We are delighted to announce our invited speakers and panellists. Further information on the speakers and their talk titles will be added below soon.
Alex Ivetic obtained his BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from Imperial College London. He then embarked on a PhD at the Marie Curie Research Institute (through the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London), where he investigated how DNA replication is triggered during the cell cycle. His first postdoc position was hosted at the National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute), where he began his investigations in cell adhesion molecules and their contribution to immune cell recruitment in inflammation. In his second postdoc position, he used the parallel plate flow chamber to model immune cell interactions with blood vessels in vitro. After successfully obtaining a Research Career Development Award from the Wellcome Trust, Alex moved back to Imperial College London in 2005 to start his own group at the National Heart and Lung Institute to further understand mechanisms underlying immune cell responses to inflammation. Since starting at King’s as a Senior Lecturer, Alex has spent time in the labs of Paul Kubes (Calgary, Canada) and Michael Hickey (Monash, Australia) to gain expertise in intravital microscopy – elaborating his understanding of leukocyte recruitment on an organismal level. The majority of his research now focuses on understanding the mechanisms that regulate leukocyte homing to sites of “sterile injury” (e.g. myocardial infarction and venous thrombosis), and how subverting this process might bring improved outcomes in models of cardiovascular disease. His recent interests have also extended to understanding the cellular mechanisms regulating endothelial cell permeability. In February 2021, Alex was promoted to Reader in Cardiovascular Biology.
Alex is Postgraduate Research Lead to approximately 100 PGR students within the School of Cardiovascular Sciences and Medicine – overseeing their progress and wellbeing. He is also the Lead Administrator of the Joint PhD programme between King's and the University of Göttingen's Heart Centre, which spun out from an IRTG1816 award by the DFG and is now in its second 5-year renewal. He has supervised over 10 PhD students as primary supervisor and is strongly committed to improving PGR student progress and welfare.
Alex has delivered numerous public engagement seminars relating to his research in well-attended events, such as the Pint of Science and Science Museum Lates.
Anne Blangy received her PhD in biology from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France, in 1992. She then moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, to join the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) as a post-doctoral fellow, working on the molecular mechanisms of mitotic spindle assembly in the laboratory of Erich Nigg. Back in France as a CNRS researcher, she joined the Montpellier Cell Biology Research Center (CRBM). She has been studying for over 25 years the regulation of cytoskeleton dynamics, in particular in the context of osteoclasts, the bone resorbing cells whose excessive activity is at the origin of osteoporosis. Her team studies the mechanisms of regulation of actin and tubulin cytoskeleton dynamics in osteoclasts, in order to understand the mechanisms that control their bone resorption activity. Hervwork combines proteomic and transcriptomic analyses, super-resolution and live-cell microscopy, and mouse models of bone pathology.
Cristina Lo Celso pioneered intravital microscopy of the haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) niche during her postdoctoral training at Harvard University. In 2009 she started her independent research group at Imperial College London, where she is now a Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, and one of the network leads of the Imperial Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Network. Prof. Lo Celso established a satellite laboratory at the Sir Francis Crick Institute, and recently started the Co-Directorship of the Imperial College Centre for Haematology. Her research aims to understand the mechanisms regulating HSC function during steady state and during stresses such as infections, leukaemia and transplantation. Her interdisciplinary approach combines mouse bone marrow intravital microscopy techniques, computational image analysis, molecular profiling and mathematical modelling of the HSC niche. Prof. Lo Celso’s publications have been cited over 5500 times. She is the first woman to have received the Foulkes Medal award (2017); she received the ISEH New Investigator award in 2017, presented the DGZ Carl Zeiss Lecture 2018 and received the Royal Microscopical Society Life Sciences Medal 2019. She regularly engages in outreach activities and is keen to interact with the public, patients and industry.
Daniel Irimia is a medical doctor and a bioengineer. He is leading a research team that designs microfluidic devices for biomedical applications. He has published more than 150 articles on multidisciplinary studies involving microfluidics, inflammation, infections, and sepsis. He is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Shriners Burns Hospital, and Harvard Medical School.
Helen McGettrick is a Reader in Inflammation and Vascular Biology at the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing in University of Birmingham, UK. She has a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Lancaster, and a MSc in Immunology and PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research team focuses on understanding the endogenous regulatory pathways controlling leukocyte trafficking and tissue homeostasis in health, with age and in disease. She has developed novel in vitro multi-cellular models, incorporating primary human cells and flow conditions that mimic the microcirculation, to understand how the local environment in tissue influences the recruitment of leukocytes. In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious “Garrod Prize” by the British Society for Rheumatology for her contribution to the field of Rheumatology. She was elected as the England Representative for the British Society of Immunology (BSI) Members Forum 2018-2022 and is continues to be involved in the BSI as a part of Annual Congress Organising Committee.
