Omar Abudayyeh is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham’s Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, and faculty member with the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University.

He directs the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg lab, which is developing next-generation gene editing, gene delivery, and synthetic biology technologies using protein engineering and artificial intelligence and applies them towards new therapeutics and the study of aging.

He is a pioneer in the gene editing space as an inventor on dozens of patents and patent applications relating to gene editing and diagnostic innovations, as well as over 30,000 citations on more than 45 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Nature, Science, and Cell.

He is also co-founder of Sherlock Biosciences, Proof Diagnostics (acquired), and Tome Biosciences, which are commercializing CRISPR-based diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as other stealth starts ups in the gene and RNA therapy space, which have collectively raised hundreds of millions.

Janusz M. Bujnicki is a Professor of Biology and leads a research group at IIMCB in Warsaw, Poland. His group integrates bioinformatics with structural biology, focusing on understanding how RNA molecule sequences encode their 3D structures, and determine the interactions and biological functions.

Bujnicki's research interests encompass the combination of theory with experiment, integration of various data types, molecular simulations, scientific uncertainties, and the interplay between science and decision-making. His notable contributions to science include the development of methods for computational modeling of protein and RNA 3D structures, as well as the discovery and characterization of enzymes involved in post-transcriptional modification of RNA. He has authored over 350 publications, which have been cited more than 13,000 times.

Currently, the Bujnicki group focuses on experimental determination and theoretical analyses of RNA structures and their complexes with other molecules, using computational modeling together with cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, and other biochemical and biophysical techniques. One of the goals of their research is to identify small chemical molecules that act on RNAs involved in various diseases (e.g., viral genomic RNAs) and could be candidates for future drugs.

Jonathan Gootenberg, Ph.D., is the co-PI of the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg, a Member of the Faculty at Harvard Medical School, and an Investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Center for Vaccine and Virology Research, with affiliations with the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and the Department of Genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

His lab explores new approaches that leverage programmability across biological scales--including new nucleic acid medicines, molecular tools, and machine learning methods--and applies them to the development of new therapeutics for genetic disease, cancer, and aging.

As a leading member of the genome editing field, he published over 50 peer-reviewed articles with over 35,000 citations, and his work has resulted in over 30 patents or patent applications. His work has been translated into 5 companies that Dr. Gootenberg has co-founded, including Sherlock Biosciences, Proof Diagnostics (acquired), and Tome Biosciences.

Ben Kleinstiver is an Associate Professor at in the Center for Genomic Medicine at Mass General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS), and is the Kayden-Lambert MGH Research Scholar.

Some of the research goals in the Kleinstiver lab are to engineer & improve genome editing technologies, to optimize methods to accelerate the development of CRISPR enzymes, and to transform these safer, more effective, and versatile tools into new classes of gene therapies.

Dr. Adams is co-head of the Cambridge Cancer Centre Cell and Molecular Biology Programme, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Pathologists, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the International Laboratory of Human Genome Research. He is also a founding member of the Atlas of Variant Effects Alliance and a member of the steering committee of the Society for Melanoma Research. He also co-chairs Genomel (The Genetics of Melanoma Consortium). His group uses large-scale genomic studies and genome editing to identify cancer genes and explore their function.

Since the foundation of TRON (2010) heading the Vectors team at this Mainz-based translational research institute. The team has been developing and improving trans-amplifying RNA for the use as vaccine platform.

Research in Bilousova's laboratory is focused on studying skin and connective tissue diseases, such as Epidermolysis Bullosa and Ehlers- Danlos Syndrome and developing therapeutic approaches for these conditions. Dr. Bilousova also directs the Stem Cell Biobank and Disease Modeling Core at the University of Colorado and oversees the generation and genetic engineering of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for the research community.

The research interests of Briers group focus on the synthetic biology of modular proteins with a particular focus of phage lysins, phage receptor-binding proteins, engineered phages and carbohydrate-active enzymes, spanning basic to translational research. Yves Briers co-founded the Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbiology in 2022, which he currently chairs. He is CEO of the spinoff Obulytix developing phage lysins as antibiotics, which he co-founded in 2023.

