• Plenary Speakers

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    Pr. Molly Stevens
    Professor of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine and the Research Director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Department of Materials, Department of Bioengineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London.

         		 Molly Stevens is Professor of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine and the Research Director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Department of Materials, in the Department of Bioengineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London. 
    Prof Stevens’ multidisciplinary research balances the investigation of fundamental science with the development of technology to address some of the major healthcare challenges. Her work has been instrumental in elucidating the bio-material interfaces. She has created a broad portfolio of designer biomaterials for applications in disease diagnostics and regenerative medicine. Her substantial body of work influences research groups around the world with over 30 major awards for the groups research and Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field research. 
    Prof. Stevens holds numerous leadership positions including Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform "Smart Acellular Materials" Hub and Deputy Director of the EPSRC IRC in Early-Warning Sensing Systems for Infectious Diseases.
     
    Pr. Matthias Lutolf
    Professor of Bioengineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and founding Scientific Director of the newly established Roche Institute for Translational Bioengineering

    Matthias Lutolf is Professor of Bioengineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and founding Scientific Director of the newly established Roche Institute for Translational Bioengineering. His highly innovative and crossdisciplinary research focuses on the development of advanced bioengineering strategies to produce next-generation organoids with improved reproducibility and physiological relevance for basic research and real-world applications in drug discovery and precision medicine. For example, he pioneered the generation of organoids in fully controllable hydrogel matrices and novel approaches to control organoid patterning and morphogenesis through microfluidics, bioprinting, and microfabrication.
     
    Pr. Kristi Anseth
    Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Head of Academic Leadership of the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado. 



         		 Kristi Anseth is the Tisone Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, a Distinguished Professor, and Associate Faculty Director of the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Anseth came to CU-Boulder after earning her B.S. degree from Purdue University, her Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado, and completing post-doctoral research at MIT as an NIH fellow. Her research interests lie at the interface between biology and polymer science where she designs new biomaterials for applications in drug delivery and regenerative medicine. Dr. Anseth’s research group has published over 350 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and she has trained more than 110 graduate students and postdoctoral associates. She is an elected member of the US National Academy Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, and National Academy of Sciences.   In 2020, she received the L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Award in the Life Sciences.
     
    Pr. Marja A. Boermeester
    Professor of Surgery; surgeon and clinical epidemiologist. Department of Surgery, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location AMC (suite J1A-228), Amsterdam, NL.

         		 Marja Boermeester is Professor of surgery and a clinical epidemiologist at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (AUMC), and principal investigator of many multicenter trials on diagnostics and treatment of abdominal infections. She received many grants, (e.g., > 10 National Health Care & Efficacy Research Grants) and trials were published in international high-ranked journals (NEJM, JAMA, Radiology, BMJ, Lancet, Ann Surg). Her core business is surgery of abdominal infections, complex abdominal wall repair (CAWR), and intestinal failure surgery. 
    She chairs a successful Intestinal Failure Team and CAWR unit in Amsterdam in the AUMC, with referrals from all over the country and is an international expert center on intestinal failure surgery. She has 15 PhD fellows under her supervision, and more than 35 previous PhDs. 
    Pr Marja Boermeester is member or chair of several national and international guideline committees (Antibiotics in Sepsis, Chronic Pancreatitis, Peri-operative Patient Safety, Diagnostics of Acute Abdominal Pain, Emergency Surgery, Incisional hernia surgery..). 
    Previous editor of British Journal of Surgery, Pr Marja Boermeester is member of the Editorial Board of JAMA Surg.  She is the President of the Surgical Infection Society Europe (SIS-E) (2019-2022).
     
    Pr. José-Alain Sahel
    Vision Research Institute, Sorbonne University, Paris, France.

         		 MD, is Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Exceptional Class Professor of Ophthalmology at Sorbonne Université. He is a clinician-scientist who developed a groundbreaking neuroprotective therapeutic strategy to rescue sight and launched translational first-in-man studies with electronic retinal implants, gene and cell therapies, and optogenetics to restore vision in patients with untreatable blinding retinal degenerations. He co-authored over 660 peer-reviewed articles and 40 patents.