Professor Wouter de Jonge studied at University of Utrecht, Columbia University, and Oxford University, and received his Ph.D. in medicine in 2001 at the University of Amsterdam. He has chaired the gastro-intestinal research group since 2013. He is interested in gastrointestinal physiology, nutrition, and the function of neural networks within the gastrointestinal tract, in particular relation to the mechanisms involved in functional bowel disorders (IBS), and chronic inflammation of the GI tract (IBD, EoE). His research has translational nature and involves basic as well as clinical studies. He focuses on the role of the neural system in influencing the immune response; for instance stress related diseases such as IBS and IBD. His group is funded via national science foundation grants (NWO-Vidi-STW), EU FP7 and Horizon2020 grants, and multiple industrial grants. He is currently coordinating a Marie Curie training network (EpiMac) aimed at epigenetic marks in inflammatory disease. He is working with the GSK Bioelectronics Network consortium since 2014 and is currently leading a large scale project on the development of bioelectronic medicine for IBD. He served on the board of the scientific committees a.o. National Trust for Gastro Intestinal and Lever Diseases, and is founder of the spin off company Gut-research Services aimed to facilitate industry collaborations in the field of gastro intestinal diseases.

Dr. Kyle, CEO of Evolve Biosystems Inc. is a 30-year veteran of biotech, having co-founded a range of successful biotech companies in the fields of nutrition and health (including Martek Biosciences, which was acquired in 2011 for $1.1 Billion). David combines a distinguished scientific background with significant commercial acumen, has published over 70 scientific articles, edited two books, is the named inventor on over 150 patents, and was inducted into the US Technology Hall of Fame in 2009, for his contributions to science and industry.

Outi Vaarala is vice-president and head of lung immunity department in respiratory, inflammation and autoimmunity, innovative medicines, at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg. Her department is responsible for biological research, ranging from target identification to Phase 2 projects, including the invention of biomarkers for personalised treatments. Dr Vaarala is a medical doctor and a professor of pediatric immunology. Her research is focused on the biological drivers of immune-mediated diseases, such as respiratory and autoimmune diseases. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals in the field of immunology.

As the head of product development for the Janssen Human Microbiome Institute (JHMI), Dan Meyers works closely with internal and external collaborators to drive unique microbiome product development strategies. Dan joined the JHMI from the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research (NIBR), where he was a senior translation medicine expert, chairman of NIBR’s protocol review committee, and member of the first-in-human safety committee. During his decade plus time at NIBR, Dan gained an expertise in bringing medicines from the earliest stages of preclinical research and through late-stage clinical development. As a project leader, he led teams to successfully file investigational new drug applications and clinical trial applications, and has planned and executed over 25 clinical studies including multiple first-in-human, proof-of-concept, mechanistic profiling and clinical pharmacology studies for both small and large molecules. He was also a core member of a late-stage development team which progressed a novel drug through Phase 2 and Phase 3 programs. Prior to joining NIBR, Dan spent the first few years of his career as a physician scientist at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, California, where he conducted basic and clinical research and cared for patients in the endocrinology and lipid clinics. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in microbiology from Brigham Young University and a M.D. from The University of Washington in Seattle. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Utah, followed by a clinical and research fellowship in endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition at the University of Washington.

Marie Lindner is an MD with a long history of experience in pharma, biotech and start-up venture capital. Marie joined Novartis in 2014 in the position of Global Program Head of the Strategic Partnerships team. Prior to Novartis, she worked at Shire in the capacity of search, evaluation and licensing for the gastroenterology division. Before Shire, Marie was a Venture Partner at BioAdvance, a start up venture capital firm in Pennsylvania. She has also worked for other pharmaceutical companies (Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, SmithKline Beecham), biotechs (BTG, Elan, Isolagen), startups (Embera Neurotherapeutics, Optimeos, Microbiome Therapeutics), has been on boards with BioAdvance (including Treventis, a Canadian company), and as an independent director (Trino Therapeutics, Ireland). Positions ranged from clinical development to business development in increasing levels of seniority. Prior to pharma/biotech experience she was a faculty member at both Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, both institutions affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. She was board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition, also did a General Surgery residency. Marie has also served on review panels for NIH, Annals of Internal Medicine and the Coulter Foundation.

