SPEAKERS AND CHAIRS OF THE 2019 WORKSHOP

MATHIAS UHLEN

Mathias Uhlen’s research is focused on protein science, antibody engineering and precision medicine and ranges from basic research in human and microbial biology to more applied research, including clinical applications in cancer, infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and neurobiology. It has resulted in more than 550 publications with a current h-index of 111. His group was the first to describe a number of innovations including: engineered protein A and protein G for purification of antibodies, affinity tags for purification of recombinant fusion proteins, solid phase techniques for DNA handling using the biotin-streptavidin system, Pyrosequencing leading to the first next generation DNA sequencing instrument (454/Roche), and Affibodies, protein binders aimed at therapeutic applications. Since 2003, he has led an international effort to systematically map the human proteome with antibodies and to create an open source knowledge-based resource called the Human Protein Atlas (www.proteinatlas.org).

KERSTIN MEYER

Kerstin is a Principal Staff Scientist at the Sanger Institute and interested in understanding the regulation of gene expression in health and disease. Kerstin did her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Imperial College, London, followed by a PhD in immunology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Since then she has worked at the University of Cambridge studying aspects of gene regulation in immunology and gene regulatory networks in breast and lung cancer. Her appointments have included a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and a Group Leader position at the Department of Oncology. She is currently co-ordinating the Human Cell Atlas efforts at the Sanger Institute.

HIDDE PLOEGH

Hidde Ploegh performed  his Ph.D. work with Jack Strominger at Harvard University. After positions in Germany and the Netherlands, he held the Mallinckrodt Professorship in Immunopathology at Harvard Medical School, and joined the faculty of MIT and the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Ploegh has driven the analysis of antigen presentation. His lab was the first to report the cloning of cDNA for a human MHC product and pioneered the use of HLA transgenic mice to examine human MHC products as restriction elements. He established the importance of the intersection between the endocytic pathway and the intracellular trafficking routes of Class II MHC products as key to antigen presentation.  His recent work on bacterial sortases provided tools for the generation of previously genetically impossible protein transformations, leading to improved cytokines and improved single domain camelid antibodies. He is a correspondent of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, a member of EMBO and NAS, and a fellow of AAAS.

ULF LANDEGREN

Ulf Landegren MD PhD is Professor of Molecular Medicine in Uppsala University, where his group develops molecular tools for precision medicine at the levels of nucleic acids and proteins. He is a member of EMBO, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Scientific Advisory Committee for European Academies, as well as several industrial scientific advisory boards. He has authored 200+ peer-reviewed publications, and is the inventor of 44 patents. His lab has developed technologies such as padlock probes and proximity ligation and extension reactions. The technologies have been licensed to 15 international biotech and diagnostic companies, and nine companies have their origin in his lab.

JÖRG HOHEISEL

Jörg Hoheisel heads the Division of Functional Genome Analysis at the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ; German Cancer Research Center) in Heidelberg, Germany. His research objective is the development and immediate application of technologies for an assessment and description of the realisation and regulation of cellular function from genetic information. He currently has a particular focus on the analysis of protein variations and interactions by means of affinity proteomics. Another line of work is Synthetic Biology for the in vitro production of functional biomolecules and the establishment of artificial molecular systems. Earlier achievements were his involvement in the sequencing of the yeast genome as a coordinator and developments in the area of microarray technology. Jörg has also co-founded five companies; another four were formed independently by former group members.

SUSANNE GRÄSLUND

Susanne Gräslund did her doctoral training in Biotechnology at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, developing the concepts for what later became the Human Protein Atlas Project. After her dissertation in 2002 she worked for three years at Biovitrum AB in the Target Expression & Purification section. In March 2005, Susanne joined the newly started Structural Genomics Consortium group in Stockholm, heading the Biotechnology team responsible for the generic protein production pipeline. She was then recruited to the SGC Toronto site as Principal Investigator for the Biotechnology team in September 2011 and to manage the SGC efforts to make recombinant antibodies to SGC target proteins. In 2015, SGC established a new lab at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, funded by Innovative Medicines Initiative where Dr. Gräslund is having a leading role.

