Our network
All of our events are only possible because of our network of speakers, advisors, partners and attendees who continue to help develop and inform our series, ensuring that we remain the industry's most premier and relevant innovation series.
Read more about the global Microbiome Connect Series community below
Featured Speakers
Insight into the market dynamics that are having the greatest impact on an industry is what drives our business and its this understanding that allows us to identify and secure the thought leaders who have a true 'vision' to offer. This is a small sample of some of those visionaries that are helping shape the future of the microbiome field.
Peter Marks
Peter Marks received his graduate degree in cell and molecular biology and his medical degree at New York University and completed Internal Medicine residency and Hematology/Medical Oncology training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He has worked in academic settings teaching and caring for patients and in industry on drug development. He joined the FDA in 2012 as Deputy Center Director for CBER and became Center Director in January 2016.
Christopher Carite
Christophe is a French citizen graduated in industrial pharmacy (PharmD), Microbiology and Business Administration. He has started his industrial career as plant manager for Lallemand Bacteria Division early ninety, then occupied various positions in R&D and Marketing in B2B of Pharmaceuticals Ingredients. He has joined 4D pharma at the early beginning of the company in 2014 and he has assumed the challenge to produce freeze dried strict anaerobic bacteria at the industrial scale level ( 3500 L fermentor, 5 to 20m2 Freeze dryer) to deliver high concentrated LBPs to patients (> 1010 CFU/caps, shelf life up to 2 years) recognised by several patent families granted. In addition, Christophe has integrated “in house” all 4D pharma Manufacturing and Controls under inspected cGMP.
Right now, he assume the position of Process development/CMC Director and member of 4D Pharma Executive team reporting directly to the CEO.
Felix Faupel
Diwaker Daver
Bio: Dr. Davar is a translational oncologist whose research interests lies in translational cancer immunotherapy and early-phase clinical trials. He has been instrumental in the development of first-in-human studies evaluating novel agents targeting TIGIT, GITR, TIM-3, CTLA-3 and other immune checkpoints. Based on emerging data implicating intestinal dysbiosis in mediating non-response to PD-1 blockade, he developed a protocol evaluating fecal microbiota transplant in combination with PD-1 blockade to treat PD-1 non-responders. This first-in-human study was selected for funding by Merck to support the clinical costs. Results demonstrating that microbiome modulation reversed primary resistance to anti-PD-1 and augmented anti-tumor immunity were recently published in Science.
Colleen Cutliffe
Joseph Maxwell
Dr. Maxwell trained as an immunologist at Oregon State University and the University of Connecticut Health Center. He spent 15 years supporting early target discovery and program leadership at Amgen, AbbVie, and Finch Therapeutics with an emphasis in inflammatory bowel disease. He is currently an Associate Director of Translational Research and Biomarkers at Takeda supporting clinical programs testing microbiome therapies and other novel modalities in IBD and celiac disease.
Ken Blount
Ken Blount, PhD, is a seasoned director of collaborative research programs in biotech, pharma, clinical, and academic research settings, and his scientific expertise includes antibiotics discovery and development, fecal microbiome analysis, translational medical oncology, and RNA-targeting therapeutics. Prior to joining Rebiotix, Dr. Blount coordinated translational urologic oncology research for the Yale Cancer Center. Previously, he was a cofounder and the Director of Biology at BioRelix, a venture-backed Connecticut biotech that developed new antibiotics to target structured bacterial messenger RNAs. At BioRelix, Dr. Blount led a combined force of internal scientists and external resources that delivered development candidates for treating Clostridium difficile infections. Dr. Blount received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Arkansas and earned a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder, after which he completed an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego.
Tue Hodal
Sonia Timberlake
Sonia is the Senior Vice President of Research at Finch Therapeutics. Sonia is an expert at designing NGS-based algorithms for applications in microbial genomics, immunogenomics, and evolution. Prior to joining Finch, she built and managed AbVitro's computational algorithms and infrastructure, supporting high throughput single-cell immune phenotyping and repertoire sequencing technology. This technology platform was acquired by Juno Therapeutics, where Sonia led a multidisciplinary team to harness native adaptive immune responses for developing engineered cell therapies in oncology.