Currently, Jesús is the Sr. director strategic innovation for the biopharma development division at Lonza, with a particular focus on disruptive technologies for bioprocessing, and more effective approaches to biopharmaceutical early development. Prior to this, Jesús was head of Lonza’s advanced protein technologies in Cambridge-UK, focusing on approaches to de-risk biopharmaceutical development. In 2002, he co-founded Zyentia Ltd, to design therapies for protein depositional disorders and tools to predict and remedy aggregation in biopharmaceuticals. He held various roles in the company, including CSO and acting-CEO until the acquisition of the AggreSolve™ business by Lonza in 2007. He was also co-founder and scientific advisor of Zapaloid Ltd, a company focused on the development of disease-modifying therapies against neurodegenerative disorders. Jesús has a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Univ. Autónoma Madrid (CIB-CSIC). He completed several years of postdoctoral work at CBM-CSIC & University Complutense (Madrid) and subsequently held several research fellowships at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, including Marie Curie & Wellcome Trust fellowships.

Dr. Monsul was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Drexel University. He completed his medical training at Drexel University College of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Throughout his career and education, he has been involved in basic science research. He is a surgeon with a busy practice in the Hawthorne Clinic and Research Center. He is also a co-founder & CEO of Quorum Innovations, LLC where he with co-founder Dr. Eva Berkes, were recently awarded their second patent by the USPTO in drug discovery in microbiome research.

Co-founder and CEO of Enterome, Pierre brings more than 20 years of successful experience in healthcare companies. Prior to starting Enterome in 2012, Pierre spent 2 years at Sanofi leading business development, licensing and acquisitions within the ophthalmology division. He was in 2005 manager in residence at Sofinnova Partners (Paris), where he put in place the business plan, organisation, and financing of a new company named Fovea Pharmaceuticals. Pierre has then served as COO of this retinal disease venture that was acquired in 2009 by Sanofi. Earlier in his career, Pierre held various business or commercial positions in companies like UroGene, Fournier or Ethypharm. As a biotechnology entrepreneur, he has co-founded several companies including Maat Pharma, Targedys, Monabee, Athena, Cytis, and Opia. Pierre also sits on different company boards. Pierre holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris.

He leads the Human Health & Microbiome Discovery team who are responsible for the screening and research of current and next generation microbes. They have a strong focus on the host interactions and mode of action of these bacteria, as well as their commercialization competences. In particular they are focused on the gastro intestinal environment and clinical understanding of the interactions between the bacteria and the host microbiome at a molecular and functional level. Prior to Chr Hansen he worked as the VP of Diagnostics Product Develop at Exiqon A/S in Denmark for 5 years and the head of New Technologies in deCODE Genetics in Iceland. In addition he has held positions in Vancouver, Canada and Boehringer Ingelheim in Vienna Austria.

Dr. Carlos Merino is currently the director of research & innovation. In the past 9 years, Carlos has held several positions in R&D, product management and in the business unit at DNA Genotek. During this time, he has played a key role in the conceptualisation, creation, development and successful commercialisation of devices for the collection and stabilisation of biological samples for microbiome studies. Prior to joining DNA Genotek, Carlos worked as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal and at the European Neuroscience Institute in Germany, where he worked in determining the molecular mechanisms glutamatergic synapses formation in model organisms.

Dr. Sheri Simmons works as a senior scientist at Seres Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA and leads early-stage R&D for the development of new microbiome therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). After receiving her PhD in Biological Oceanography from MIT/Woods Hole in 2006, she studied computational microbial metagenomics at UC Berkeley. She subsequently attained a faculty position at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole where she headed her own laboratory leading research on plant-associated microbiomes for four years. In 2010, Dr. Simmons transitioned to Monsanto, where she led the development of a microbial genomics platform to support the development of agricultural biologicals. Dr. Simmons joined Seres Therapeutics in 2015, where she directs microbiome-based analyses for Seres clinical trials and preclinical development programs in IBD and drives the development of novel genomic and metagenomic analytics in support of the company’s discovery platforms.