ANDREAS PLÜCKTHUN

Andreas Plückthun is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Zürich. His research is centered on protein engineering. His contributions have included many aspects of structure-based antibody engineering, expression technology, design of synthetic antibody libraries, the development of ribosome display as an in vitro protein evolution technology, development of new scaffolds (the DARPin technology), and the directed evolution of G-protein coupled receptors towards high stability. His lab is combining computer-aided protein design, directed evolution, biophysics and cell biology. He is a member of the German Academy of Science (Leopoldina) and EMBO. His work has been published in over 400 papers, which have been cited over 33,000 times (h-index 106). He has receive numerous prizes including the 2016 Christian Anfinsen Award for "pioneering contributions to protein engineering". He co-founded MorphoSys AG (1992), Molecular Partners AG in Zurich (2004) and G7 Therapeutics in Zurich (2014). 

MICHAEL WEINER

Michael Weiner, Ph.D. has successfully delivered several well-known products to the research marketplace, including QuikChange Mutagenesis (Stratagene Cloning Systems, over 100,000 citations in the literature), Luminex bead-based SNP genotyping, Next Generation DNA sequencing (454 Life Sciences, >6,000 citations), and microfluidic-based digital PCR (RainDance Technologies).  He is currently the VP of Molecular Sciences at Abcam where his primary responsibilities are to develop and oversee advanced methods for the discovery and production of recombinant antibodies.  His recent research has been focused on a means to identify de novo and produce high affinity IgG molecules within 2 weeks upon receipt of an antigen.

FRIDTJOF LUND-JOHANSEN

Fridtjof Lund-Johansen leads a proteomics research group at the Oslo University Hospital in Norway. The goal of his research is to develop a unified platform for antibody-and mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. His technology is called Microsphere Affinity Proteomics (MAP) and involves labelling and extensive fractionation of sample proteins followed by parallel readout with MS- and microsphere-based antibody arrays.  With MAP, the targets of thousands of antibodies are resolved as discrete reactivity peaks across the fractions, and the MS results are used to identify peaks that correspond to specific binding. By allowing parallel use of thousands of antibodies, MAP brings a true proteomics perspective into the field of antibody-based detection.

SAREL FLEISHMAN

Sarel Fleishman is an assistant professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where his team develops methods for computational design of proteins, including antibodies, vaccine immunogens, and therapeutic enzymes. The team recently developed a fully automated method, called PROSS, for dramatically improving the stability and expressibility of recalcitrant proteins and methods for improving affinity, specificity, and catalytic rates in antibodies and enzymes. As a postdoc with David Baker, Dr. Fleishman developed the first accurate methods for designing protein binders, culminating in the design of broad-specificity influenza inhibitors. The team currently focuses on automated design of repertoires of conventional and camelid antibodies for one-shot isolation of high-affinity, site-targeted binders and inhibitors.

ODA STOEVESANDT

Oda Stoevesandt is Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Protein Arrays Ltd. With a background in biochemistry and physical chemistry, her main interest is in the parallel detection of biomolecular interactions. During her PhD at the University of Tübingen, Gemany, she developed methods for the detection of protein-protein interactions based on fluorescence cross correlation spectroscopy, before moving into the field of peptide and protein microarrays. At the Babraham Institute (Cambridge, UK) she optimised a protein array based on cell free protein expression from a re-useable DNA template. Oda was then part of the set-up of Cambridge Protein Arrays Ltd, a biotech company offering protein array services as well as distributing arrays. In the context of affinity reagents, Oda was also centrally involved in the successful application and coordination of the EU FP6 and FP7 projects Proteome Binders (2006-2010), Affinity Proteome (2009-2012) and Affinomics (2010-2015). 

CARL BORREBAECK

Carl Borrebaeck received the first chair as professor of Immunotechnology in Scandinavia 1989. His main research interests are cancer proteomics, for early detection and prognosis, and antibody engineering, for the generation of human therapeutic antibodies. He founded CREATE Health Translational Cancer Center 2006 and has authored 350 peer-reviewed publications, and is the inventor of over 50 patents. He is a permanent member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He received the AKZO Nobel Science Award 2009, for his contributions to cancer proteomics and antibody-based therapy, the Research!Sweden Award 2012 for his medical research of value for patients and health organizations, and the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences Gold Medal 2012 for outstanding contributions to biomedical science. His research has resulted in several spin-out companies, such as BioInvent International AB, Alligator Bioscience AB, Immunovia AB, SenzaGen AB, and most recently PainDrainer AB.

