Speaker

Allan Stensballe

Associate Professor, Aalborg University. Translational Pain Neuroscience & Precision Health, Aalborg, Denmark

Allan Stensballe is a teamleader and researcher at Aalborg University, Denmark, specializing in biomarkers, omics technologies, and translational clinical proteomics. His work bridges biochemistry, analytical chemistry, and clinical research to identify and validate molecular markers for disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment monitoring. With extensive experience in mass spectrometry-based proteomics and systems biology, Stensballe has contributed to advancements in understanding complex biological processes across health and disease. His research integrates multi-omics data—proteomics, metabolomics, and genomics—to uncover mechanistic insights and support precision medicine. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, Allan Stensballe aims to translate molecular discoveries into clinically relevant biomarkers and diagnostic innovations.

Ana Prohaska

Assistant Professor, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Ana Prohaska leads a research group at the intersection of ancient genomics, palaeoecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation science. Her work explores how species and ecosystems responded to past ,environmental changes, providing insights for biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change, land use shifts, and emerging diseases. By uncovering the genetic basis of resilience, her team develops tools to inform conservation and restoration strategies. Focusing on threatened keystone species, Prohaska’s research aims to recover lost genetic diversity and strengthen ecosystem resilience, contributing to global efforts to address the sixth mass extinction.

Fatima Ben Mohamed

R&D project manager at Rarecells Diagnosis, Paris, France

Doctor in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Healthcare, with over 10 years of experience as an R&D Project Manager specializing in liquid biopsy using the ISET® technology. Expert in single-cell molecular and cellular analysis, with a focus on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for cancer diagnostics and research. Successfully led multiple innovative projects and contributed to the advancement of precision oncology, highlighted by more than 10 peer-reviewed publications. 

Laurel Hiatt

MD/PhD candidate, University of Utah, Department of Human Genetics, Salt Lake City, USA

Laurel Hiatt is an M.D./Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Genetics. Through a National Cancer Institute fellowship, their dissertation explores how mutational patterns in normal colon tissue may influence the development of colorectal cancer. Additionally, Laurel applies expertise in bioinformatics to study disorders caused by short tandem repeat expansions (such as Huntington’s disease), diagnose pediatric rare disease cases, and evaluate health disparities in transgender populations through electronic health records. Laurel serves on a Genetics Society of America subcommittee and anticipates a career as a physician scientist in pediatric medical genetics.

Tancredi Massimo Pentimalli

Scientist at the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology (MDC-BIMSB), Berlin, Germany

Tancredi combines an interdisciplinarytraining in medicine (MD, University La Sapienza in Rome) and computational biology (PhD, Charite Universitatsmedizin in Berlin)and he is interested in the systems-level analysis of human diseases, particularly focusing on the tumor microenvironment (TME). 

After his medical training, he joined the group of Nikolaus Rajewsky where he developed approaches for the multimodal spatial analysis of TME in 3 and 4D (time).  Now at the end of his PhD, he is looking forward to opportunities for the clinical translation of spatial transcriptomic approaches.

Pedro Escoll

Associate Professor at the Microbiology Department of Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Pedro Escoll leads the "Metabolic Host-Bacteria Interactions" team at the Institut Pasteur, studying how intracellular pathogens reprogram host cell metabolism. Focusing on Legionella pneumophila and Salmonella Typhimurium, his team uses human primary macrophages to explore how bacteria reshape host metabolic networks. By combining cell biology, bacterial genetics, advanced bioimaging, and single-cell metabolic profiling, they investigatethe metabolic heterogeneity of macrophages during infection. By tracking single-cell responses, they have built AI models predicting infection outcomes from mitochondrial signals and metabolic dynamics. Their goal is to identify metabolic vulnerabilities toguide host-directed therapies against intracellular bacterial infections.