2025 Speakers

Dr. Rajeshwari Adhiseshan is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she plays a pivotal role in global health initiatives, particularly in the vaccine development sector. With a robust background in pharmacy and a PhD from Pune University, Dr. Rajeshwari has...

I am a biochemist by training, with a strong research background in structural biology and its application to translational research. Over the course of my PhD and Postdoctoral training, I acquired comprehensive technical knowledge of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), x-ray crystallography and...

Dr. Irnela Bajrovic-Jasarevic specializes in advancing pharmaceutical technologies and biopharmaceutical development. She earned her PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Texas at Austin, where her research demonstrated the viability of Jurata's thin film formulation as a...

Dr. Jane M Barratt, is an internationally recognized advisor and non-executive leader with extensive experience in global ageing, health, and social policy.  She serves on multiple international boards and committees, bringing expertise in governance, strategic planning, and interdisciplinary...

Ana joined the NATO Innovation Fund as a Senior Associate and is excited about the potential of technology to drive growth and societal welfare. In particular she will help build NIF’s strategy and portfolio for biotech, biosecurity, synthetic biology and human enhancement. She will also be taking...

Cedric Bogaert cofounded myNEO, whose software uses neural networks trained on biological datasets to figure out the best personalized cancer immunotherapies for a given patient. myNEO focuses on neoantigen targets it identifies from the genomic profile of the tumor sample. Based on promising...

Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi is an internationally recognized tropical and emerging disease vaccinologist, global health advocate and cocreator of a patent-free, open science COVID-19 vaccine technology that led to the development of Corbevax in India and IndoVac in Indonesia, and with approximately...

Moy Bracken is an experienced healthcare professional currently serving as the Research Unit Manager, Research Lead R&D, and Market Access Researcher at the Access to Medicine Foundation since May 2021. Prior to this, Moy worked as a freelance Community and Hospital Pharmacist at Pharmaconex...

Dr. Nicolas Burdin serves as Global Head of R&D at Clover. Dr. Burdin has spent over 27 years in vaccine research and development (R&D) with increasing responsibility roles at Sanofi, contributing to the successful progression of multiple prophylactic and therapeutic projects against...

Dr. David Burkhart is the Chief Executive Officer and a Co-Founder of Inimmune. A passionate, direct and results oriented team leader, he strives to bring out the best in people by inspiring them to realize their untapped potential. Dr. Burkhart brings nearly 20 years of experience in the...

Ed spent more than 20 years in large pharma (Pfizer, AstraZeneca) and biotech (Scriptgen/Anadys Pharmaceuticals), focussing on both therapeutic and preventive approaches to infections caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi. Over the years his responsibilities increased from bench scientist to...

Dr. Caldwell is the Associate Vice President, Vaccine Research & Education at Meharry Medical College in Nashville TN. He leads the emerging partnership between Meharry and Clinical Research Associates of Nashville and is a devoted clinician and teacher. Dr. Caldwell serves as an investigator...

Andrew first studied as a virologist at the University of Warwick before then furthering his education with postgraduate studies in influenza replication at Oxford University. Since then he has applied his scientific knowledge in a commercial setting. After working as part of a multidisciplinary...

Marco Cavaleri is the Head of Public Health Threats at the European Medicines Agency (EMA). He leads EMA activities on emerging pathogens, vaccines, and antimicrobial resistance, and previously chaired the EMA’s COVID-19 Taskforce. With extensive experience in both industry and regulatory roles, he ...

Johannes is a veterinary scientist and regularly invited speaker at international workshops or conferences. After a career of 13 years as scientist in the field of veterinary parasitology and epidemiology at Ghent University (1st veterinary faculty in Shanghai Ranking Index 2017-2019), and 2 years...

Dr. Christensen was recently appointed as Global Head of R&D for Adjuvant Systems at Croda Pharma after 18 years in adjuvant research at Statens Serum Institut, Denmark. During his career, his research focus has been on pharmaceutical and immunological aspects of vaccine adjuvants and delivery...

I have an interest in understanding the immunological mechanisms that underlie the success or failure of vaccines developed to induce T-cell responses in livestock species. This has predominantly focused on Theileria parva but I also have interests in other major pathogens including Mycobacterium...

Dr. Cooke is CEO of Omniose.  He has over thirty years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with a focus on vaccines.  He was previously CEO of NovaDigm Therapeutics, CEO of Mojave Therapeutics, COO at AVANT Immunotherapeutics, and SVP at Ology Bioservices. Prior to his leadership roles...

James F. Cummings, M.D., FACP, FIDSA, FASTMH  has served as Chief Medical Officer at Vaxart since August 2021 and is responsible for all clinical vaccine development.. Preceding his role at VAXART, Dr. Cummings served as President of ICON Government and Public Health Solutions, Inc., a global...

