Keynotes
Abhishek Niroula is associate professor at University of Gothenburg, with a research focus on clonal hematopoiesis and how it originates, evolves, and leads to disease (e.g. acute myeloid leukemia and cardiovascular disease). Clonal hematopoiesis is a premalignant condition where hematopoietic stem cells acquire somatic mutations that give rise to distinct clones, which can expand over time and increase the risk for hematologic malignancies. To uncover the mechanisms and factors behind this process, Abhishek leverages large-scale sequencing data and integration with multiomics data.
Professor Ana Conesa at the Spanish National Research Council creates the interface that translates raw big data into biological conclusions. Bioinformatical tool development is an increasingly crucial part of modern life science and will grow with the necessity for integrating multimodal data. Ana Conesa and her team have decided to address this necessity head-on by developing tools such as PaintOmics, MultiBaC, MORE, and more.
Ann Nordgren is a Chief Physician and Professor in Clinical Genetics at Karolinska institute and University of Gothenburg working with rare disease diagnostics and child cancer. Among other things she is the main responsible for the national ChiCAP-study about genetic disposition for child cancer. She also organized the Undiagnosed Hackathon event, combining over 100 experts from 28 countries to help diagnose previously undiagnosed families using bioinformatics tools and analyses.
Doctor Astrid von Mentzer is principal investigator at the University of Gothenburg, where she investigates how pathogenic E. coli spreads, adapts to host and causes disease. By applying computational genomic approaches and machine learning, Astrid and her group investigates E. coli pathogenesis, with the ultimate goal of identifying potential targets for diagnostics and vaccine development – an important part in combating the spread of resistant strains.
Being Research Director at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki, Caroline Heckman plays a central role in guiding scientific research, much like the heart orchestrates the flow of blood. Working closely with the clinic, her research aims at understanding disease heterogeneity and drug resistance in blood cancers by applying genomic approaches, and translating the findings to patient care. She is tackling Leukemias by finding novel attack points, forcing differentiation or targeting the cell's innate DNA repair pathway.
Translating computational hypotheses and conclusions to clinical changes is fraught with challenges. These are challenges that Professor Erik Larsson Lekholm, at the University of Gothenburg, welcomes headfirst. From contributing to mechanistic insights into various cancers (e.g. melanoma, SINET) to elucidating the mitochondrial genome. The current undertaking is to translate the findings to clinical settings such as cancer screening panels and improvements in cancer diagnostics.
Fazeleh Hoseini holds a PhD in Data Science and AI and has a professional background in the automotive sector. In recent years, her work has centered on AI model privacy, where she leads the development of LeakPro, an open-source tool for stress-testing machine learning models and assessing privacy risks. She is also engaged in several national initiatives, including TRE4HealthAI, which investigates Trusted Research Environments for the secondary use of health data within the framework of the European Health Data Space (EHDS).
Established 2023 in Lund University, Jacob Vogel and his team focus on neurobiology and Alzheimer's research by implementing cutting-edge data science methodologies to elucidate neurodegenerative progression and pathogenesis. More specifically, he integrates neuroimaging and multi-omics data and applies supervised and unsupervised models to decipher tau protein distribution.
For spatial single-cell sequencing Professor Joakim Lundeberg at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) works on the cutting-edge. Part of the Spatial Research alliance, the developers of the Nature's method of the year 2020: spatially resolved transcriptomics, the foundational technology behind the 10x Visium platform. His work has given insights into various disease pathologies from skin cancers to Parkinson’s disease.
Multidimensional diseases such as diabetes require multidimensional solutions. Enter Joan Camuñas-Soler and his group where they are leveraging various single-cell technologies to illuminate how the dysfunction of pancreatic islet cells lead to the development of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. To find novel biological insights, Camuñas group is combining and integrating single-cell sequencing with various other data-driven approaches.
Cardiometabolic diseases are progressive, multifactorial diseases characterized by e.g. obesity, insulin resistance, and hypertension. Doctor Muhammad Arif aims to capture the dynamics and complexity of disease progression through development and application of systems and network biology approaches that integrate multiomics data. Ultimately, the goal is to identify time-specific biomarkers and therapeutic targets for more personalized and effective treatment.
Stefanie Prast-Nielsen is Associate Professor (Docent) in Medical Microbiology and Senior Research Specialist in Multiomics, Machine Learning and Data Integration at the Department for Clinical Neuroscience (CNS), Karolinska Institutet. Her main research focus is the microbiota in epilepsy. It is evident that diet and health have a strong connection, but there are few examples as good as the link between the ketogenic diet and drug resistant epilepsy. Despite this strong link, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Associate Professor Stefanie Prast-Nielsen is working to uncover the role of the microbiota for these mechanisms, bringing new insights into how the gut microbiota and metabolism affect brain function and therapeutic possibilities.