ANDREW BRADBURY

Andrew Bradbury is the Chief Scientific Officer of Specifica, (www.specifica.bio), a start-up founded in 2016 to sell unique client specific antibody libraries. He has worked in the field of phage display and antibody engineering for over 30 years, receiving his Ph.D. at Cambridge University in the MRC under Cesar Milstein, then carrying out research at the CNR Rome and SISSA in Trieste, before moving to the Los Alamos National Lab in 1999, where he became a group leader in 2010.  He left LANL for Specifica in 2017. He was a founder member and the first president (2007-2010) of The Antibody Society, a professional society for all aspects of antibodies. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles, including reviews and perspectives on phage display and antibody engineering. His present research interests lie in library construction and selection using next generation sequencing, and he has developed an antibody selection pipeline that combines phage and yeast display in methods that exploit the advantages of each. He maintains an active interest in technology development as it relates to display methods and antibody engineering, and has a long-standing interest in the role auto-antibodies play in the etiology of Celiac disease.

MICHAEL HUST

Michael studied biology at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität in Oldenburg, Germany, from 1993-1999. He received his PhD from the Leibniz Universität in Hannover, Germany, in 2002. Since end of 2002 he is working as group leader at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. In 2011, he finished his professorial dissertation (Habilitation) and was appointed as Privatdozent. In 2014 he was appointed as professor for biotechnology.

He published more than 120 articles and filed five patents in the field of antibody engineering and phage display. He co-founded two biotech companies, the mAb-Factory GmbH in 2007 and the YUMAB GmbH in 2012.

ANITA BANDROWSKI

Anita Bandrowski leads the RRID Initiative, an inter-journal agreement to improve the representation of key biological resources such as antibodies in the scientific literature. The initiative’s goal is to reach every journal in biomedicine, and currently includes over 100 journals from all major publishers, where journal staff actively engage with authors to improve antibody citation practices. Dr. Bandrowski created the antibodyregistry.org in order to address the question of ‘how many antibodies are available to the research community’ and how can they be accounted for and unambiguously cited. The antibodyregistry.org is the authority for antibody identification and it provides RRIDs to authors. Dr. Bandrowski is also co-founder and CEO of SciCrunch, a company that is devoted to creating tools to support journals and author interactions with RRIDs.

PETER NILSSON

Peter Nilsson is a Professor in Proteomics at SciLifeLab, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his PhD degree in Biotechnology from KTH in 1998. Since 2002, he has been the head of the Protein Microarray group within the Human Protein Atlas and the director of the Affinity Proteomics national platform at SciLifeLab since 2013. He is also the Vice Dean of KTH School of Biotechnology.  Peter has been a member of the steering group of HUPO Human Brain Proteome Project (HBPP) since 2015. His research focus is based on the development and utilisation of various antibody, protein, peptide and serum microarray technologies for protein and autoantibody profiling in body fluids and biomarker discovery applications, mainly within neuroscience and inflammation. For publications see publicationslist.com/nipe.

JAMES TRIMMER

Professor Trimmer's research program focuses on the expression, localization and function of neuronal ion channel complexes at the proteomic level, and on generation, validation and use of antibodies in diverse neuroscience research applications. He also directs the UC Davis/NIH NeuroMab Facility that generates high qualicty, low cost monoclonal antibodies for neuroscience research. Validation efforts include diverse assays on brain samples, and transparent reporting of the results, enhancing the utility of NeuroMabs across many areas of neuroscience research. These efforts have resulted in distribution of over 50,000 vials of low cost antibodies, and over 2,000 research publications citing the facility.

JOCHEN SCHWENK

Jochen M. Schwenk is Associate Professor for Translational Proteomics at KTH - Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the Director of the Biobank Profiling facility at the Science for Life Laboratory and a Principal Investigator within the Human Protein Atlas and the KTH Center for Applied Precision Medicine (KCAP). Jochen is the current chair of HUPO’s Plasma Proteome Project (HPPP) and represents the Antibody Resource Pillar in the executive committee of Human Proteome Project. Jochen’s research focuses on affinity proteomics methods for multiplexed bead-based plasma analysis in large sample sets from population and different disease areas. With the aim to translate discoveries into applications, his team is working on novel affinity-based assays, methods for antibody validation, mass spectrometry, experimental study designs, processing of data and statistical analyses.