Dr. Kashmira Date is a physician, epidemiologist and global health leader with over 20 years of experience and leadership in the public and private sector with clinical development/medical/scientific affairs in infectious diseases, vaccines, epidemiology, real-world evidence, pandemic...

Ingrid de Visser - Kamerling (1975) graduated in Medical Biology from Leiden University in 1998. She subsequently worked at CHDR as a project leader and PhD student. She obtained her PhD from Leiden University in 2003 and became a registered clinical pharmacologist in 2005. From 2004 to 2007, she...

Dimitri Diavatopoulos is Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Medical Immunology and is affiliated with the Radboud Center for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Diavatopoulos studied Bioprocess Engineering at Wageningen University, after which he obtained his PhD at Utrecht University, where he started...

​​​​​​​Dr. Kyle Doolan leads cross-functional teams in molecular biology, protein engineering and virology that perform experiments for operations and research and development. Kyle has been instrumental in enhancing the performance of Integral Molecular’s technologies and is an inventor on two of...

Carel du Marchie Sarvaas is Executive Director of HealthforAnimals, the global animal health association. HealthforAnimals represents the top 10 global animal health companies developing and manufacturing veterinary vaccines, parasite control products, diagnostics, antibiotics, digital...

Mark A. Emalfarb is the founder of Dyadic, and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of the Company. He has been a member of Dyadic’s board of directors and has previously served as its Chairman from October 2004 until April 2007 and from June 2008...

An immunologist specializing in immunotherapies and vaccinology, Mathieu Epardaud joined the BioMAP team of the UMR ISP 1282 University – INRAE in 2018 to contribute to the development of mucosal vaccine platform strategies. He previously contributed to research on (1) preclinical models for the...

Dr. Evans is the Chief Scientific and Strategy Officer and Cofounder of Inimmune Corp. Dr. Evans is also Director of the Center for Translational Medicine at the University of Montana and a Research Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences. He has over 20 years’ experience in the...

Gonçalo Farias is currently working as a Laboratory Manager for Nasal and Innovation Services at Aptar Pharma (France). He holds an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Lisbon, Portugal (2014), and a Ph.D. in Pharmacy & Pharmacology from the University of Bath, UK...

​​​​​​​Dr. Christina K. Go earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University studying membrane protein interactions in T cell activation. Following her dissertation, she completed a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in immunology ...

Professor of Tropical Medicine and Traveller Medicine at the University of Amsterdam, Martin Peter Grobusch leads the Center for Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine at Amsterdam UMC. A specialist in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and tropical medicine since 2000, he combines clinical...

Prof. Carlos A. Guzmán (MD, PhD) is head of the department Vaccinology and Applied Microbiology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and also APL professor at the Hannover Medical School.He studied Medicine at the National University of Rosario and received his specialization in Medical...

My research line focusses on the pathogenesis of viral infections and especially those viruses that emerge through zoonotic transmission. This brings together work performed earlier at the Veterinary faculty in Utrecht and more recent work on human viruses in Rotterdam.  We have characterised the...

Dr Bassam Hallis has over 25 years experience in scientific research including 15 years in regulated activities including vaccine evaluation, release/stability and clinical trial serology. He has extensive experience in assay development and validation including cell based and functional assays as...

Dr. Holger Heyn leads the Single Cell Genomics Group at the Spanish National Centre for Genomic Analysis (one of Europe’s largest Genome Centres). He has co-authored over 80 publications, and his research has received over €7.5m funding from (inter)national agencies. Dr. Holger is a key opinion...

Parasites cause some of the most deadly diseases to affect humans. Malaria is the most devastating of these, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of cases each year, with hundreds of thousands of deaths. In order to survive within our bodies, parasites must interact with the molecules of our ...

Mark did graduate work in molecular immunology at Oxford University Institute of Molecular Medicine and Southampton University Cancer Sciences. In his postdoctoral work at MIT he developed tools in chemical biology, advanced microscopy and nanotechnology to understand receptor trafficking. He...

Dr. Infante is leading the development of a new class of vaccines to prevent antibiotic-resistant infections globally. The technology enables development of truly global vaccines, able to target at-risk populations in both high- and low-income countries, and has been developed with the support of...

As CEO, Jayasree K. Iyer sets the Foundation's strategy for assessing the efforts of healthcare companies to ensure their products reach more people around the world. In her discussions with global industry leaders, she engages them on the practical, effective steps they can take to...

Mark Jit is the inaugural chair and a professor in the Department of Global and Environmental Health. He was formerly head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Dynamics and co-director of the Global Health Economics Centre (GHECO) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical ...

