WSEMID2025 | Microbiology and Infectious Diseases | Top Conference in Microbiology

Prof. Mario R Capecchi

University of Utah, USA

Title: Defective microglia, the immune cells of the brain, are causative for anxiety associated behavior

Dr. Capecchi is known for his pioneering work on the development of gene targeting in mice. This technology allows creation of mutations in any desired gene, providing virtually complete freedom to manipulate the genome of living mice. His work has revolutionized the study of mammalian biology and is used to understand countless diseases by scientists worldwide. In 2007, he was recognized for this achievement with the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
His current research is directed at determining the molecular mechanism responsible for chronic anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Prof. Åke Lundkvist

Sweden

Title: Zoonotic viruses in Northern Europe

Åke Lundkvist, PhD, is Professor in virology and one of the founders of the Zoonosis Science Center (ZSC) at Uppsala University. Åke obtained his PhD with a thesis focusing on hantaviruses and became assistent professor in 1998, and adjuct professor in 2003, at Karolinska Institutet. He has today over 35 years of experience on Othobunya, Flavi, and Avian influenza viruses and was the Head of Laboratory of the SMI/FoHM BSL3/BSL4 laboratories 2003-2013. His work focuses on basic virological, pathogenetic, ecological and epidemiological studies on zoonotic viruses and their vectors and hosts.

Prof. Per Venge

Sweden

Title: Biomarker guided management of acute bacterial infections. New possibilities

Per Venge is MD and PhD and professor in Clinical Chemistry at the University of Uppsala. He has published more than 600 papers in international scientific journals. The research areas have been the biochemistry and function of neutrophils and eosinophil and clinical and basic studies on related diseases. He has also developed several novel biomarker assays based on his discovery of 12 novel human proteins and refined current biomarker assays in the areas of diagnosis and monitoring of diseases such as asthma and allergic disease, acute infections, acute kidney injury and cardiac disease. His recent achievements relate to the development of several immunoassays for the measurements of HNL (Human Neutrophil Lipocalin) and its variants in biological fluids. The main foci are on the distinction between bacterial and viral infections, monitoring of sepsis and sepsis outcome. Per Venge is the owner of several international patents and the founder of Diagnostics Development a P&M Venge AB company (www.diagnosticsdevelopment.com).

Prof.Paul Babitzke

USA

Title: Post-transcription initiation control of gene expression

Paul Babitzke is the Stanley R. Person Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Center for RNA Molecular Biology at Penn State University. Hislab investigates mechanisms controllingtranscription elongation and termination, translation initiation, and mRNA stability. His lab discovered thatNusA, NusG, and Rho stimulate intrinsic termination, and that NusG is a major RNA polymerase pausing factor. Their researchalso exploresmechanisms in which the RNA binding proteinCsrAregulates translation initiation and/or mRNA stabilityof numerous target mRNAs. Dr. Babitzke received his B.S. degree from St. Cloud State University in 1984 and his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1991. Following postdoctoral training at Stanford University, Dr. Babitzke joined the faculty at Penn State University in 1994.

Prof. Peter Karayiannis

University of Nicosia, Cyprus

Title: Antiviral treatment for hepatitis viruses: An update

Professor Peter Karayiannis is Professor of Microbiology / Molecular Virology at the Medical School of the University of Nicosia, and a former Deputy Dean for Academic Staff and Research, as well as Co-Chair of the Department of Basic and Clinical Sciences. He previously worked at the Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Liverpool, at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, and at St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College School of Medicine, London. He has served on a number of editorial boards and as the European Editor of the Journal Viral Hepatitis. His research interests focus on hepatitis viruses, primarily B and C (HBV, HCV), and include studying the mechanisms that favor viral resistance and immune evasion during chronic infection, the impact of mutations in HBV that arise during the natural course of chronic infection, as well as those that emerge as a result of human intervention through vaccination or antiviral therapy. His research also explores new approaches to treatment. Other research interests include studies on the basic molecular biology of both HBV and HCV, the role of various viral proteins in viral replication, potential interference with cellular biosynthetic or defence pathways, and their role in hepatocarcinogenesis. He is currently a member of four Advisory Committees of the Ministry of Health in Cyprus, dealing with SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis, multidrug-resistant bacteria and vaccines.

Prof. Ren Xiang TAN

Nanjing University, China

Title: Post-ingestion conversion and regeneration strategy of dietary indoles

Ren Xiang TAN, Chair Professor and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Nanjing University, China. His on-going research activities include structural characterization, biological evaluation, biosynthetic pathway, and synthetic biology-based regeneration of high-value natural products originated from plants and their associated microbes. He is serving, or served, a dozen of SCI-indexed scientific journals such as Natural Product Report and Research, and many academic organizations like (the President of) International Society for the Development of Natural Products.

Prof. Paul Farrell

Imperial College London, UK

Title: Epstein-Barr virus disease mechanisms

Paul Farrell did his PhD in Cambridge, followed by postdoctoral work at Yale and in Cambridge. He became Director of a Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research unit in London 1986-2005 and has been Professor of Tumour Virology at Imperial College London since 1997. He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Pathologists. His early research career involved discovery of eIF-2 phosphorylation in response to dsRNA, also the induction of ISG15 in the interferon pathway. In 1984 he was part of a team that sequenced Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA which, at that time, was the largest sequence that had been determined. Since then, he has studied many aspects of EBV biology and in recent years has focussed on the importance of sequence variation in the virus genome to the virus biology, vaccines and the many different diseases associated with EBV.

Prof. Andrzej Mariusz Fal

National Institute of Medicine, Ministry of Interior, Poland

Title: To be confirmed.

Andrzej Mariusz Fal is board licensed in allergy, internal medicine and public health. He did his post-doc at Johns' Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA (1997-1999).

Prof. Fal is head of the Department of Allergy, Lung Diseases and Internal Diseases, National Institute of Medicine, Ministry of Interior in Warsaw, professor at the Collegium Medicum UKSW in Warsaw. He served as a Dean of Collegium Medicum (UKSW). Prof. Fal published over 350 papers on allergy, pulmonology, public health.and promoted thirteen PhD’s.

Prof. Fal is a member of: Main Council for Science and Higher Education, Board of Directors of the GLIMMER Initiative. Dr. Fal was a member of the Board of the Polish-American Fulbright Commission. He also chaired the Europe and CIS Committee of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology for three terms and served at the European Medicinal Agency of the Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT).

Since November 2014 he is President of the Polish Society of Public Health.

Prof. Doron Levy

University of Maryland, USA

Title: Using Mathematics to Study the Immune System

Doron Levy is a Professor of Mathematics and the Department Chair at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Levy is serving as the Director of the Brin Mathematics Research Center and as the co-Director of the NCI-UMD partnership for Integrative Cancer Research. Dr. Levy held positions at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the University of Paris 6, and the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) Paris. In 2013 Dr. Levy was named a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the University of Maryland, and in 2014 he was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Between 2014-2019 he was a Pauli Fellow at the Wolfgang Pauli Institute in Vienna. In 2024 Dr. Levy was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Dr. Levy’s research focuses on biomedical applications of mathematics: cancer dynamics, drug resistance, immunology, imaging, and cell motility. He is a member of ten editorial boards of mathematical and biomath journals, and the co editor-in-chief of ImmunoInformatics. Dr. Levy has been a plenary and keynote speaker in many national and international conferences, including the keynote speaker in the American Mathematical Society briefing to the US Congress, and the SIAM representative in the Coalition for National Science Founding Meeting on Capitol Hill.

Plenary Speakers