We are delighted to announce our 2025 invited speakers
Prof. Dr. Corina Brussaard is a Senior Research Team Leader at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and was leading the Microbiology Unit the last 10 years. She is since 2013 Professor of Viral Ecology at UvA, and since 2016 a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.
She pioneered the use of flow cytometry for high-throughput detection and enumeration of aquatic viruses. Her research demonstrates quantitative importance of viruses as mortality agents for marine microorganisms, including the unicellular algae (named phytoplankton), and highlights viruses as driving forces of marine microbial host population dynamics and biogeochemical cycling. As biological oceanographer and microbial ecologist she combines process-oriented viral ecology field research with mechanistic experimental investigations.
Corina has (co-)authored >165 publications, has been chief scientist on numerous cruises (😉), and serves/served the scientific community as editor (e.g. FEMS Microbiology Reviews), meeting organizer (e.g. 2022-GRC Marine Microbes), president of ISVM (International Society for Viruses of Microbes), Secretary of SCOR (Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research), Science Advisory Committee member for the Dutch Research Council (NWO), intiated the Netherlands Association of Virus Ecology (NAVE), and became recently board member of Division Virology of the Netherlands Society for Microbiology (KNVM).
Dr. Yanping Guo specialises in high-content flow cytometry and single-cell analysis. As the Flow Cytometry TTP Manager at UCL Cancer Institute, she supports researchers and clinicians in immunophenotyping, biomarker discovery, and cancer research. She is passionate about applying flow and mass cytometry to basic, translational, and clinical cancer research, focusing on tumour heterogeneity, the microenvironment, and immune responses.
Beyond her technical expertise, Yanping is a dedicated leader in the flow cytometry community. As part of the Technician Commitment, she leads UCL’s technical staff mentoring programme and foster professional development for technical staff. As RMS Flow Cytometry Section Chair, she oversees RMS flow cytometry meetings, courses, and events while organising training workshops.
Virginia Litwin is a thought-leader in validation and standardization focusing on “Cytometry from Bench-to-Bedside” .
She is currently the President-Elect of the International Society of the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC). In 2023, she received the International Clinical Cytometry Society (ICCS) Wallace H. Coulter Award in recognition of her contributions to Clinical Cytometry.
She is a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Flow Cytometry Standards Consortium and has been an invited speaker at FDA/NIST several times.
Virginia serves on the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Expert Panel and is the Documents Development Committee chair the CLSI guidance documents on Validation (H62 1st Edition) and Immunophenotyping (H42 3rd Edition). She is an Editor for Cytometry Part B and has been a guest editor for special issues addressing translational cytometry. She founded the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Flow Cytometry Committee.
After obtaining a Ph.D. in Virology/Immunology from the University of Iowa, Virginia joined Lewis Lanier at DNAX as a post-doctoral fellow where she identified the KIR receptor, CD158E1. She was a biomarker scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb and is currently a Director of Scientific Affairs at Eurofins Clinical Trial Solutions.
Estefanía Lozano Andrés is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University. She earned her PhD as part of the European TRAIN-EV consortium (MSCA-ITN), where she specialized in the characterization of nanoparticles and extracellular vesicles (EVs) at the single-particle level, with a focus on high-sensitivity flow cytometry.
Currently, Estefanía leads the Centre for Flow Cytometry, contributes to national and international initiatives, and collaborates on a wide range of translational research projects supervising researchers. In addition, she is an active member of international societies, such as ISEV and ISAC, and has been recognized as an Emerging Leader within the ISAC Leadership Development Program.
Her research interest is focused on unraveling the biomolecular cargo of EVs and defining EV subsets in body fluids, with the goal of advancing biomarker profiling applications. Estefanía is deeply passionate about education and is committed to advancing cytometry technologies to address complex biomedical challenges.
Lola Martínez is, since 2009, the head of the flow cytometry core unit at the Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO) in Madrid, her hometown. Her main interest is to promote flow cytometry following good practices as well as engaging with young girls to share her passion about STEM careers. Lola have been developing and participating in many training activities related to flow cytometry, core facilities and science over the years.
Apart of flow cytometry her other passions are traveling and experiencing other cultures and practising sports, particularly hiking who have bring her to summit many peaks over the years.
Lola studied Chemistry at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, obtaining a BSc and MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. After finishing her studies, she moved to London (UK) where she focus on the molecular pathways that regulate the proliferation and fate determination of mammalian cells at Prof. D. Beach’s lab at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research-UCL, was at that time that was her first encounter with flow cytometry, using a MoFlo High Speed Cell Sorter, and since them she have been working in flow cytometry and cancer research. After 6 years at UCL she joined the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute as the Deputy Head of the Flow Cytometry Laboratory, where she worked with D. Davies at the largest flow cytometry facility in Europe.
Lola have been an active Member of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC), Flow Cytometry UK (FCUK), Iberian Cytometry Society (SIC) and Core Technologies for Life Sciences (CTLS) serving in different committees and boards of these societies for many years.
Peter heads the Imaging and Cytometry Labs within the Technology Facility at the University of York which includes an array of confocal microscopes, flow cytometers and electron microscopes. Peter gained his PhD in the Cell Biophysics Laboratory at the University of Essex and has been involved in many aspects of fluorescence imaging. Research is currently focused on both technology and method development of novel probes and imaging modalities.
Peter has ongoing collaborations with many leading microscopy and cytometry companies and his group also provides research support to many academics and commercial organisations. Peter is also heavily involved with teaching microscopy and flow cytometry which includes organising and teaching on both the RMS Light Microscopy Summer School and the RMS Practical Flow Cytometry courses.
Dr. Ziv Porat is a senior staff scientist and head of the Weizmann Institute Flow Cytometry unit (the largest in Israel). His field of expertise is flow and Imaging flow cytometry, which combines the advantages of flow cytometry and microscopy. Over the past 14 years, Dr. Porat has collaborated closely with more than 400 researchers, resulting in more than 115 publications, including as being the corresponding author. His record includes lecturing at Weizmann as well as all other universities in Israel, research institutes, hospitals, and biotech companies. He has initiated, organized and lectured in the annual Israeli Imaging Flow Cytometry user meetings. In addition, Dr. Porat has gained international recognition, lectured in many international conferences, and was selected for the “SRL emerging leaders” program of the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC). He is the co-founder of the Flow Cytometry Society of Israel and active in promoting education, organizing workshops and conferences.