Alexander Loy is an associate professor at the department of microbiology and ecosystem science (University of Vienna, Austria), managing director of the Austrian Microbiome Initiative (AMICI), and faculty member of the Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI). He received his Ph.D. in microbiology at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. In 2003, he received a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to join the newly founded department of microbial ecology at the University of Vienna in Austria, where he established his own research group in 2006 and was assistant professor from 2009 to 2013. He obtained his Habilitation (venia docendi) and the Young Scientist Award of the City of Vienna in 2012. Research of the Loy group focuses on the function of the complex symbiotic microbiota of animals and humans, evolution and ecology of sulfur microorganisms, and the development of molecular and isotope-labeling methods for studying uncultivated microorganisms in their natural environment. Since 2002, he has published 69 papers in peer-reviewed journals (including one paper each in ‘Nature, Science and PloS Biology,’ and two in ‘PNAS’) and 9 book chapters, and has edited a book on geomicrobiology.

Mike Romanos is CEO and co-founder of Microbiotica, a spin-out of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute that is commercialising leading science in microbiome genomics and translational biology. He has 30 yrs of industry experience in biotech and pharma, including 6 yrs as CEO and CSO of Crescendo Biologics, which he co-founded and built, and 10yrs as a VP leading major global GSK R&D operations. His experience of drug discovery and associated technologies runs across therapeutic areas, phases and modalities (NCE, biologics, gene therapy, and vaccines). Mike holds a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in Molecular Virology from Imperial College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Director on the MRC Technology Board of Trustees, and Translational Adviser in Biomedicine for Imperial College.

Sacha is the CEO of Biosys UK Limited and brings a strong mix of operational skills and financial discipline to her current role. Most recently, Sacha was with Inventages leading life science investments focused on the microbiome, GI disorders, CNS, anti-infectives, inflammatory diseases, metabolic disorders, vaccines, and point of care diagnostics. Prior to Inventages, Sacha was an early stage investor focused on innovation, company formation and investment in the UK (Archangels) and Canada (BDC Capital). Sacha was also directly involved in establishing university spin-offs and has experience in biotech business development, corporate finance, management consultancy and R&D. Sacha has an MBA (Simon Fraser University), an MSc in biotechnology (Johns Hopkins University), a BSc in chemistry (University of British Columbia), and is a Kauffman Fellow.

Jean-Marc Chatel is microbiologist and Research Director in National Institute of Agronomic Research (France). He is the Deputy-director of the “Commensals and probiotics-host interactions” laboratory (40 people; acronym ProbiHôte). His work is focused on the dialogue between commensal and probiotic bacteria with the host in both physiological and physiopathological contexts especially in gut inflammatory conditions. During the last 5 years, he has been involved in two key areas: i) identification of the molecular basis of the beneficial effects inherent to both commensal and probiotic bacteria and; ii) the development of strategies based on the use of commensal or probiotics bacteria to fight against intestinal inflammation. He is actually focused on the study of the anti-inflammatory effects of commensals and probiotics in murine models. He has authored 66 peer-reviewed international publications at the interface between microbiology and human health (h factor of 27). He’s also leader in the use of recombinant probiotics to produce and deliver molecules, proteins or DNA, of health interest in the digestive tract, and he recently patented such novel anti-inflammatory strains.

Dr. Lelouvier received his Ph.D in Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology from the University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France, in 2007. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (USA), he joined Vaiomer in 2012. As cellular and molecular biology group leader and head of biomarkers discovery, he developed with his group the molecular tools (16S qPCR and 16S metagenomics sequencing) to study specifically the blood and tissue microbiomes, before becoming Chief Scientific Officer of Vaiomer in 2016. The study of tissue and blood microbiota allows Vaiomer to link intestinal dysbiosis and tissue inflammation for the development of biomarkers and therapeutics in the fields of cardiometabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders and chronic infection.

Thomas received his PhD in Virology in 2008, followed by Post-Doc positions at IMMH in Freiburg, Germany and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Main focus of his research was the interaction of viruses and bacteria with the innate immune system. In 2013 he joined Zymo Research to build the R&D department for its European location in Germany.

H. Bjørn Nielsen, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Clinical-Microbiomics A/S, has since 2008 been a frontrunner in the field of microbiome research. His participation in the MetaHit consortium led to a series of important scientific papers describing the human gut microbiome, including his pioneering work on co-abundance binning of metagenomics data into metagenomic species, and bacteriophages and other mobile genetic elements. This year Henrik has authored 4 papers published in Nature journals, including a three-pronged association study that links microbiome, serum metabolome and clinical data in pre-diabetic Danes, and a study that report on the larges metatranscriptomics to date. At Clinical- Microbiomics, H. Bjørn heads the innovation with clients and the continued adaptation and development of new analysis concepts and methods.