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SPEAKERS INFO
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Larysa Baraban (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany)
Larysa Baraban began her scientific career in Ukraine, where she studied physics at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. After successfully completing her studies, she earned her doctorate in experimental physics at the University of Konstanz. In 2009, she joined a French research team at the École Superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) and worked on biotechnologies for the first time. Two years later, she went to the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) and then to TU Dresden to specialize in systems in the nanometer range. Since 2020, Baraban has been group leader of the “Nano-microsystems for Life Sciences” research group at the HZDR, which developed into a separate department at the Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research at the beginning of 2023. Prof. Dr. Larysa Baraban took up the newly created Chair of Medical Nanotechnology at the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus at TUD Dresden University of Technology on 1 May 2024. The professorship was jointly established by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the Else Kröner Fresenius Center (EKFZ) for Digital Health. The physicist is researching nanoelectronics for individualized cancer immunotherapies and innovative, cost-effective methods for pathogen detection.
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Ciro Chiappini (King´s College London, UK)
Dr Ciro Chiappini is Senior Lecturer in Nanomaterials and Biointerfaces. He joined King’s College London in 2016.
His research blends nanotechnology, bioengineering and cell biology to develop functional materials that direct cell behaviour.
Dr Chiappini was Marie Curie Fellow and Newton International Fellow at Imperial College London from 2011 until 2016, and holds a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.
In 2018 he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant. Dr Chiappini has authored more than 40 publications with over 3500 citations across material science and bioengineering and holds international patents.
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Valeria Chiono (Politecnico di Torino, Italy)
Valeria Chiono has a Master Degree cum laude in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Chemical and Materials Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy. She is currently Full Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Her research is aimed at the design of innovative bioengineering approaches to solve key problems in regenerative medicine and nanomedicine, and includes the development of bioactive materials and interfaces, tissue engineering, materials characterization, in vitro tissue models, drug delivery and non-viral gene therapy. One main research topic is cardiac tissue engineering.
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Jaap den Toonder (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Jaap den Toonder is full professor and chair of the Microsystems section at Eindhoven University of Technology. His research focuses on innovative microsystems design approaches that are often biologically inspired, out-of-cleanroom fabrication technologies, and interactive polymer materials. The application focus is on microfluidic chips, organ-on-chip, biomedical microdevices, and soft microrobotics. Jaap den Toonder has (co-)authored over 150 scientific papers, as well as over 45 patents, and he has given more than 60 invited lectures at international conferences. He is recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant in 2019. He was elected Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering in 2023.
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Kerstin Göpfrich (Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH), Germany)
I have always been curious about fundamental questions in science and long fascinated by the idea to engineer a cell from scratch. I am a professor at Heidelberg University at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) and I am leading the Max Planck Reseach Group Biophysical Engineering of Life. Previously, as a Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in Stuttgart, I worked on bottom-up synthetic biology and microfluidics with Joachim Spatz. In April 2017, I completed my PhD in physics as a Gates Cambridge Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, where I built DNA origami nanopores in the group of Ulrich Keyser.
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Aitziber López Cortajarena (CIC BiomaGUNE, Spain)
Prof. Aitziber Lopez Cortajarena completed her PhD research in Biochemistry at the University of the Basque Country, Spain in 2002. She then held the position of a postdoctoral fellow and, subsequently, associate researcher with Prof. Lynne Regan at the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University until 2010, when she established her own research group at the IMDEA Nanociencia Foundation in Madrid. The Biomolecular Nanotechnology group is led by Ikerbasque Research Professor Aitziber Lopez Cortajarena and was established at CIC biomaGUNE in early 2016 when Prof. Cortajarena moved to the institute from IMDEA Nanociencia in Madrid. During her research carrier, Prof. Cortajarena has implemented the use of repeat proteins for nanotools and materials development, which form the basis for the current research.
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Jesus M. De la Fuente (INMA/CSIC, Spain)
Jesús M. de la Fuente finished his Ph.D. in 2003 at the CSIC (Seville, Spain). After two years at the University of Glasgow, he went back to Spain where he obtained a permanent position at the University of Zaragoza to lead the Group of Biofunctionalization of Nanoparticles and Surfaces. Since 2014, he is Research Professor at the ICMA/INMA (CSIC–University of Zaragoza). His research is focused on the development of nanotechnologies for advanced therapies and new transduction systems for the development of novel biosensors.
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Claudio Parolo (ISGlobal/URV, Spain)
Claudio Parolo studied Biotechnology at the University of Padova and obtained his PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2013. His PhD thesis focused on the use of paper as sustainable and low-cost platform for different types of biosensors. During his postdoctoral period, he joined the Prof. McKendry’s group at the University College London/London Centre for Nanotechnology where he developed lateral flow assays for various infectious diseases (Influenza, HIV and Ebola). Then, thanks to a Beatriu de Pinós fellowship, he joined Prof. Plaxco’s group at the University of California Santa Barbara. There he worked on electrochemical aptamer-based and DNA-scaffold sensors for monitoring various protein biomarkers. Finally, he returned to Spain and joined Prof. Merkoçi’s group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology thanks to a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship. During his second period in the Merkoçi group, he worked on several paper-based platforms such as lateral flow assays and paper-electrode to integrate DNA-based sensors.