Alasdair King qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Glasgow University in 1990.  After 11 years in mixed practice he joined Intervet UK as livestock veterinary advisor.  Amongst other roles in the UK, he took on responsibility for company pharmacovigilance as the National PV Manager, and developed ...

I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering at The University of Sheffield, and an Honorary Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. I am leading a multidisciplinary team that is innovating and...

​​​​​​Dr Jelle Klein graduated as Medical Doctor in 2016 from the University of Antwerp with a Master of Science in Medicine. Prior to this, he received a Bachelor of Health from the Hanzehogeschool in Groningen in 2009. In 2024 he was board-certified as a specialist in Clinical Pharmacology and...

I'm Adam Kucharski. I am a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where I focus on making better use of data and analytics for epidemic preparedness and response. This includes large-scale studies of social behaviour and...

Alexandre Le Vert is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Osivax. Alexandre is a serial entrepreneur with a fascination for biology and more than 20 years of experience in healthcare ranging from research and development to commercialization of vaccines and therapeutics.He has led several...

Lennard is an accomplished Oxford University cancer physician and national senior advisor for the cancer vaccine advance in the UK, and chief medical officer at the Ellison Institute of Technology. He is a research scene setter with a successful track record in delivering strategic national health...

Darren holds a PhD in microbiology from Trinity College Dublin, where he also did his BA in microbiology. He spent a three year post-doc in the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford developing vaccines against infectious diseases. He is an experienced team and project leader in both start-up ...

Geert Leroux-Roels obtained the MD degree from the Ghent University in 1976. He completed a specialty training in internal medicine and conducted doctoral research in clinical pathology and immunology. In 1981 he was board certified in internal medicine and a obtained a PhD degree in biomedical...

Dr. Ofer Levy is principal investigator, staff physician and the Director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The Precision Vaccines Program (PVP) is an...

I qualified in Medicine from the University of Oxford in 1980.  After working around the UK in hospital medicine and research, I joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1986.  I am a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. For over 30 years I...

Dr. Mats Lundgren is a leading authority in vaccine discovery and development, with over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. His diverse background encompasses a wide range of roles, from scientist to vice president, equipping him with a thorough understanding of the...

Leonardo earned his PhD in Biotechnology in 2011 through a collaboration with the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, followed by experience as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow and Research Scientist. In 2016, he joined Ingenza, where he now serves as Vice...

Dr. Alessandro Manenti graduated in Biology in 2009 obtained the Ph.D in Molecular Biology in 2016 at the University of Siena. From 2016 to 2020 he worked as a Project Director in VisMederi managing the R&D department involved in the set-up, development and standardization of new serological...

Dr. Gerben Marsman obtained his doctorate degree at Sanquin Research (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and completed a post-doctoral research position at the Max-Planck Institute for Infection Biology (Berlin, Germany). He joined the VFI in 2023 as a Project Manager and is currently Head of Alliance...

Mr. Mazzei has over 25 years of experience in clinical research within the pharmaceutical life sciences industry. He joined PPD in February 2005 and currently serves as project oversight director for vaccines, managing a portfolio of Phase I-III studies to ensure delivery, compliance, and...

Michael Miller, MD is health care policy, communications and advocacy expert with more than 30 years of experience improving access and affordability and the development of innovations. His experience includes:  Working in government organizations including the White House’s Office of Management...

Albert Osterhaus is one of the world's leading virologists and his group was the first to identify human infection with the avian influenza strain H5N1. After qualifying as a veterinarian, Albert Osterhaus moved into research and graduated from Utrecht University in his native Netherlands in...

Elise Pepermans obtained her PhD in Biochemistry in the Pasteur Institut in Paris. During her post-doc in the Center for Proteomics (University of Antwerp/Flemish Institut for Technological Research) she developed an optimized workflow for advanced immunopeptidomics. Since March 2023, she is one of ...

Dr. Jan Poolman is former Head Bacterial Vaccine Discovery and Early Development at Janssen Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Jan leads the bacterial vaccines team, which focuses on developing vaccines against the most prevalent...

Prof Maarten J Postma (29/01/1960) holds the chair Global Health Economics at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) and the faculty of Economics & Business, both at the University of Groningen and is director of UMCG’s research institute SHARE, bringing various university faculties...

Stanley has over 20 years of experience in vaccine development, biologics, and cell/gene therapy, with a strong background in GMP biosafety, GLP technical operations, and commercial strategy. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from Alvernia University. His...

