AICMCB2025 | Molecular Biology Conference | Cell Biology Conference | Synergia Summits | Prague

Prof. Bernd Kaina

University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany

Title: Will be updated soon

Dr. Kaina holds a doctoral degree from the University of Halle. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at various institutions, incuding the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and the Nuclear Research Center in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1993, was appointed head of the Division of Molecular and Applied Toxicology at the University of Mainz. From 2004 to 2018 he was Chairman of the Institute of Toxicology at the Medical Center in Mainz, Germany, and from 2018 on senior professor at this institute. His working field includes the genotoxic effects of environmental carcinogens, food ingredients, as well as cancer therapeutics, the mechanisms of cell death, senescence, mutagenesis and carcinogenesis with special emphasis on DNA repair and DNA damage signaling. He is author of more than 400 original and review papers and book chapters.

Prof. Lorenzo Moretta

Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Italy

Title: Will be updated soon

Professor Moretta carried out research studies that are considered fundamental in Immunology. He first identified T lymphocyte subpopulations in humans and these studies laid the foundations for understanding the diseases affecting the immune system such as immunodeficiencies and autoimmune diseases. The publication of this research was identified as “citation classic” in the Current Contents Life Science (vol. 28, n. 50, December 16, 1985). He has often been invited individually to propose nominations for the Nobel prize for Medicine and Physiology and for other prestigious international prizes. The research laboratory directed by Professor Moretta carries out basic and applied research in the area of tumor immunology, bone marrow transplantation to cure high risk acute leukemias and selected immunodeficiencies. Research studies are mainly focused on human T lymphocytes and NK cells. A fundamental contribution of the Laboratory directed by Professor Moretta, in close collaboration with the Laboratory directed by Alessandro Moretta, Professor of Histology at the University of Genoa, is the definition of the mechanisms regulating NK cell function (tumor cell killing) thanks to the discovery of inhibiting receptors specific for HLA class I molecules (named KIR) and of receptors responsible for NK cell activation and for induction of tumor cell killing processes. The genes coding for these receptors were cloned in the Laboratory of Professor Moretta. Overall, 15 new receptor molecules were identified and cloned by his research group. Following the discovery of NK receptors by the Moretta’s group, preclinical and clinical studies revealed the major role of NK cells (and of KIR-HLA-class I mismtaches) in the eradication of acute myeloid leukemias in the haploidentical bone marrow transplantation setting. Prof. Moretta and coworkers showed that this approach is particularly efficient also in pediatric patients with high risk (otherwise fatal) acute leukemias, thanks to the definition of a suitable approach allowing the selection of the most appropriate (haploidentical) donors. Overall, the discoveries of Professor Moretta and his collaborators had a considerable impact on cancer research, because of their well established applications to immunotherapy of leukemias and, possibly, of solid tumors, and won Professor Moretta prestigious international prizes. Prof. Moretta has been invited as a speaker or session chairman in more than 400 international and national meetings and seminars, including plenary sessions.

Prof. Russel J. Reiter

UT Health San Antonio, USA

Title: Melatonin in mitochondria: Implication for diseases

Russel J. Reiter is Professor of Cell Biology in the Department of Cell Systems and Anatomy at the UT Health, San Antonio, Texas, USA. In addition to his Ph.D. , Dr. Reiter has received four honorary M.D. degrees and one honorary D.Sc. degree from international universities. His research relates to the multiple receptor-independent and receptor-dependent actions of melatonin in humans, animals and plants. He has trained 25 Ph.D. students and 148 postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Reiter has received many awards for his research including the A. Ross McIntyre Gold Metal (USA), US Senior Scientist Award (Germany), Lizoni Lincee Award (Italy), Inaugural Aaron B. Lerner Pioneer Award (USA), Chulabhorn Royal Academy Medal (Thailand), etc. He has published numerous research papers, reviews and chapters and he has written or edited 25 books. Based on Google Scholar, his papers have been cited in the scientific literature more than 207,000 times and his h-index is 219. Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics has identified Dr. Reiter as a Highly Cited Scientist (top 1%) and listed him as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2014. He is ranked 145 in the list of Best Scientists in the World - 2023 (Research.com). Dr. Reiter has been an invited speaker at more than 350 international meetings and symposia. He is the Co-Editor of Melatonin Research and he is the founder and past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pineal Research which had an impact factor of 15.271 when he relinquished that editorship position.