ALEJANDRA SOLACHE

Alejandra joined Abcam in December 2013 and is responsible for managing the output of Abcam’s Global New Product Development and Validation efforts of teams in Cambridge, Hangzhou, Eugene and Branford, CT.  She also plays a key role in developing Abcam’s innovation strategy.  Prior to joining Abcam, Alejandra spent 8 years at EMD-Millipore, where she held various positions, latterly as R&D Director, leading the Antibody and Assay Development teams.  She gained expertise in immunology, cell signalling and epigenetics through postdoctoral fellowships at UCSF and the Trudeau Institute. She was trained as a life science researcher and holds an MS degree in Biochemistry from the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico and a PhD in Immunology from the University College London.

JOHN McCAFFERTY

John McCafferty was one of the founders of Cambridge Antibody Technology (now Medimmune, Cambridge) in 1990 and published the first paper/patent describing antibody phage display. Work during this time included the discovery of the antibody which became Humira, the world's biggest selling drug. After 12 years at CAT he returned to academia at the Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge. In 2012 John formed IONTAS, an innovative biotechnology company using phage display to develop novel antibody therapeutics. In this period John has also developed a novel technology allowing the construction of very large mammalian display libraries permitting the direct discovery of high affinity antibodies with optimal biophysical properties. Finally John has led the development of a novel molecular fusion format wherein naturally occurring, venom-derived cysteine-rich peptides (knottins) are inserted into peripheral CDR loops of an antibody. The resultant bi-specific fusion molecule (KnotBody) retains the folding and function of both knottin and antibody and combines the benefits of each. By this approach IONTAS have already generated ion channel blocking KnotBodies to Nav1.7, Kv1.3 and Asic1a.

DARIO NERI

Dario Neri studied Chemistry at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and earned a PhD in Chemistry at the ETH Zürich, under the supervision of Professor Kurt Wüthrich. After post-doctoral research at the Medical Research Council Centre in Cambridge (UK), under the supervision of Sir Gregory Winter, he moved to the ETH Zürich in 1996, where he is currently Full Professor of Biomacromolecules at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences. The research of the Neri group focuses on the engineering of therapeutic antibodies for the therapy of cancer and other angiogenesis-related disorders. Other research activities include the chemical proteomic discovery of novel vascular markers of pathology and the development of DNA-encoded chemical libraries. Dario Neri is a co-founder of Philogen (www.philogen.com), a Swiss-Italian biotech company which has brought various antibody products into multicenter clinical trials for the treatment of cancer and of chronic inflammatory conditions. He has published over 350 articles and received the ISOBM Abbott Prize 2000, the Amgen-Dompe’ Biotec Award 2000, the Mangia d’Oro 2001, the Prous Award 2006, the Robert-Wenner-Prize 2007, the SWISS BRIDGE Award 2008, the Prix Mentzer in 2011, the Phoenix Prize 2014 and an ERC Advanced Grant in 2015.

BIRGIT DREIER

Dr. Birgit Dreier has been Senior Scientist in the group of Prof. Dr. A. Plückthun at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Zurich, for more than 10 years and is responsible for the organization, optimization and selection of DARPin (Designed Ankyrin Repeat Proteins) and other scaffold binders and their validation. Here she recently expanded her focus and is leading the High Throughput-Binder Selection Facility (HT-BSF). Prior to this engagement she acquired a strong background in Phage Display using different protein scaffolds (e.g. Fab fragments and zinc finger domains) during her PhD at the Department of Genetics, University of Erlangen, and her postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego.

NEBOJSA JANJIC

Nebojsa Janjic has been CSO at SomaLogic since 2009 developing a new generation of aptamers for biomedical applications. Prior to SomaLogic, Dr. Janjic was co-founder and CSO at Replidyne, a company developing new antibiotics, and NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, the original aptamer company. His contributions include the early development of Macugen, the first aptamer and the first VEGF inhibitor approved for the treatment of macular degeneration. Dr. Janjic received a bachelor's degree in molecular biology and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from University of Washington in Seattle and completed postdoctoral training at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla as Cancer Research Institute Fellow.