Dr. Brodiazhenko earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Tartu in 2022. Her contributions to the field are significant, including her role in organizing the European course "Introduction to Phage Microbiology Techniques." Currently, Dr. Brodiazhenko is a scientist at the Estonian biotechnology company Icosagen, Estonia.

As a PhD student, Frank Buchholz performed seminal work to implement and improve site-specific recombinases for genome engineering. During his postdoctoral time at UCSF, he showed for the first time that these enzymes can induce a predefined chromosomal translocation in vivo and he invented substrate-linked directed evolution to breed recombinases with novel specificities. He perfectionated this approach as a Group Leader at the MPI-CBG and as Professor at TU Dresden to allow the generation of programmable designer-recombines for therapeutic applications. This totally new approach has been widely recognized as a break-through in enzyme engineering.
Frank is also widely known for his development of the esiRNA technology and its implementation as an efficient and specific RNAi screening tool. Employing this tool, he has discovered many new genes relevant for stem cell biology and human diseases.

Dmytrenko's experience with non-model bacteria, challenging to genetically manipulate due to their innate defense mechanisms against foreign nucleic acids, inspired his postdoctoral focus on microbial defense systems, including CRISPR-Cas. During his postdoc he led the charge on characterizing a novel CRISPR nuclease, Cas12a2, that is unique in targeting RNA and then degrading any nucleic acids it encounters, damaging DNA and eliminating infected bacteria from the population.

Main research interests: biochemistry, cell biology, cell signalling, carcinogenesis. He is developing a methodology for using stable tumour cell sublines as a model for testing anti-cancer drugs aimed at killing cancer stem cells.

Anna Dubrovska had postdoctoral positions at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (Uppsala, Sweden), the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (San Diego, USA), and The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, USA). In 2011, she became a junior group leader of the group “Biomarkers for the Individualized Radiotherapy.” Anna Dubrovska has co-authored > 100 peer-reviewed original articles published in international journals. Her expertise includes tumor radiation biology, cancer stem cells, and the development of biomarkers for individualized radiotherapy.

Prof. Dulak is a full member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of Academia Europaea. He conducts research on molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases and genetic neuromuscular diseases, including the function of muscle stem cells and application of induced pluripotent stem cells for disease modelling, investigates the possibilities of gene and cell therapies for cardiac and muscle diseases.

Sergiy Dzyadevych is Academician of NAS of Ukraine, Professor and Laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine in the field of science and technology. Scientific research: development of biosensors for the analysis of important metabolites based on direct enzymatic reactions and determination of toxic substances using inhibitory enzyme analysis for the needs of medicine, biotechnology, food industry and environmental protection.

Dr. Grahame is a Field Application Scientist with Cytiva in the Nanomedicine team and has over 10 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry leading projects on lipid nanoparticle formulation, process and CMC development for the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics. Dr Grahame's project work has included pDNA delivery for Cystic Fibrosis, microRNA delivery for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and saRNA delivery for infectious disease vaccines.

With now more than 9 years of industrial experience at Yuria-Pharm, Oleksandr Hubar is a member of the Corporate Scientific Advisory Board. The department, led by Oleksandr, performs development of several recombinant protein biosimilar candidates based on proprietary eukaryotic CHO-based production cell line, conducts studies on characterization of immunogenicity determinants of mRNA and DNA-based vector systems and development of mRNA and non-immunogenic non-viral DNA-based gene therapy vectors and expression systems for in situ protein translation. The team, led by Oleksandr, is also responsible for the preparation, evaluation, and maintenance of the regulatory submission documentation for the biotechnology-derived products for the corporate portfolio.

Prof. Bozena Kaminska specializes in molecular neurobiology, tumor immunology, neuro-oncology and neuroimmunology, with focus on functions of myeloid cells in pathological processes. Prof. Kaminska’s lab employs multidisciplinary approaches combining in vivo experiments in rodent models of human pathologies and in vitro experiments in primary cultures, brain slices and human induced pluripotent stem cell organoids. She has pioneered single-cell omics studies of brain tumor microenvironment in experimental gliomas. In recent years her group has been exploring transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms in microglia in response to environmental exposures and experience.