Sonia graduated from Caltech with a B.Sc in Molecular Biology and received her Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from MIT.
Matthew Henn
Matthew Henn is the Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Seres Therapeutics. He has over 20 years of combined research experience in microbial ecology, genomics and bioinformatics that spans both environmental and human disease applications. He has been involved in the discovery and clinical development of multiple microbiome therapeutics including all of Seres’ product candidates and has authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications. His research has focused on microbial physiology and the functional role of microbes in both environmental and human disease applications, and on the development of genomic and functional tools to study microbial systems. Prior to helping launch Seres in 2012, he was the Director of Viral Genomics and Assistant Director of the Genome Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He has served on various NIH working groups on antimicrobial resistance and microbiome research, as a scientific advisor for NIH’s Viral Pathogen Bioinformatics Resource Center, and as an ad-hoc reviewer and editor of various peer-reviewed journals. He currently serves on the scientific advisory board of Growcentia, Inc., an agricultural microbiome company. Dr. Henn earned his B.S. in ecology and evolutionary sciences from the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Sciences Fellow, and trained as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University.
Grégory Lambert
Pharmacist and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical technology, Gregory’s carrier is split between Biotech and Pharma where he occupied the positions of Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer. Gregory drove the development of a number of drugs, medical devices and food supplement from the laboratory to market. Since 2014, Gregory is the CEO of TargEDys.
Staffan Stromberg
Marcus Böhme
Dr. Marcus Böhme is a R&D Specialist working at the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland where he is leading projects on the Gut-Brain Axis. Prior to joining Nestlé, he completed his undergraduate training in Nutritional Science at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany, where he also received his PhD in Neuroscience. Subsequently, Dr. Böhme undertook a 4-year postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Prof. John Cryan at the University College Cork, Ireland, where he studied the role of the gut microbiome on brain and cognitive health across the lifespan. His research focusses on how diet shapes brain health and behavior with the gut microbiota acting as a novel mediator between diet and maintenance of brain health.
Benno Haarman
Alongside continuing efforts to elucidate the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder, Dr. Haarman’s research currently focuses on the treatment of this severe psychiatric illness using immune modulating, psychosurgical and chronobiological therapies. In the field of psycho-immunology he is performing treatment studies in bipolar disorder using probiotics, diets and spinning.
Nikole Kimes, Ph.D.
Shahram Lavasani
Dr. Shahram Lavasani is an international keynote speaker and entrepreneur in the field of the microbiome. He received his PhD in Immunology from Lund University/Sweden. With more than two decades of teaching and research expertise on Gut-Brain axis, he has pioneered research in multiple sclerosis by demonstrating gut inflammation and barrier dysfunction and introduced microbiota-based therapies using probiotic bacterial consortia. He is the founder of ImmuneBiotech developing novel microbiome therapeutics. The company has access to a proprietary lactobacilli library and advanced selection technologies to design nutritional formulations for optimal management of the diseases. ImmuneBiotech´s first product GutMagnific® has been designed to address the underlying causes of IBS and it is currently investigated, in collaboration with Karolinska Institute, for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) a neuroimmune condition and a possible long-term effect of Covid-19. GutMagnific® has successfully been launched in October 2019.
Jay Tiesman
Dr. Jay Tiesman is a Principal Scientist in the Global Biotechnology Division of The Procter & Gamble Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He is the Genomics Group Leader and a Corporate Technology Entrepreneur charged with helping to identify novel biotechnology innovations worldwide to address key needs for P&G. Since joining P&G in 1993, he has been actively involved in developing genomics capabilities within the Company. He has been particularly interested in the use of genomics to gain insight into epithelial cell biology.