JAN STEYAERT

Jan Steyaert is full professor and Francqui Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Research Director of the VIB-VUB center for Structural Biology. Recently, the Steyaert lab pioneered the use of nanobodies for chaperone-assisted X-ray crystallography (www.steyaertlab.eu), aiming at the highest hanging fruits of structural biology including membrane proteins, amyloidogenic proteins, and now also (transient) multiprotein complexes. The elucidation of the first GPCR structures in the agonist-bound active state demonstrate the power of Nanobodies to stabilize G protein coupled receptor conformational states including transmembrane signalling complexes. Recent work focuses on exploiting the conformational complexity of therapeutic targets for nanobody-enabled drug discovery and on the applications of nanobodies in single particle cryo-EM. He is also co-founder of Ablynx (www.ablynx.com) and Agrosafve (www.agrosafve.com), and founder of ConFo Therapeutics (www.confotherapeutics.com), three successful biotech spin-offs that valorize a unique family of single domain antibodies (nanobodies) derived from camels.

ANN HOLMBERG

Ann Holmberg has worked as Sales Director for Qlucore since 2010, providing easy to use bioinformatic software to help biomedical researchers to be able to easily visualize and analyze their complex protein and gene expression data. After achieving her Master of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Lund, Ann started her career in the biotech industry with development of medi-technical devices and analytical methods based on affinity chromatography. Ann then moved on to a position as Marketing and Sales Manager in the Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) area in 1992, covering the Nordic region for Wilnor and later LabWare Nordic.

LARRY GOLD

Dr. Larry Gold is the Founder, Chairman, and Past CEO of SomaLogic. Prior to SomaLogic, he founded NeXagen, which merged with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to form a global organization committed to the discovery, development and commercialization of novel products that treat infectious diseases. Dr. Gold is a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he was Chairman of the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department from 1988 to 1992. Dr. Gold is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and he is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

MARKUS SEEGER

Markus Seeger is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Zurich. Research in his lab is funded by a Swiss National Foundation professorship and an ERC consolidator grant. His group is specialized in generating binders against challenging integral membrane proteins and applies them to investigate transport processes in pathogenic bacteria at the molecular level. He engineered synthetic single domain antibodies (sybodies) to trap membrane transporters in defined conformational states. His group recently invented NestLink, a novel binder generation technology centering on genetically encoded barcoding peptides that allow for binder selections in the absence of a physical genotype-phenotype linkage.

SIMON GOODMAN

Simon Goodman consults on therapeutics and biomarkers targeting cell-adhesion.  He has created and validated many tool and therapeutic antibodies.  As principal scientist at Merck KGaA for 25 years, he was preclinical lead during development of the anti-integrin drugs Cilengitide and Abituzumab - and generated the affinity reagents used in their clinical biomarker studies.  His doctorate was in biochemistry (University of Sussex - 1977).  Work on immunogold reagents for SEM (ICRF - London) was followed by studies on antibodies modulating cell-adhesion (MPI Tübingen - Walter Birchmeier), and on laminin receptors (MPI Martinsried and Erlangen - Klaus von der Mark), where he discovered integrin a7b1. Collaborations with MGH (Amin Arnaout) led to the first integrin X-ray structures.

ANNA MÅNBERG

Anna Månberg did her PhD between 2010 and 2015 in the Protein Microarray Technology group at SciLifeLab Stockholm, KTH – Royal Institute of Technology. The title of her thesis was “Neuroproteomic profiling in human body fluids” and the work performed within the Human Protein Atlas Project. Since then she has been working as a researcher and is currently heading the neuroproteomics research group at SciLifeLab as a co-PI together with professor Peter Nilsson. The work of the group is focused on development and application of protein and antibody microarray technologies for biomarker discovery, both protein and autoantibody profiles, in the areas of frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and psychiatric illness.

DEAN CLIFT

Dean Clift is co-inventor of Trim-Away, a new technology that uses antibodies to target endogenous cellular proteins for degradation. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh where he worked on chromosome cohesion in the lab of Adele Marston. He then joined the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge as a postdoc in Melina Schuh's lab to work on mammalian female meiosis. Together with Melina Schuh and Leo James, discoverer of the cytosolic antibody receptor TRIM21, he developed the Trim-Away method. He showed that Trim-Away can be used to rapidly degrade endogenous proteins in a wide range of cell types, including primary human cells. Dean is currently a postdoc in Leo James' lab where he is working on novel targeted protein degradation technologies.