Maksym Korablyov is the Chief Executive Officer of Dreamfold, a pioneering drug discovery company, where he has successfully raised venture funding from top-tier investors such as Panache Ventures and IQ Capital. He is currently on leave from pursuing his PhD at the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms under the supervision of Professor Yoshua Bengio, focusing on model-based reinforcement learning. Maksym has also held research positions at MIT and Harvard Medical School, where he contributed to computational methods for molecular analysis and drug discovery.

Since 2022, Karaman has been working as Senior Investigator at the Laboratory of Immunology of the National Cancer Institute (Lithuania). Her current research interests concern the creating of TCR and CAR-modified lymphocytes and study of their biology in solid tumor microenvironment. She is a Alexander von Humboldt Foundation scholarship fellow (2024-2025) and she did an internship at Nishimura Lab (Loyola University Chicago) to learn how to generate viral vectors for lymphocyte transduction and to produce TCP or CAR-modified lymphocytes.

Since 2001, under the leadership of Prof. Kornelyuk O.I. the researches on bioinformatics and computational biology was launched. Computational modeling of the 3D structures of tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase and AIMP1/p43 protein, which belong to internally disordered proteins have been determined. Molecular dynamics simulations of HIV and COVID-proteases and their inhibitors design have been developed especially for dynamic protein structure. Some novel EMAP II and AIMP1/p43 nanocomposite complexes against glioma cells open up the prospects of practical application of these complexes. Virtual laboratory MolDynGrid was developed to solve the problems of computational structural biology and bioinformatics.

Dr. Yaroslav Korpan has more than 30 years of experience in various fields of research, such as analytical chemistry and biochemistry, micro/nanosensors and devices, food safety and cancer research. Dr. Yaroslav Korpan is currently a leading researcher at the Department of Biomolecular Electronics of the IMBG (Kyiv, Ukraine).Recent research interests are focused on: novel bio-recognition molecules, 2D/1D nano-materials and nano-polymers for sensing; metabolomic electronic sensor platforms for multi-target disease diagnosis, prevention, treatment and management.

Research Scientist in Tumor Microienvironment and Metastasis Department at Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida

Since 2021 Urte is a group leader at Vilnius University and European Molecular Biology Laboratory Partnership Institute for Genome Editing Technologies. Using state-of-the art gene editing tools, U. Neniskyte aims to define the mechanisms that are required for the maturation of neuronal networks during brain development. The aberrations of these processed are associated with a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia and epilepsy.

A physician-scientist passionate about medical genetics, multi-omics & systems biology. Combines wet and dry lab expertise. Experienced in target discovery using primary patient material. Contributor to in-vitro, in-vivo, and translational studies through daily lab work in an interdisciplinary team.

Dr. Yuriy Rebets is a chief scientific officer of the Ukrainian biotech company Explogen which is focused on bacterial natural products discovery. The laboratory of Explogen is specialized on developing new approaches and tools for identification and characterization of biosynthetic pathways for bacterial natural products, cloning and manipulating large DNA fragments and bacterial strain engineering for better antibiotic production.

Since 2016, Dina is a PI in the Computer Science and Engineering School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dina Schneidman’s interdisciplinary research focuses on developing and applying machine learning methods for modeling the structure and dynamics of macromolecular assemblies and immune response complexes.

Research areas: plant genetic transformation, regulation of transgene expression in plants, production of recombinant proteins in plants for pharmaceutical purposes. One of the results in this direction is the creation of transgenic lettuce plants exhibiting antibacterial activity against two pathogenic E. coli strains, as well as several strains resistant to beta-lactam and carbapenem antibiotics, due to the expression of the colicin M gene. She also teaches the author's educational course "Mechanisms of gene expression regulation in eukaryotic cells and their application in modern biotechnology" for PhD. student of ICBGE.

Inessa Skrypkina's work of this leading research institution focuses on molecular biology and biotechnology, in particular on the study of malignant tumor development and their resistance, the search for markers for early diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. Her research is aimed at identifying genetic and epigenetic alterations associated with human kidney cancer and glioblastoma. Inessa Skrypkina identified genes and microRNAs associated with poor prognosis in human kidney cancer and glioma.