Mario Gimona

Head of Manufacturing, GMP Unit, Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg

Mario Gimona Image

Mario Gimona received his PhD in Genetics and Cell Biology in 1990 and spent his postdoctoral period at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. He has led research labs in Austria and Italy and was awarded a Marie Curie Excellent Grant by the European Union in 2004. Since 2012 he heads the GMP stem cell and EV production unit at PMU and leads a team of researchers investigating the potential of MSC-derived EVs and CDVs in regenerative medicine for application in acute spinal cord injury and for the reduction of scar formation following implant-induced injury.

 

Marcin Jurga

Chief Scientific Officer, EXO Biologics SA

Marcin Jurga Image

Marcin Jurga, PhD, CSO at EXO Biologics, has been working in the fields of cell-based regenerative medicine and tissue engineering for over 20 years. Marcin Jurga has been leading teams developing EVs drug candidates since 2011.

 

Sai Kiang Lim

Research Director, Institute of Medical Biology, A*STAR

Sai Kiang Lim Image

Dr Sai-Kiang Lim graduated with B.Sc (Hons), NUS. PhD SUNY at Buffalo and did post-doctoral training Columbia University. She led independent research groups at NUMI, NUS (1996-2001), Genome Institute of Singapore (2002-2007) and then Institute of Medical Biology (2007-present). The current research interest in her lab is the study of extracellular vesicles (EVs) for the development of therapeutics and diagnostics as well as artificial lipid membrane vesicles.

 

Raymond Schiffelers

Professor of Nanomedicine, University Medical Center Utrecht

Raymond Schiffelers Image

Raymond Schiffelers studied Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University (1990-1995). After an industrial traineeship at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (UK) he did his PhD in medical microbiology at Erasmus University Rotterdam on liposomal targeting of antimicrobial agents (1996-2001). Subsequently he became post-doc at Utrecht University working on liposomes targeting tumor vasculature. In 2002-2003, at Intradigm Co (USA) he expanded his tumor vasculature-targeting work with polymers for delivery of siRNA. After his return to Utrecht University he became assistant and then associate professor. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2010 to investigate extracellular vesicles as biological drug delivery systems. After he moved to University Medical Center Utrecht in 2011 he became professor of nanomedicine working on bio-inspired and synthetic drug delivery systems. He coordinates two H2020 projects on this topic, B-SMART and EXPERT, is editor for the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Journal of Controlled Release and Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, and is founder of EXCYTEX-an extracellular vesicle-based company. Since 2021 he also works part-time for Nanocell Therapeutics as VP Preclinical R&D and is president of the ETPN.

 

Danilo Tagle

Director, Office of Special Initiatives, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH (NCATS)

Danilo Tagle Image

Dan Tagle is Director of the Office of Special Initiatives at NCATS where he many coordinates efforts towards development of disruptive technologies in translational research. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Wayne State University School of Medicine. He was an NIH National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellow in Human Genetics at the University of Michigan. He has served on numerous committees, advisory boards, and editorial boards. He has authored many scientific publications and has garnered numerous awards, including more recently the Roscoe O. Brady Award for Innovation and Accomplishment, and the Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine.

 

Erik Vollebregt

Partner, Axon Lawyers

Erik Vollebregt Image

Erik specializes in EU and national legal and regulatory issues relating to medical devices, including eHealth, mHealth, software and protection of personal data. He is an expert in life sciences regulation at EU and Dutch level, with a focus on contracts, regulatory litigation against competent authorities and M&A. Erik was initially trained as intellectual property and competition lawyer, starting his career at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. He subsequently gained experience in contentious matters, commercial contracts, and transactional work at three large international law firms. He actively contributes to law and policy development at national and EU level via membership of specialized committees at branch associations and the European Commission. Erik also works as arbitrator in medical devices related disputes and is regularly retained as expert witness in foreign litigation.