THOMAS SCHIRRMANN

Thomas Schirrmann is expert in tumor immunology, immunotherapy and recombinant antibody technologies for more than 20 years. He obtained his PhD in immunology working on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) gene modified Natural Killer (NK) cells for targeted tumor immunotherapy. In 2005, he became research group leader at the University of Braunschweig. He gained a very broad interdisciplinary expertise in next generation recombinant antibody discovery, engineering and expression technologies, bispecific antibodies, recombinant fusion proteins and CARs as well as gene and immunotherapy. Thomas is author of more than 70 research articles, reviews and scientific book chapters. He is co-inventor of several patents and co-founder of two companies. Since 2012, he is CEO of the award-winning German biotech company YUMAB, which develops fully human antibodies for clients and partners world-wide bridging the gap between research innovation and biopharmaceutical industry (www.yumab.com).

SOPHIE HERNOT

Sophie Hernot obtained her Master of Science in Bio-engineering from the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels. She completed her PhD thesis in Medical Sciences in 2011 on the use of microbubbles (ultrasound contrast agents) as well as Nanobodies for molecular imaging and drug delivery applications. As post-doctoral researcher, and since 2016 as assistant professor in the Laboratory of In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging (ICMI, VUB), her research interests are two-fold: 1) design and validation of nanobodies for optical imaging applications, and in particular towards a clinical translation for image-guided surgery, and 2) validation of nanobody-based molecular probes for identification and characterization of high-risk atherosclerotic lesions.

BERND BODENMILLER

Bernd Bodenmiller studied biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth and ETH Zürich and obtained his PhD for his work on system-wide signaling network analysis in the group of Ruedi Aebersold at ETH Zürich. For his postdoctoral training, he joined the laboratory of Garry P. Nolan at Stanford University. There he developed methods for the high throughput analysis of signaling network states by mass cytometry, a technology that allows in principle to quantify 135 proteins and their modifications at the single cell level. In 2012, he became group leader and in 2013 SNF/ERC assistant professor at the University of Zürich. His group develops experimental and computational methods for the comprehensive analysis of tumor ecosystems using highly multiplexed imaging of tissues by mass cytometry. His lab uses these methods to unravel how cells in the tumour microenvironment drive cancer development and ultimately might be exploited for therapeutic targeting.

ULRICH ROTHBAUER

Ulrich Rothbauer is Professor for pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Tuebingen. He received his PhD at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Munich, in the group of Prof. Walter Neupert revealing the pathomechanism of a mitochondrial disease. In 2006 he became an independent group leader focusing on the development of nanobody-derived tools for protein purification, proteomics and cellular diagnostics. 2008 he founded the Biotech company ChromoTek, which becomes the leading provider of innovative research reagents and technologies based on the nano-/chromobody-technology. His current work is focused on the development of novel chromobodies to visualize endogenous antigens in cellular screening models and on the development of nanobodies as affinity tools for protein analysis and high resolution imaging.

ANDREW CHALMERS

Dr Chalmers has a strong interest in improving the reliability of research antibodies. He is a senior lecturer based at the University of Bath and one of the founders and the Chief Scientific Officer of the life science data company CiteAb. CiteAb runs a citation based antibody search engine which helps researchers find antibodies which are suitable for their experiments. He is also a founding guest editor of the F1000Research Antibody Validation Channel that hosts a collection of articles on antibody validation. His research focuses on understanding the behaviour of epithelial cells, with recent work investigating the role of stem cell regulators in prostate cancer.

PETER MCPHERSON

Peter McPherson is a James McGill Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University where he is Director of the Neurodegenerative Disease Research Group. He received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Iowa working with Dr. Kevin P Campbell and performed post-doctoral training with Dr. Pietro De Camilli at Yale. His laboratory uses biochemical, cell biological, molecular biological and structural approaches to identify and functionally characterize proteins regulating membrane trafficking in the endosomal system. He has published pioneering papers using subcellular proteomics to study the molecular make up of clathrin-coated vesicles and has identified numerous links between endocytic membrane trafficking and neurological disease including ataxia, ALS and epileptic encephalopathy. Dr. McPherson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

SOPHIA HOBER

Sophia Hober is Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. The focus of her current research group is development of predictable and robust systems for protein purification and detection by protein design and various selection methodologies. Her key scientific achievements include design and development of gene fusion systems for selective ion-exchange purification, improvements of the alkaline tolerance of protein A and protein G for industrial purification of IgG/HSA (currently a product sold by GE-Health care) as well as a protein A variant with calcium dependent binding to IgG. Moreover, small bispecific protein domains with ability to strongly and selectively bind to two different proteins have been developed. Furthermore, she is part of the executive management team within the Human Protein Atlas. During 2011-2015, she was appointed dean of faculty at KTH-the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden and thereby part of the executive management team of the university.

