Keynote Lectures

Robert S. Langer completed his undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering at Cornell University and obtained his Sc.D in Chemical Engineering at MIT.  He joined MIT as Assistant Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry in 1978.

Robert S. Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honour that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,500 articles, which have been cited over 374,000 times; his h-index of 304 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 2^nd highest of any individual in any field. His patents have licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies; he is a cofounder of a number of companies including Moderna. Dr Langer served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002.

The group’s work is at the interface of biotechnology and materials science. A major focus is the study and development of polymers to deliver drugs, particularly genetically engineered proteins, continuously at controlled rates and for prolonged periods of time.

His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of 3 living individuals to have received both these honours), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, and the Balzan Prize. He holds 40 honorary doctorates, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern, and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.

Michael N. Hall earned his B.S. with Honors, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Zoology. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France) and the University of California, San Francisco.

He joined the Biozentrum of the University of Basel (Switzerland) in 1987 where he is currently Professor and former Chair of Biochemistry. From 1995 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2009 he was head of the Division of Biochemistry, and from 2002 until 2009 was Deputy Director of the Biozentrum.

Hall is a pioneer in the fields of  TOR (Target of Rapamycin) signaling and cell growth control.  In 1991, Hall and colleagues discovered TOR and subsequently elucidated its role as a central controller of cell growth and metabolism.  The discovery of TOR led to a fundamental change in how one thinks of cell growth.  It is not a spontaneous process that just happens when building blocks (nutrients) are available, but rather a highly regulated, plastic process controlled by TOR-dependent signaling pathways.

Hall is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2009), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2014), the Canada Gairdner Award for Biomedical Research (2015), and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2017).

Dr. Samuel Achilefu is the inaugural chair and professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) in Dallas, USA. He is the Lyda Hill Distinguished University Chair and a professor of radiology at the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Before joining UTSW in February 2022, Dr. Achilefu spent over 20 years at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, where he was the inaugural Michel M. Ter-Pogossian professor of radiology. He served as the vice chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and is director of the Molecular Imaging Center at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.

Dr. Samuel Achilefu is an expert in the molecular imaging of human diseases, utilizing multimodal imaging methods to address imaging challenges focusing on optical imaging platforms. His current research interests include image-guided cancer surgery, portable imaging devices, and nanotechnology. Through a multidisciplinary team of investigators, he has guided multiple research endeavours from concept to clinic.

Dr. Achilefu is an inventor of 69 U.S. patents and published over 300 scientific papers. He received over 30 local, national and international honours and awards for research excellence, including the first Distinguished Investigator Award (Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program), the Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award and the St. Louis Award. He is a fellow of many professional societies, including the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, SPIE, Optica (formerly OSA), the Royal Society of Chemistry, AAAS, and the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. Achilefu is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Maria Yazdanbakhsh is head of the department of Parasitology which engages in basic and clinical research and employs an interdisciplinary group of scientists who focus on understanding host-parasite interactions at the molecular, cellular and population level. The knowledge gained is being applied to contribute to 1) the development of effective vaccines against parasitic diseases and 2) the identification of parasite-derived immune modulatory molecules to control hyper-inflammatory diseases.

Her specific research has been focused on the interaction of helminths along with other coinfections with their human host, immune modulation and vaccine development. The studies have led to in depth characterization of highly specialized molecules that interact with the human host leading to immune modulation and metabolic change. This knowledge is used not only for anti-parasite vaccine development, but also for developing new therapies for hyper inflammatory diseases with focus on asthma and type 2 diabetes. In her department, there has been a move to establish the controlled human helminth infection model which comprises of infecting volunteers. The controlled infection models provide opportunities to test vaccines in a relatively short period of time and thus cut the costs of vaccine development dramatically. More recently, she has been concentrating on the effect of urbanization on the immune system and its consequences on health profiles. Through decades of work in low to middle income countries, she has developed technology platforms that in a minimally invasive manner can generate large datasets on the effect of environmental factors on more general disease profiles.

In 2021, she was awarded the Spinoza Prize for her scientific achievements. The Spinoza Prize is the highest award in Dutch science.

Maybritt Kuypers MD FAWM, is specialized in Emergency Medicine, Wilderness Medicine and Aerospace Medicine.

She completed her Master’s Degree and Medical Degree in 2004 at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. After completing her MD, Maybritt Kuypers trained as an Emergency Medicine Physician at the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis in Amsterdam and has been actively working as a registered Emergency Physician since 2009 in several hospitals in the Netherlands.

She is currently finishing her PhD, with the University of Amsterdam – on Advances in Procedural Pain Management in Emergency Medicine.

In 2011 she co-founded the non-profit organisation Outdoor Medicine. Currently she is a board-member and instructor, providing specialized training for medical professionals in remote and extreme environmental settings.

In 2013 she became the first Dutch physician who earned the status of Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) with the Wilderness Medical Society in Utah.

She has experience working as an expedition medical officer, in remote regions like Antarctica (2010) and on humanitarian missions in disaster struck areas (2023).

She is an alumnus of the Principals of Aviation and Space Medicine Course at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (2012) and the Royal Netherlands Air Force Flight Surgeon Training Course (2023). Her aerospace physician career began as a civilian MD working for the Royal Netherlands Airforce in 2004. In 2013 she became the Chief Medical Officer for a pioneering commercial suborbital spaceflight company named XCOR.

As of 2016 she is a Flight Surgeon for the European Space Agency and currently she combines this with a career with the Royal Netherlands Air Force.

She has supported multiple European astronauts during their expedition to the International Space Station and several launch and landing operations of astronauts in both the USA and in Kazakhstan. She also supported multiple international space missions and operations such as ESA Mission “Minerva” / Expedition 67/68 in 2021-2022.