Tom Ellis
Professor in Synthetic Genome Engineering. Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. Tom is leading a research team in synthetic genome engineering and synthetic biology in the Department of Bioengineering. He has track record in synthetic biology, being author of over 60 publications in synthetic biology including work in Science, Cell, Nature Methods, Nature Biotechnology, PNAS and Nature Reviews. He has led the UK-funded project to build a synthetic yeast chromosome for the international synthetic yeast project (Sc2.0) and been a pioneer in the field of Engineered Living Materials. He co-leads the teaching of Imperial’s synthetic biology undergraduate module and has won multiple awards for teaching and for supervision of iGEM teams. His research focuses on developing the foundational tools for design-led synthetic genomics and synthetic biology, focusing on research projects in yeast (S. cerevisiae), and particularly projects to grow new functional biomaterials. His group also do a wide variety of other synthetic biology projects relevant for industry and medicine.
Lea Mette Madsen Sommer
PhD in Systems Biology at the Technical University of Denmark’s Center for Biosustainability, delving into the evolution of pathogenic bacteria and their mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and persistence in chronic airway infections. Post-doctoral traning at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, In 2019 when Lea assumed the role of Research Data Manager at DTU’s Center for Biosustainability. Leah successfully established and led a team of specialists, dedicated to enhancing the center’s research data management processes. Our collective efforts were channeled into the development of sophisticated software for tracking data provenance, automating data capture, and promoting the FAIR principles to ensure our data was Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. In December 2023, seeking to broaden my horizons in industry practices, I joined Chr. Hansen, presently Novonesis, as the Department Manager for Research Data Management.
David Morgan
David earned his undergraduate degree in Animal Biology from the University of Calgary before pursuing a PhD in Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco. He completed subsequent postdoctoral research at UCSF before joining the departments of Physiology and Biochemistry and Biophysics as a Professor. Dr. Morgan is currently the Vice-Chair of the Department of Physiology as well as the Director of the UCSF Tetrad Graduate Program. He holds several awards including UCSF Medical School Teaching Award for Outstanding Lecture Series, UCSF Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Classroom Setting. He holds the Jack D. and DeLoris Lange Endowed Chair in Physiology, and is a Royal Society of London Fellow.
Sigrid Rajalo
Sigrid Rajalo is the Director of the Innovation and Technology Department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in Estonia. Since joining the Ministry in 2013, she has played relevant role in developing Estonia’s innovation policies. Sigrid was instrumental in creating Estonia’s first demand-side innovation policy and facilitating the country’s accession to the European Space Agency. She has held several key positions, including Head of the Innovation Policy Unit and Strategy Advisor. Additionally, Sigrid has served on the supervisory boards of Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol and Tartu Science Park, currently holding the position in state-owned company Metrosert which is launching Estonia´s very first Research and Technology Organization function. She is also a Guest Lecturer at the University of Tartu and has obtained PhD in Economics.
Katrin Kiisler
Katrin Kiisler is the Head of the Research Policy Department at the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and has a long-standing career in shaping Estonian research and higher education policies. She previously led the secretariat of the Research and Development Council at the Government Office, chaired by the prime minister, and spent two decades managing higher education and research programs at the Archimedes Foundation, Estonia’s national education agency. She holds a PhD in Higher Education Research, Evaluation, and Enhancement from Lancaster University and a master’s degree in Education Sociology from the University of Tartu. Her research interests focused on the transnational mobility of young researchers and strategies for reversing the brain drain in higher education. Katrin was a Latin and Roman literature faculty member at the University of Tartu before starting working in policy development.
Håvard Sletta
Research Director, SINTEF Industry. SINTEF is one of Europe’s largest research institutes, with multidisciplinary expertise within technology, natural sciences and social sciences. SINTEF is an independent foundation which, since 1950, has created innovation through development and research assignments for business and the public sector at home and abroad. Research and innovation for customers worldwide Since 1950, our research has created solutions and innovation for society and for customers around the globe. This has made SINTEF a world-leading research institute.
Heinz Koeppl
Heinz is currently the Director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and of the interdisciplinary graduate school Life Science Engineering at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Being one of the premier engineering schools in Germany, TU Darmstadt takes an engineering approach to synthetic biology with a strong focus on computational modeling, micro- and nanotechnology and computer-aided design. Along the same lines the Centre maintains a robotics platform that is part of the Global Biofoundry Alliance where machine learning approaches for synthetic biology are begin prototyped and developed. Heinz has been working at the intersection between computer and experimental synthetic biology for the last ten years and contributes new mathematical analysis methods as well as computer-aided design methodology. He received the ERC Consolidator Grant CONSYN for developing computational models for context-dependency of synthetic circuit.
Jussi Jantti
Jussi is a Lead in Industrial biotechnology at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, and an adjunct professor (docent) in biochemistry at the University of Helsinki. (PhD 1995 University of Helsinki, Finland). He is a participant in the EU-IBISBA infrastructure network, a member of the Board of the European Federation for Biotechnology, Microbial Biotechnology Division, Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC, USA) Council member, member of Advisory Board on Biotechnology appointed by the Government of Finland, and an Executive Committee member, Societas biochemica, biophysica et microbiologica Fenniae. His recent research has focused on the development of novel genetic engineering tools for microbes that are used in industrial biotechnology for sustainable production of a wide range of end-products.
Lars Nielsen
(DTU representative) is Professor and Chair of Biological Engineering at The University of Queensland, Senior Group Leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology (AIBN), and Scientific Director at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, DTU, Denmark. His core research interest is modelling of cellular metabolism and his team has made many contributions to the formulation and use of genome scale models. In 2015, he received a Novo Nordisk Foundation Laureate Research Grant to develop large scale, mathematical models to explore and explain the molecular basis for homeostasis – the self-regulating processes evolved to maintain metabolic equilibrium. Prof Nielsen has led the development of biofoundries in Australia (IDEA Bio) and Denmark (NNF Center for Biosustainability) and is on the executive committee of the Global Biofoundry Alliance.