Danijela Matic Vignjevic was trained as a molecular biologist at University of Belgrade, Serbia and University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. She did her PhD in cell biology, working on the actin cytoskeleton during cell migration at Northwestern University, Chicago, US. She then did a post-doc at Institut Curie, working on mouse models for colon cancer metastasis as a HFSP fellow and later as INSERM researcher. She started her independent team at Institut Curie in 2013 when she got interested in how epithelial cells interact with their microenvironment in homeostasis and cancer invasion. Her research strategy combines molecular and cell biology techniques with live-cell imaging using different model systems such as 2D and 3D in vitro cell cultures; tissue slices cultured ex vivo; and different transgenic mouse models.
Antal Rot obtained his M.D. at the Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary where subsequently he was formally trained as an Anatomical and Surgical Pathologist. His post-doctoral research training was in the lab of legendary Edward J. Leonard at the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, USA. Afterwards, Antal joined Sandoz/ Novartis Forschungsinstitut in Vienna, Austria where for 20 years he was the Head of Experimental Pathology. After Institute’s closure, Antal moved to the UK taking up successive professorial appointments at the Universities of Birmingham and York. Since 2017 Antal is the Chair in Inflammation Sciences at the Centre for Microvascular Research, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London. His main research interests are related to the involvement of chemokines, their classical and atypical receptors in innate and adaptive immunity and disease pathogenesis.
Spiros Makris is a senior post-doc at the Stomal immunology lab at the University College London- Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology (LMCB). He completed his PhD at Imperial College London studying innate immune responses in adult and neonatal models of respiratory infections. Before that he completed an MSc in Molecular Medicine at University College London. Since joining the Acton lab in 2018 he has been working on understanding how the lymph node maintains its organisation at steady-state and during the resolution of inflammation. The resolution of lymph node expansion and return to steady state is an unaddressed question, but perhaps understandably neglected since the immune cells migrate to the site of infection. Responsive lymph nodes need to expand both to accommodate thousands of naïve lymphocytes infiltrating and to provide additional space for their clonal proliferation in response to antigen. Lymph nodes undergo vast increases in organ size during adaptive immune responses and can undergo rapid and yet completely reversible remodelling countless times. Our aim is to understand resident and recruited populations within the lymph nodes, and how cellular interaction drive tissue remodelling and the resolution of inflammation.
Matt is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, focussing on 3D deep learning techniques applied to cancer biology. Matt’s research attempts to predict the heterogeneous response to therapy in 3D cancer models and to use this knowledge to design novel therapies targeting resistant cells. This will shed light on previously unknown biology, allowing better cancer therapy and ultimately saving lives. He is also a visiting researcher at Imperial College London and The Francis Crick Institute and an Enrichment Student at the Alan Turing Institute. Matt obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in statistics from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and an MSc in artificial intelligence from the University of Southampton.
Matt and his supervisor, Professor Chris Bakal, have started a company called Sentinal 4D which aims to predict the likelihood of success of cancer drugs in clinical trials based on the morphology of drug-treated cancer models. He has been awarded Cancer Tech Accelerator grant funding and has been shortlisted for the Cancer Research Horizons Early-Career Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Dr. Friedl received his M.D. degree from the University of Bochum, Germany in 1992 and the Ph.D. degree from the McGill University, Montreal in 1996. In 2002, he was board-certified as clinical dermatologist and 2003 as allergologist. Since 2007 he is directing the Microscopical Imaging Centre of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands and, from 2011 to 2023, held a joint-faculty position at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA. He applies advanced microscopy and molecular intervention in 3D culture and preclinical tumor models to identify their response to molecular targeted and immunotherapy.
His research interest is the mechanisms and plasticity of cell migration in immune regulation and cancer metastasis, with emphasis on cell-matrix adhesion, pericellular proteolysis and cell-cell communication during migration. His laboratory identified pathways determining diversity and plasticity of cell migration, collective cancer cell invasion, and the contribution of migration pathways to immune defense and cancer resistance. His discoveries have provided a nomenclature for the different types of cell migration and their roles in building and (re)shaping tissue, with emphasis on inflammation, regeneration and cancer. His therapeutic preclinical studies focus on the intravital visualization of niches and mechanisms and strategies to overcome therapy resistance.
Angeliki Malliri is a Professor of Cell Biology at The University of Manchester and a senior group leader at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Patras, Greece, and her PhD from the University of Crete, Greece. In 1999, she joined the laboratory of Dr John Collard at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. There she developed her interest in cancer cell migration and invasion, prominent features of cancer cells that underlie metastasis, focusing on Rho-like GTPases, small signalling G proteins that constitute a subfamily of the RAS superfamily. At Netherlands Cancer Institute, she also developed an interest in other roles performed by Rho-like GTPases in cancer, demonstrating an essential role for Rho molecule signalling in tumour formation in vivo.