Prof. Bennett Van Houten

USA

Title: Will be updated soon

Dr. Bennett Van Houten is the Richard M. Cyert Professor of Molecular Oncology, in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, and a member of the Molecular Biophysics & Structural Biology Graduate faculty. Dr. Van Houten and Dr. Patty Opresko co-lead the Genome Stability Program at the UPMC-Hillman Cancer Center, where they oversees a group of 36 faculty studying mechanisms of genome stability and cancer.

Dr. Van Houten received his Bachelor’s degree from Clarion University and his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at the Oak Ridge Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1984. Ben did his postdoctoral training with Professor Aziz Sancar who was recognized with a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2015 for his mechanistic insights into DNA repair. Prior to moving to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Van Houten was the Chief of the Program Analysis Branch in the Division of Extramural Research and Training and Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics in the Division of Intramural Research at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH from 1999-2008. While at the NIEHS, Dr. Van Houten helped develop a publication tracking system, Scientific Publication Information Retrieval and Evaluation System (SPIRES), which is now used in NIH RePORTER. He was recognized with five NIH Merit Awards, and a NIH Director’s Award, and for his service to science was awarded a Medal of Science by the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 2008, the same year he moved the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Van Houten’s laboratory is doing cutting-edge research in two fundamental areas of biology, namely, how cells maintain genome integrity and generate energy. More specifically, his group studies the structure and function of DNA repair enzymes at the single molecule level, and the role of mitochondria in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Van Houten’s laboratory is currently supported by a NIEHS Revolutionizing Innovative Visionary Environmental health Research (RIVER) Award R35 ES031638 which uses state-of-the-art single molecule approaches, including atomic force microscopy and real-time fluorescence microscopy to follow fluorescently tagged-DNA repair molecules as they interrogate DNA for structural alternations in real time. The long-term goal of this project is to watch multiple protein machines do work on DNA at the single molecule level in purified systems, nuclear cell extracts and in living cells. To this end, his laboratory has developed a new method of single molecule analysis using nuclear extracts (Single-Molecule Analysis of DNA-binding proteins from Nuclear Extracts, SMADNE) and a Lumicks C-trap, purchased through a S10 large equipment grant, which combines optical tweezers, a five-chamber microfluidic flow cell and a three-color confocal microscope to follow multiple proteins interacting at sites of DNA damage (Nucleic Acids Research, 2023). His group are only one of ~50 sites in the US that has access to this state-of-the-art instrument, which has opened new avenues of study for research groups at the University of Pittsburgh. Using this new SMADNE technique his group has characterized 30 different repair proteins or variants over the past two years. He is also supported by a collaborative R01 on DNA Ligase 3 with Professor Alan Tomkinson (Univ. of New Mexico). One collaborative project Drs. Patty Opresko, Simon Watkins, and Ed Burton and seeks to understand how singlet oxygen damage targeted to either the mitochondria or telomeres can have reciprocal effects on each other. This approach is being used to examine the fate of 8-oxoG lesions at telomeres and the role of ROS damage in a zebrafish model of Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Van Houten has trained 45 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. He holds four patents (three additional applications are pending), and has authored over 275 scientific articles, co-edited a book on DNA damage recognition, a volume of single-molecule techniques in DNA repair, and has also published 28 book chapters and reviews. He has chaired Gordon Conferences on Genetic Toxicology and Oxidative Stress and disease. He has served as Chair of the NIH Cancer Etiology study section panel. His Web of Science, H-index is 76, with an average of 6.5 publications per year, since his first publication in 1982. Dr. Van Houten currently serves, with Dr. Penny Jeggo, as the Co-Editors in Chief for DNA Repair.

Prof. Boris Zhivotovsky

Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Title: Will be updated soon

Prof. Boris Zhivotovsky holds a Ph.D. (1975) and a Dr. Sci (1989) from the Leningrad Institute of Radiobiology. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at F. Joliot-Curie Institute of Radiobiology (Budapest, Hungary). In 1991 he was invited to join Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden), and in 2002 was appointed as a professor and a head of the Toxicology at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (Karolinska Institutet). From 2020 he has been a professor emeritus at the same Institute. Between 1999 and 2007 he was and from 2019 up to now he is a general secretary, and between 2007-2012 - president of the European Cell Death Organization. Since 2010 he has been a professor and head of the Laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and since 2013 – head of the laboratory at Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology (Moscow, Russia). He received several awards, among which are the Soviet Union State Prize in Science and Technology (1987), the European Union Rene Descartes Research Prize (2006), and the European Cell Death Organization prize for an important contribution to the field (2012). His working field includes the investigation of molecular mechanisms of various cell death modalities and cross-talk between them and the role of cell death in tumor resistance/sensitivity to treatment. He is the author of more than 400 original and review articles.