VICTOR GREIFF

Victor Greiff is an Associate Professor at the University of Oslo (Department of Immunology) since January 2018. His group develops machine learning, computational and experimental tools to decipher, read, predict and re-engineer antibody and T-cell repertoires with the aim to develop fundamentally novel immunodiagnostics, vaccines and immunotherapeutics. He performed his postdoctoral research at ETH Zürich in the laboratory of Sai T. Reddy.

BRIAN KAY

Brian K. Kay earned his A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in cell biology at the University of Chicago and Yale University, respectively. He then did post-doctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, where he learned developmental biology and honed his skills in molecular biology. He then had academic appointments at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he is currently Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. At UIC, he has served in a variety of leadership positions, such as department Head, Vice Chair of the UIC Senate, and campus scientific director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium. In 2015 and 2016, he was named "University Scholar" and "Inventor of the Year," respectively, at UIC. His research is focused on mapping protein-protein interactions, generating recombinant affinity reagents, and phage-display.

CECILE VINCKE

Cécile Vincke is a Belgian scientist who studied Bio-engineering Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. After her Master, she started a PhD at the Laboratory for Cellular and Molecular Immunology under the supervision of Prof. S. Muyldermans. Her research was mainly focused on the humanization of camelid Nanobodies and the identification of Nanobodies against Alzheimer’s Disease. After her PhD in 2009, she continued her research in the same facility as contributing partner in the EU granted ‘Affinomics’ consortium till 2015. Currently her main objectives are to continuously broaden the efficacy of Nanobodies and extend their applications in medical or biotechnological fields, such as functional genomics, structural genomics and proteomics, where the unique properties of Nanobodies offer a clear advantage over other antibody formats.

NIV PAPO

As a molecular biologist focusing on protein engineering and cancer imaging and therapy, Niv Papo joined the Ben Gurion University faculty in 2011, and his research focuses on the development of new mono- and multi-specific proteins and protein-small molecule conjugates that promise to aid in both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. His areas of expertise include protein-protein interactions, protein engineering, angiogenesis, metastasis, cancer biology, targeted cancer therapy, in vivo imaging, directed evolution and synthetic biology. More generally, he and his research team are developing methods that allow to design mono- and multi-functional proteins with optimized and targeted pharmaceutical properties.

VOLKER STADLER

Dr. Volker Stadler is the CEO and cofounder of PEPperPRINT. He graduated in chemistry at Heidelberg University and received his PhD in physical chemistry. At the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Dr. Stadler contributed to the development PEPperPRINT’s new peptide microarray technology which was published in Science and Angewandte Chemie. From 2009 on, he was responsible for the translation of the peptide microarray technology into a commercial product and service business and launched PEPperPRINT in 2010. PEPperPRINT was awarded with various innovation and business awards and reached the break-even in 2014. In 2016, Dr. Volker Stadler was appointed to the Executive Board of the BioRN biotech cluster Rhine-Neckar.

PATRIK WOLLBERG

Patrik Wollberg is currently heading the Antibody Validation and Applications team at Atlas Antibodies. The team develops highly validated monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies for the research market by, for example, orthogonal and independent antibody strategies. He has a PhD from Stockholm University, Sweden and deep experience in cell biology from both the pharmaceutical and bioprocess industry. Following a post doc, he joined AstraZeneca, in 2001, as Senior Scientist working with preclinical drug discovery of pain and analgesia research areas. Later, as team leader, he was responsible for a team generating tools for target expression and assay development. From 2012 until joining Atlas Antibodies in 2018, he worked at GE Healthcare as Scientist and Project Leader developing methods for upstream bioprocessing using cells expressing recombinant antibodies. In addition, he defined the specifications for developing new antibody expression systems for CHO cells.

MARTIN LUNDBERG

Martin has a long history with Olink Proteomics and is a co-inventor of the Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) technology that is used for Olink’s high-multiplexed protein biomarker panels. As CTO, he works cross-functionally with development of novel technologies, products and analytical methods within the area of targeted proteomics. Martin has a strong technological focus with a background in molecular biotechnology engineering at Uppsala University.