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Victor Puntes (ICREA / ICN2, Spain)
ICREA Research Prof. Víctor F. Puntes’ work spans the full breadth of nanoparticle research: synthesis, conjugation and characterisation of inorganic nanoparticles; study of their physicochemical properties; nanotoxicology and nanosafety; and myriad applications for sectors including energy harvesting, catalysis, medicine and the environment. Prof. Puntes completed his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering and materials science at the Université Louis Pasteur Strasbourg (France) and at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). In 1998, he earned his PhD in physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), working with Prof. Xavier Batlle and Prof. Amilcar Labarta on giant magnetoresistance in granular alloys. He then spent over three years at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, USA) in the groups led by Prof. Paul Alivisatos and Prof. Kannan Krishnan, working on the synthesis and control of nanostructures. In 2003 he returned to Catalonia with a Ramón y Cajal research position at the UB. In 2005 he obtained an ICREA Professorship at the then ICN (now ICN2) to create the Inorganic Nanoparticles Group, which he currently leads. By the end of 2017, Víctor Puntes had 195 peer-reviewed publications and over 12,500 citations. He is also well-known for his work in science communication to the general public, his industrial and commercial efforts, and for his endeavours linking science and art
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Pilar Rivera Gil (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain)
Pilar Rivera Gil, professor at the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and Coordinator of the research program on Systems Biology and Biomedical Engineering. Pilar obtained her PhD in Pharmacology in 2007 at the Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany) and the Habilitation in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology in 2013 at Philipps Universitaet Marburg (Germany). Pilar has more than 60 publications in the field of translational nanomedicine. Pilar teaches in the degree of Biomedical Engineering and Human Biology. Besides her teaching activities, she is also fully committed to contribute to the translation of nanomedicine to the society.
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Samuel Sanchez (IBEC, Spain)
Samuel is since 2015 a Research Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) in Barcelona, Spain. Currently he acts as Deputy Director for the Internationalization of IBEC. Before that, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, IFW Dresden, Germany, MANA-NIMS in Japan. His work spans from fundamental aspects of catalytic and biocatalytic nano-micromotors, 3D Bioprinted BioBOTS, electrochemical biosensors to applications in biomedical and environmental fields. He received several awards and recognitions such as the MIT TR35 as Top Innovator Under 35 in the Spanish edition, Guinness World Records in 2010 and 2017, the Princess of Girona Scientific Research Award 2015 and the National Research Award for Young Talent 2016 by the Catalan Foundation of Research among others. He received the ERC-Starting Grant in 2013, and two ERC-Proof-of-concept in 2016 and 2017. He has published about 130 papers with h-index of 48 and he has filed 6 patents.
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Simone Schuerle-Finke (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Simone Schuerle is an Associate Professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where she leads the Medical Systems Lab. Her research team focuses on developing diagnostic and therapeutic systems at the nano- and microscale to address a range of challenging medical problems. Before joining ETH Zurich, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT (2014-2017), where she worked on nanosensors for in vivo tumor profiling and methods to wirelessly enhance drug transport. Schuerle earned her PhD in microrobotics from ETH Zurich in 2013, receiving the distinguished ETH medal for her work. Her contributions to the field have been recognized with several awards, including the Ernst Th. Jucker Prize for Cancer Research, the Prix Zonta for Women in Science, and fellowships from SNSF, DAAD, and the Branco Weiss Foundation. In 2017, she was honored as a "Young Scientist" by the World Economic Forum. In 2014, Schuerle co-founded MagnebotiX, a spin-off company that provides electromagnetic control systems for wireless micromanipulation
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Javier Tamayo (INM-CNM-CSIC, Spain)
Javier Tamayo received his PhD in Physics from the University Complutense of Madrid(1995-1998). He then moved to Bristol University to work on the mechanical properties of human chromosomes using atomic force microscopy to enlarge his vision about the link between mechanics and biology. He is now Professor in the Research Spanish Council and leads the Bionanomechanics Lab (http://www.imm-cnm.csic.es/bionano/en). The goal of the group is to provide answers and solutions to biological problems that are relevant for health by harnessing the intimate link between biological process and mechanical parameters. A central core in this research is the development of cutting-edge technologies and novel theoretical paradigms based on optomechanical devices and nanomechanical systems. His research has given rise to more than 100 highly cited publications. In recent years, the group has developed optomechanoplasmonic immunoassays with unparalleled limit of detection that are currently applied for the quest of cancer biomarkers for early cancer detection. In addition, the group has developed a novel optomechanical spectrometer able to identify individual pathogens by mechanical parameters. He also has recently focused his effort on disentangling mechanical effects in cancer initiation and progression by using a combo of optical and mechanical technologies. This research has revealed a new link between metabolism and mechanical properties in breast cancer cells. He is cofounder of two spin-off companies MecWins SL and Nanodreams, with the goal of implementing the group achievements in the healthcare system.
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