Dr. Philip Probert is a strategic scientific leader with extensive experience in bioprocessing and strategy development. He currently serves as Biologics Technology Lead at CPI, where he heads up the development department, delivering a diverse portfolio of innovation projects focused on the...

Martin Rabel, Dipl.-Pharm., Ph.D. currently works as a Services Solution Specialist for Cytiva supporting clients in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). He obtained his pharmaceutical license as well as a postgraduate diploma from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena working on Bacterial...

Ruben Rizzi, physician by training, SVP of Global Regulatory Affairs at BioNTech. I joined the company in December 2019 just before the pandemic, and I have been the global regulatory lead for BioNTech for our COVID-19 development. Currently, I am still supporting the lifecycle of our COVID-19...

Meta Roestenberg is an infectious diseases clinician at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands  where she leads a group of translational researchers in answering key questions related to host-pathogen interaction by making use of controlled human infection models. Her team pioneered...

Dr. Milla Runsala earned her Doctorate from the University of Turku, where she researched immune responses. She currently serves as a Business Development Manager, focusing on exploring new opportunities for sustained drug therapies using Silica Matrix drug delivery technology. Recently, DelSiTech...

Dr. Jerald Sadoff, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer with immediate effect. Dr. Sadoff has more than fifty years of experience in vaccine development. He has overseen or played a key role in the approval of more vaccines than any other currently active vaccine developer, including vaccines against...

A veterinarian by training, after completing my PhD at The Pirbright Institute in 1993 I became Head of the International FMD Vaccine Bank and held the position for 4 years. I moved to Pfizer AH in Sandwich, England in 1997 and eventually became Director of Biologicals Research for Europe, Africa...

Tyler Sandberg is a scientist holding a PhD in vaccine immunology from the Karolinska Institute and a master’s degree in immunology and infection biology from Uppsala University.His doctoral research involved conducting several vaccine studies to examine human immune responses to various flavivirus ...

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Scandinavian Biopharma. Björn is former Chief Executive Officer of UniTech Pharma AB (2010-2011), Chief Business Officer of Crucell (2006-2009), a Dutch former listed company with facilities in the Netherlands, Switzerland and USA specializing in vaccines...

Jeffrey Stolwijk is a cell biologist and toxicologist with deep expertise in oncology, immunology, and translational science. As Scientific Director at Uneedle, he plays a central role in advancing clinical programs in collaboration with Uneedle's pharmaceutical and biotech partners. His work...

Miriam Taegtmeyer is a Professor of Global Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where she heads the Community Health Systems Research Group.  The group consists of staff and doctoral students with a research portfolio of over £8 million (2018), spanning 11 countries across Africa...

Dr Tan is a Principal Investigator at the MRC Translational Immune Discovery Unit.  His research focuses developing next-generation protein nanoparticle-based vaccines and antibody therapeutics against infectious diseases. He is particularly interested in understanding how the architecture of...

Dr. Tucker completed his doctoral degree in Immunology at the University of Washington. Dr. Tucker is the Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President for Research at Vaxart, Inc, a company focused on mucosal vaccine delivery. He has published several papers in immunology and served as a grant...

Sebastian Ulbert is a molecular biologist and lecturer in virology. He is the Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology and the Head of the Department for Vaccines and Infection Models. The Fraunhofer Society is Europe's largest application-oriented research...

When you're sick, you only want one thing: to get better. So why not stay healthy when you can? After all, according to an old Dutch saying: 'prevention is better than cure'. For years and years, biotech has helped us cure and prevent (infectious) diseases. Yet in our current healthcare ...

Dr. Veterinary Medicine, virologist, global networking in human and animal health, vaccines and diagnostics, global disease control, one health, public affairs with EU, WHO, Asian and African authorities and experienced in vaccine translational development.Achievements in brief: Discovery of H1N1...

Vijay Vaswani views technology as fundamental to humanity. He has been part of scaling companies such as Illumina and 10X Genomics. He has acquired and commercialized disruptive diagnostic technologies during his leadership at Siemens Healthineers and Meridian Biosciences. Vijay has been part of...

Roland Ventura holds a PhD in molecular biology and vaccines from the Queen’s University Belfast.  After postdoctoral training at the University of Oxford he worked with Dako A/S in Denmark under a European Commission-funded Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Fellowship.  Following this, he became...

Thomas Verstraeten is the CEO and founder of P95, a global CRO at the forefront of vaccine and infectious disease research. A medical doctor and epidemiologist by training, Thomas is a recognized leader in global health innovation, with a career spanning over 25 years across...

Y. Tony Yang, ScD, LLM, MPH, is an endowed professor (with tenure) in health policy and Associate Dean for Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University School of Nursing. He also holds a joint appointment at the Milken Institute School of Public Health in the Department of...