MATT BAKER

Matt currently works in a strategy and business development role for Thermo Fisher Scientific and has been working in the antibody research space for more than 25 years. During this time he has served multiple roles including leading R&D and product management teams in the development of thousands of antibodies. More recently, Matt worked to help organize the IWGAV and has participated in the ongoing discussions on how to improve antibody characterization and testing standards. He believes that antibodies are critical to research and is committed to finding ways to continually advance validation practices and methods.

MICHAEL FIEBIG

Michael is the Business Development Director at Absolute Antibody Ltd with focus on research reagent products and new technologies. Prior to joining Absolute Antibody in 2014, he obtained his doctoral degree at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. Michael is responsible for bringing new reagents into Absolute Antibody's catalogue and designing new recombinant formats based on these to help customers perform cleaner and more meaningful experiment, as well as explore novel experimental approaches.

JÜRGEN SCHMITZ

Jürgen Schmitz serves as the Chief Scientific Officer at Miltenyi Biotec in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. He is part of the management board. Before joining the company in 1994, he started his scientific career at the Institute of Genetics, University of Cologne, where he wrote his diploma thesis and his PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Andreas Radbruch. He acquired a broad expertise in immunology including cellular and humoral immunology, which he constantly expanded. Today, he supervises a highly interdisciplinary team of about 300 employees, covering an entire spectrum of activities from basic research to applied research to product development. Antibody-based methods have always been at the forefront of his activities at Miltenyi Biotec. Jürgen Schmitz is member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) and the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).

PETER ELLMARK

Peter Ellmark joined Alligator Bioscience in 2008 and is VP Discovery since 2018. He holds a PhD and an associate professorship in Immunotechnology at Lund University. Peter has more than 15 years’ experience of developing antibodies for immunotherapy of cancer. Dr. Ellmark´s research interest is focused on developing mono and bispecific antibodies for tumor directed immunotherapy of cancer.

MAREN BLECKMANN

Maren Bleckmann is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the TU Braunschweig who recently joined the lab of Stefan Dübel and Michael Hust. She studied biotechnology at the TU Braunschweig and joined the Dübel lab already for her master thesis about intrabodies. Afterwards she did her PhD at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research focusing on the optimization of recombinant protein expression in insect cells and developing a fast baculovirus-free expression method. The next two years she was head of the recombinant protein production facility at the Rudolf Virchow Center in Würzburg where her main task was the expression and purification of difficult target proteins. Since October 2018 she is again back in the Stefan Dübel lab establishing antigen (and antibody) expression in insect cells and working on switchable antibodies.

SCOTT PASCHKE

Scott D. Paschke M.A. is a Biochemist by training but has been working in industry for the last 25 years. Scott help build Upstate Biotechnology (Now part of Millipore Sigma) as Director of Technology Transfer until its acquisition in 2004. Scott then helped found LPBio an antibody company focused in chromatin and histone modification state specific antibodies and served as President and CTO until its merger with Active Motif in 2007. Scott then served as Director of Business Development with Active Motif until joining CDI Laboratories as Vice President in 2013, where he is presently.

GABRIELE GUT

Gabriele Gut is a MedTechEntrepreneur Fellow at the University of Zurich. He recently secured funding from both the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Zurich to translate results from his PhD work into diagnostic tools to assist clinicians when deciding over treatment options for their patients. During his PhD work Gabriele developed Iterative Indirect Immunofluorescence Imaging (4i) and Multiplexed Protein Maps (MPMs). These technologies allow researchers to generate and comprehensively analyse immunofluorescence-based, highly multiplexed imaging dataset. He now heads a small team focused on developing 4i-based diagnostic tools to improve the personalized diagnosis and therapy selection of cancer patients..

MIKE TAUSSIG

Mike Taussig, the main organiser of this workshop, is founder and CEO of Cambridge Protein Arrays Ltd. and formerly head of the Protein Technology Group at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge. He codeveloped ribosome display technology for selection of antibodies, and in situ protein arraying, and has collaborated on the production of human antibodies from transgenic mice. He has managed several large EU and ESF networking and research projects, including three EU consortia aiming to establish European resources of affinity binding reagents for analysis of the human proteome, namely ProteomeBinders (2006-2010), AffinityProteome (2009-2012) and AFFINOMICS (2010-2015). He is a board member of the European Federation of Biotechnology and Editor in Chief of the EFB journal New Biotechnology (Elsevier).  Mike is a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge.