Confirmed Speakers

Speakers for Eureka! 2017

_{(Photo: Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Centre)}	Prof. David Livingston Harvard Medical School, USA Prof. David Livingston is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Chairman of the Executive Committee for Research of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His work focuses on elucidating the properties and roles of groups of nuclear proteins in human cells that contribute to the suppression of transformed/neoplastic characteristics.
_{(Photo: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics)}	Prof. Alexander Meissner Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Germany Prof. Alexander Meissner is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, as well as a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society. Prior to his current position, he was a professor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. His work examines the mechanisms of somatic cell reprogramming and the regulation of the genome during pluripotency and reprogramming.
_{(Photo: Cardiff University)}	Prof. Daniela Riccardi Cardiff University, UK Prof. Daniela Riccardi obtained her PhD in Physiology between the University of Milan and the Havard Medical School, Boston, USA. In 1993, she identified and characterised the Calcium-sensing receptor (CaR) from mammalian kidney. Following her discoveries on the CaR, she has been awarded the first prize in Excellence in Research from the American Society of Nephrology and National Kidney Foundation, a Research Fellowship from the National Kidney Foundation and The Wellcome Trust Prize of Excellence in Physiology. Her laboratory has discovered the existence of these sensors throughout the body and are now investigating how these mechanisms are hijacked in diseases and how drugs targeting these sensors can be specifically used to prevent asthma, chronic kidney disease and pathological calcification of blood vessels.
_{(Photo: Friedrich Miescher Institute)}	Prof. Rainer W. Friedrich Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Switzerland Prof. Rainer W. Friedrich explores information processing and memory in the olfactory system of the zebrafish in order to understand how neuronal circuits perform intelligent computations. To that end, his group combines analyses of single neurons, neuronal population activity, circuit connectivity, and behaviour. Additionally, he is also interested in circuit dysfunctions in genetic models of autism spectrum disorders and other diseases.
_{(Photo: Polleux Lab, John Abbott)}	Prof. Franck Polleux Columbia University, USA Prof. Franck Polleux is part of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute at Columbia University. His research group focuses on the identification of the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal development in the mammalian brain, as well as, the genetic basis of human brain evolution. Among his research topics are synaptic plasticity, circuit dynamics and mitochondrial dynamics. Additionally, his lab studies the signaling pathways underlying synaptic loss during early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.
_{(Photo: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)}	Prof. Ullas Pedmale Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA Dr. Ullas Pedmale is an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, USA. He obtained his PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia and was a post-doc at the Salk Institute. His work focuses on how plants sense and integrate environmental cues in order to create the best situation for survival.
_{(Photo: Pecinka Lab)}	Dr. Ales Pecinka Max-Planck Institure for Plant Breeding Research, Germany Dr. Ales Pecinka is a group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne. He has obtained his PhD from the Leibnitz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK)/University of Halle-Wittenberg and has been a post-doctoral fellow at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Vienna, Austria. His work focuses on molecular and evolutionary mechanisms shaping plant genomes and epigenomes. Especially on how the DNA sequence and chromatin structures of plants are changed by external and internal factors and how genome repair and epigenetic mechanisms counter these changes.
_{(Photo: Alexander Dovzhenko, ResearchGate)}	Dr. Alexander Dovzhenko University of Freiburg, Germany Dr. Alexander Dovzhenko is a group leader at the Institue of Biology, University of Freiburg. He has obtained his PhD from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and was a post-doc at the University of Freiburg. His research interests range from in vitro culture techniques to potent assays for the discovery of new chemical compounds, genes and molecular mechanisms governing cellular processes.