Under the overarching theme, “Connecting Brains”, the Brain Innovation Days brought together in Brussels on 11-12 October 2022 key opinion leaders and stakeholders from the ever-growing brain innovation ecosystem to create synergies and showcase the importance of brain innovation and how, one innovation at a time, it is changing Europe and the world. Relive the Brain Innovation Days in pictures!
Photo credit: Pierre-Laurent Barroo
GAMIAN-Europe
European Brain Council
Vinciane Quoidbach is Research Project Manager – Public Health and Policy for the Value of Treatment for Brain Disorders Study at the European Brain Council.
Vinciane holds a Master Degree in Hospital and Healthcare Management from Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health Management from Manchester Business School. She also holds a Master Degree in Political Sciences and European Studies from University of Antwerp. Prior to this position, Vinciane worked in both public and private sector, at national and international level. She served the Belgian Federal Public Service Health, and the Federal Minister of Health Cabinet as Advisor in charge of public health policy and regulations development in the area of Cancer, Chronic Diseases and Rare Diseases as well as the Biopharmaceutical Company AbbVie as Health Initiatives Manager. She also worked for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Swizterland as Technical Officer, Non communicable diseases and mental health cluster and the United Nations Development Programme in Pretoria, South Africa as Technical Officer, Social development department).
Vinciane is also a staff member at the Belgian Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBAM) at KULeuven.
Good Governance Institute and FIPRA International
Dr Usman Khan is a health policy and management professional with more than 25 years experience. In the last decade he has held senior leadership roles in the UK and abroad including that as Executive Director of the European Health Management Association and the European Patients Forum. He is currently a Senior Advisor at the Good Governance Institute, a UK based consultancy and at FIPRA International, a Brussels based European public affairs consultancy. Usman holds three non-executive positions being the Chair of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, an Independent Governor at London Metropolitan University, and an NHS Independent Non-Executive Director at North Central London Integrated Care Board. Usman is also Visiting Professor in Health Management and Policy at KU Leuven, Belgium and teaches at New York University (London). He is a regular public speaker and writer on health policy matters and author most recently of Health Management 2.0 (Emerald Publishing).
Member of the European Parliament
Radka Maxova has been a Member of the Czech Parliament since 2013, and since 2019, she has been representing the interests of the Czech Republic in the European Parliament. At both the national and European levels, her primary areas of focus are social policy, the rights of individuals with disabilities, equal opportunities, and the protection of vulnerable groups. She is also deeply engaged in health-related issues, including mental health, rare diseases, patient rights, and access to healthcare for all. Currently, she serves as the Vice-Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and is a substitute member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), as well as the Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT). She is also a member of the Parliamentary Disability Intergroup, the MEP Alliance for Mental Health and EU SHD Coalition, dedicated to structural heart diseases.
European Brain Council
Professor Suzanne L Dickson is a neurobiologist and Professor of Neuroendocrinology at the University of Gothenburg. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Neuroendocrinology from the University of Cambridge in 1993, where she later became Senior Lecturer in Physiology. She is a leading figure in neuroendocrinology and works within many European Union and international organisations and societies to promote research, facilitate grant funding and training of Early Career Scientists. Her research into the neurobiology of appetite aims to unravel neurobiological pathways that respond to orexigenic signals, such as the hormone, ghrelin, and that drive feeding behaviours, not only food intake but also food choice, food anticipation, food reward and food motivation. This work involves mostly preclinical studies and includes behavioural tasks, viral vector mapping, chemogenetics and RNAscope. She is Secretary and Executive Board member of the European College for Neuropsychopharmacology, and also chairs ECNP’s Workshop for Early Career Scientists in Europe. She also is founder and co-chair of ECNP’s nutrition network and EBRA’s BRAINFOOD cluster.
EUREGHA
Marco is a Policy and Project Officer at EUREGHA, the reference network for European Regional and Local Health Authorities.
He assists the Secretariat in monitoring EU health policy and legislative files and developments of health policies at the regional level, and he takes care of the implementation of EU-funded projects, especially in the framework of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, such as BOOST (mental health, H2020), PERISCOPE (Covid-19 response, H2020), Health InnoFacilitator (innovation procurement, HE), and BeWell (digital and green skills, Erasmus+).
He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs from the University of Bologna, focusing on EU studies.
Vall d’Hebron University Hospital
Patricia Pozo-Rosich MD PhD, is a specialist in Neurology.
She is Head of Section of the Neurology Department, Director of Headache and Craniofacial Pain Clinical Unit and the Migraine Adaptive Brain Center at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain; Coordinator of the Brain, Mind & Behaviour eCORE and Group Leader and Principal Investigator of the Headache Research Laboratory at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), which belongs to the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona (UAB).
She is the past Coordinator of the Spanish Headache Study Group of the Spanish Neurological Society (cefaleas.sen.es), past member of the Council of the European Headache Federation, past trustee member of the International Headache Society.
She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Fundación Lilly Spain.
She is the Editor for Headache for Revista de Neurologia, an Associate Editor of Cephalalgia, Headache, Neurologia, Frontiers in Neurology (Headache Medicine) and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of The Journal of Headache and Pain.
She has edited Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Headache, authored original papers and written a book.
Health & Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)
Stéphane Hogan is Head of Unit for Health Research at the Health & Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), on secondment from DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission, which implements the Horizon Europe Health Cluster and Cancer Mission.
Stéphane was previously Head of Unit for Biotechnology for Health, subsequently Head of Unit for Strategy, and more recently Head of Sector for Neuroscience at DG Research and Innovation from 2016-2019.
Stéphane has also represented the European Commission as Science Counsellor at the EU Delegation to the European Union to the African Union in Addis Ababa from 2012-2016, where his role was to foster cooperation in between the EU and Africa, both at policy level and through the Framework programme.
