (H-index: 22). He worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME, where he investigated terpenoid synthesis in E. coli for industrial applications in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for chemical ecology (ICE). He received his PhD from RWTH Aachen University in 2017. The main topic of the thesis was isotopic non-stationary flux analysis of a secondary metabolic pathway.

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