Before joining P&G, he completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Charlie Hart at ZymoGenetics, Inc. in Seattle, Washington. At ZymoGenetics, he pursued research in the field of growth factor signal transduction associated with wound healing and tissue remodeling. He obtained his Ph.D. in Pathology from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. In Omaha, he worked in the Laboratory of Dr. Angie Rizzino at the Eppley Cancer Institute, delineating the roles and impact of growth factors on embryonic development. Before joining Dr. Rizzino, he obtained Bachelor degrees in Philosophy and Biology at Creighton University in Omaha.
Dr. Tiesman was an early adopter of microarray technology, having worked in the field since 1997. He is an acknowledged microarray expert and has published over 35 articles, two of which have earned Publication of the Year honors. He also speaks extensively at international meetings on the topic of microarray experimental design and is listed on over 85 presentations. He collaborates extensively with scientists in academia and the biotechnology industry and is a member of several academic/governmental/industrial organizations, including the Association of Biomedical Resource Facilities Microarray Research Group (ABRF-MARG), the Association of Molecular Pathology (AMP), and the Society for Investigative Dermatology (SID); as well as the Scientific Advisory Board of NuGEN Technologies, Inc.
Kim Capone
Sarah De Szalay
Larry Weiss
Trevor Steyn
Trevor Steyn is the CEO and founder of Esse Skincare. As an organic chemist his research has taken a broader approach to optimising skin health in the long term. Esse launched its first live probiotic product in February 2015 and has subsequently pioneered several new technologies in modulating the skin microbiome.
Ingmar Claes, PhD
Ingmar studied bioscience engineering at the University of Leuven, graduated in 2007 and obtained a PhD in cell and gene technology in 2011. He has an expertise in the field of probiotics, its molecular mechanisms and the topical application of these beneficial bacteria to restore the human microbiome. As bioengineer and microbiologist, he feels that it is important to translate this scientific research into daily products from which people at home and the community can benefit.
In the context of YUN, he is closely working together with the Department of Bioscience Engineering of the University of Antwerp, the Lab of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology of prof. Sarah Lebeer, the Lab of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy of prof. Filip Kiekens, prof. dr. Julien Lambert (dermatology) and dr. Gilbert Donders (gynaecology, the University Hospital of Antwerp).
He has experience with leadership in multiple R&D projects and he held a managing role in YUN’s R&D projects of the Flemish Institute for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Research in Industry (VLAIO). YUN’s current range of probiotic products and therapies were developed under his supervision.
Dr Chris Callewaert
Chris received his PhD from Ghent University in Belgium. He is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the Knight lab at the University of California, San Diego. He investigates body odor and the characteristics of the bacteria living in the armpits, skin, clothes, washing machines and homes. He is the first to undertake bacterial transplants to solve underarm body odour.
Audrey Gueniche Ph.D
Audrey GUENICHE obtained her Pharmacist degree and her PhD degree in skin biology more than 23 years ago. She is an expert on immunology and microbiology. Her main expertise is on skin topical treatment and food supplement for skin and hair health, especially using probiotics, natural extract and bacterial extracts. She is currently a senior clinical expert in LOREAL RESEARCH. She has a complete experience from the actives through vitro evaluations/ preclinical studies to clinical trials. Her passion is to always reinvent evaluation and find new fields of area in term of actives to promote.
She has published over 110 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 5 chapters in books, 2 specials issues in journal where she was the invited editor. She presented in over 80 international congresses and additionally she was personally invited to give more than 35 keynote lectures.
Erwan Peltier
Cath O’Neill
Strategic Partners
From the market-leading LBP Manufacturing companies to CROS, CDMO's, Sequencing and anymore; our Strategic Partners continue to play a pivotal role in how we help shape the future of the microbiome field. For more information on how to become a strategic partner, please visit our Marketing Solutions page.
Global Microbiome Council
The Global Microbiome Council is organization formed by allied stakeholders that aspires to communicate and educate both the known and unknown facets of human biology collectively referred to as the skin microbiome. Drawing on the expertise of all members, the Council serves as a unified, authoritative resource to disseminate precise and scientifically accurate information relevant to the skin microbiome to consumers, regulators, industry, academia and the global market.
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