Prof. YU Jun

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Title: Gut microbiome in Gastrointestinal Cancer

Jun Yu (MD, PhD, Professor) is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics; Assistant Dean, Faculty of Medicine; Director, State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease; Director, Institute of Digestive Disease; Director, Research Laboratory of Digestive Disease; Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Prof. Yu is a Member of Academia Europea; Member of Hong Kong Academy of Science; Member of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; Vice-Chairman of Cancer and Gut Microbiome of Anti-Cancer Association China; Vice-Chairman of China Women Physicians Association (GI session); Council Member of American Gastrointestinal Association (AGA) Microbiome and Microbial Therapy USA (2018-2021) and Council Member of AGA Oncology (2017-2018); Chair professor of Chang Jiang Scholar; Associate Editor of Gut, and Oncogene, Advisory Board of Cancer Cell.

Prof. Yu’s research interests being molecular pathogenesis and biomarkers of gastrointestinal (GI) cancers (gastric, colon and liver); Gut microbiota in GI cancers; Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and its associated liver cancer in relation to the molecular pathogenesis and treatment response. She is clearly a preeminent molecular scientist in gastroenterologist disorders with 605 peer-reviewed publications (e.g. Nature, Cell, Cancer cell, Cell Metab, J Clin Oncol, Cell Research, Gastroenterol, Gut, Nat Microbiol, Mol Cell, J Hepatol). Edited 3 books and 16 book chapters. ISI citation 44338, ISI h-index=105; Google Scholar citation >62,900, h-index 124. She obtained over 50 prestigious awards including The National Natural Science Award (2020 and 2016); Guanghua Engineering Science & Technology Prize China (2022); Top 10 Scientists in Global Gut Microbiome Study (2019); He Liang He Li Science and Technology Progress Award (2018); AGA Council (Oncology) Research Mentor Award USA (2017); WuXi PharmaTech Life Science Award (2017); Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2016); The National Science and Technology Progress Award (2012). First-class Ministry of Education Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (2010, 2012, 2014 and 2022). She is Clarivate 2023 Highly Cited Researcher. She Ranked Top 8 Scientist and Top 1 female Scientist in the field of Medicine in China (2023 Best Global Scientists-Issued by Research.com).

Prof. Dietmar W. Hutmacher

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Title: Does water structure and organization play a role in mechanobiology?

Dietmar W Hutmacher (DWH) is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Regenerative Medicine at the Queensland University of Technology and is the founding director of the Max Planck Queensland Center (MPQC) for the Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices. After building a successful career for more than 10 years in the industry, D/Prof Hutmacher decided to pursue his long-term aspiration to foster a legacy in academia. He was awarded his PhD in 2001 at the age of 38. Hence, his academic career is less than 25 years young, yet he is one of the world's most highly cited researchers with substantial influence across interdisciplinary research fields. In 2018, he was awarded the Ramaciotti medal for excellence in biomedical research and granted a Humboldt LifeTime Research Award while being listed as one of the 10 scientists/bioengineers (and the only non-US academic) who will shape the Biofabrication landscape in 2019 in a survey report of the world-leading Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute. He is a “Highly Cited Researcher” (Clarivate Analytics). His direct research contributions leading to pre-eminent international standing and impact is illustrated by his publication record

Prof. Darren Griffin

University of Kent, UK

Title: Cytogenetics of Early Human Development Including Diagnosis in IVF

Professor Darren Griffin received his BSc and DSc degrees from the University of Manchester and his PhD from University College London. After postdoctoral stints at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Cambridge he landed his first academic post at Brunel University, before settling at the University of Kent, nearly 20 years ago. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts and is President of the International Chromosome and Genome Society. A world leader in cytogenetics, he performed the first successful cytogenetic PGT and played a significant role in the development of Karyomapping, an approach he now applies to cattle and pigs. He has co-authored ~350 scientific publications, mainly on the cytogenetics of reproduction and evolution, recently providing insight into the karyotypes of dinosaurs. He is a prolific science communicator, a part time TV presenter and an enthusiastic proponent of interdisciplinary research endeavour. He has supervised over 45 PhD students to completion and his work appears consistently in the media. He has run a vibrant research group including a programme of externally supervised students and maintains commercial interests relating to the outcomes of research findings.

Plenary Speakers