Angeliki joined Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute in 2004 as head of the Cell Signalling group and was promoted to senior group leader in 2010. Her laboratory has focused on cell migration and invasion and their control by Rho-like GTPases. More recently she redirected her team’s research toward lung cancer, focusing on KRAS-mutant lung adenocarcinoma as well as small-cell lung cancer and evaluating Rho-like GTPase signalling as molecular targets in these lung tumour types.
Dr. Weaver is Professor and Director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration in the Department of Surgery, with a cross-appointment in Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at UCSF. She has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Waterloo, and an Honors BSc and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She completed postdoctoral training at the Canadian NRC and with MJ Bissell at LBNL, Berkeley California, and joined the Pathology Department at the University of Pennsylvania and IME before relocating to UCSF. In recognition of her seminal contributions on the biochemical and biophysical properties of the extracellular matrix in tissue morphogenesis and cancer she is an elected fellow of the AIMBE and ASCB and has received numerous accolades including DOD BCRP career development, Scholar and Scholar expansion awards, an ASCB WICB Midcareer award, The Colin Thomson Medal of Honor from Worldwide Cancer Research, an NCI R35 Outstanding Investigator award and the BMES CMBE Shu Chien Achievement Award.
As Head of Collaborations at the Francis Crick Institute, Dr Mercer is an established translation lead, leveraging over £30M of funding to enable industry-academic alliances with the aim of enhancing translation of discoveries through to technology and health innovation. Building on a track record as a research scientist, he has led projects from early clinical proof of concept through to experimental medicine.
Dr Mercer completed his PhD in Respiratory Cell Biology at the University of Southampton in 2001 and subsequently took up a postdoc as a joint appointment between Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research, Horsham and the Imperial College London Leucocyte Biology group under Prof. John Westwick and Prof. Tim Williams; investigating inflammatory mediators of COPD. In 2004 he moved to the Centre for Respiratory Research at University College London investigating the interaction between coagulation and lung injury leading to chronic disease with Prof. Rachel Chambers. Most notably during his time at UCL he was seconded to GSK Respiratory as an academic/ industry appointment to act as biology lead for the PI3 kinase programme within the Fibrosis DPU, developing early discovery strategies for the development of novel therapeutics in pulmonary fibrosis. Prior to joining the Crick as Head of Collaborations in 2018, he managed the EMINENT (Experimental Medicine Initiative to Explore New Therapies) consortium; a £16M experimental medicine consortium, supported by the MRC and GSK to enable researchers from five leading UK HEIs and utilising GSK assets and expertise in experimental clinical studies to address areas of unmet need in difficult to treat inflammatory settings.
Pamela received a PhD in Biochemistry from the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee studying the signalling pathways that regulated hepatic gene expression. She then conducted postdoctoral research at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, then moved to a Senior Scientist position at the Babraham Institute, investigating the role and regulation of kinases down-stream from the proto-oncogene RAS which are involved in development and cancer. During this time she was involved in a number of Academic/Industry collaborations.
Excited by proximity inducing drugs such as PROTACs and molecular glues to induce target degradation or other beneficial protein: protein interactions, she moved to the department of Mechanistic & Structural Biology, Discovery Sciences at AstraZeneca in 2020. Here she has worked on a number of Oncology drug discovery programmes.
Angélica Figueroa obtained her bachelor's degree in biology from Complutense University of Madrid. Then, she obtained her PhD studies in 2002 in Molecular Oncology at the Biomedical Research Institute in Madrid (Spain). During her PhD, she had the opportunity to complete her research work thanks to short-term stays at prestigious international institutions including Institute for Molecular Bioscience from Queensland University, (Australia, 2001) and the National Institute on Aging-National Institute of Health (USA, 2002). In 2003, she moved to London as a postdoctoral fellow at the LMCB - Medical Research Council-University College London (2003-2008) where she became interested in studying the implication of the epithelial plasticity in tumor progression. In 2009, established her own lab at A Coruña Biomedical Research Institute (INIBIC, A Coruña) where she leads a multidisciplinary team including clinical and basic researchers specialized in different areas of knowledge. Her team is committed to cancer research and innovation.
Before joining Cancer Research UK Therapeutic Discovery laboratories as director of biology in 2015, Stuart spent more than 20 years in drug discovery and leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently he was based at the University of Manchester, where he directed the establishment of the Manchester Centre for Collaborative Research in Inflammation (MCCIR), a £15M initiative funded by GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and the University of Manchester. He is a past member of the MRC Infection and Immunity Board. Stuart has worked in several therapeutic areas and has directed major translational research initiatives in apoptosis, immunology and circadian biology. He has led discovery teams that have generated several clinical candidate molecules and has overseen biology programmes for drugs that have achieved regulatory approval and launch. In his current role he has been closely involved in the establishment of major drug discovery alliances in cancer immunology between CR-UK and various industry partners.