Stéphane holds a degree in genetics and a masters in biotechnology from Trinity College Dublin, as well as an MBA with the Open University in the UK.
Sitra’s Health Data 2030 Project, TEHDAS
Elina works as a Specialist in Sitra’s Health Data 2030 project and Coordination of TEHDAS. Her job involves promoting re-use of health data in Finland and Europe and collaborating with international health ecosystems and organisations. Elina has expertise in the establishment of the European Health Data Space for secondary use, and she has over 10 years of experience in European collaborations in the field of health research. She has worked as a Project Manager and Work Package Leader in various EU-funded research projects in Finland and Sweden, and she has gained experience in research funding and international co-operation during her time at the Research Council of Finland. Elina’s background is in social sciences and her professional interests include societal impact and systems change towards sustainable development, where health and well-being are understood in a broad sense. In addition to her position at Sitra, Elina is affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki.
Applied University FH Joanneum
Hannes Hilberger (FHJ) is a dedicated researcher affiliated with the eHealth Institute at the Applied University FH Joanneum. Possessing a master’s degree in eHealth, he is currently enrolled in the doctoral program of “Lifestyle-Related Diseases” at the esteemed Medical University of Graz. His research focus encompasses advancing the domains of federated learning, synthetic data generation, and health informatics. His contributions were recognized when he received the Austrian Health Research Award in the category of “Digitalization and Innovation in the Healthcare Sector” with his thesis titled “Implementation of a Cross-Silo Federated Learning Approach for the Health Sector.” In addition to his academic pursuits, Hannes serves as the lead developer for the mobile application designed for study participants and the clinical trial management system tailored for clinical partners within the ambit of the H2020 project LETHE. He adeptly employs his specialized expertise in Machine Learning, particularly in the sphere of explainability, prediction of risk and progression of cognitive decline as well as Federated Learning, to significantly contribute to the LETHE project’s success. Furthermore, Hannes plays a crucial role in the IMI H2020 project Trials@Home, overseeing the technical implementation and management of the issue-tracking system.
Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Prof. Giuseppe Turchetti received his Laurea Degree in Economics from the University of Pisa. He received his PhD in Management from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, where he is professor of Economics and Management of Innovation and Healthcare. Fulbright Scholar, he spent several years for research in USA as Visiting Scholar at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago) and at the Kellogg School of Management of the Northwestern University (Chicago). He is Co-Founder of the Institute of Management of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA – Pisa), of the Research Center on Technologies and Services for the Support of Longevity (SSSA – Pisa), of the Research Center on European Transplantation Management (SSSA – Pisa), of the Center of Excellence ENDOCAS (on Computer Assisted Surgery) of the University of Pisa. His main research interests are in the fields of the: organisation, financing and evaluation of healthcare services and health technologies, of the management of innovation, organization and commercialization of medical technologies (pharma, medical devices, e-health), strategic management and marketing in the healthcare sector. His research addresses many therapeutic areas and the wide field of rare diseases. He is working on/coordinating several national and international projects in the area of healthcare technologies and management. He collaborates in several projects within the ERN Program (on a regular basis with ERN ReCONNET), European Commission. He is author/editor of twenty books and of three hundred scholarly papers and book chapters.
SAY IT Labs
Erich Reiter, Erich holds a M.Sc.in Speech and Communication Disorders from the Massachusetts General Hospital, and an M.Sc. in Computational Linguistics from the University of Buffalo. Erich started his career in 2004 working as a speech recognition engineer in the Silicon Valley for Nuance Communications, the original makers of SIRI. In 2012, after losing a friend to ALS, a new interest in technology for people with speech disorders emerged. Erich left Nuance in 2014 to become a speech and language pathologist.
In 2019, Erich co-founded SAY IT Labs where he combines his knowledge of artificial intelligence, speech recognition, and speech and language pathology to create video games for people with speech disorders.
Hoofd-Stuk
Rising above the storm of migraines, I’ve found strength and resilience. With a degree in office management, 15 years full-time employment and over a decade of successful entrepreneurship, I’ve taken control of my destiny. Now working as a volunteer at Hoofd-Stuk, I’m seeking to reconnect with the power of teamwork, I’m ready to bring my skills and passion to a collaborative environment. Let’s create something incredible together, while never letting migraines define us.
DG Research & Innovation
Hélène Le Borgne is Policy officer on research on rare diseases at the Directorate-General for Research & Innovation in the European Commission since January 2020 (unit ‘Health innovations and ecosystems’). In this position, Hélène supports policy work on rare diseases such as preparations with Member States’ representatives for the future European Partnership on Rare Diseases under Horizon Europe and follow-up of current ongoing projects such as the European Joint Programme co-fund on Rare Diseases (EJP RD), the Coordination and Support Action ERICA for European Reference Networks (ERNs) or public-private projects such as Screen4Care, under the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).
Prior to that Hélène worked in Germany and in the French public sector (for academia, student life, youth and sports) and joined in 2010, as Policy officer, DG SANTE of the European Commission, working on health threats, organ donation and transplantation as well European Reference Networks (ERNs) on rare diseases.
European Brain Foundation
Patrice Boyer is Chair of the EBF, the immediate past vice-president of the European Brain Council (EBC) and a past President of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA). He is Honorary Professor of Neurosciences and Psychiatry at the University Paris-Diderot (France) and Professor of Psychiatry and post graduate studies (geographical) at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is the founding editor of the journal European Psychiatry, the co-founder of the French Congress of Psychiatry, and a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the main foundation for research in neurosciences and psychiatry in France (Fondamental). Trained in neurology and psychiatry, Prof Boyer used to be previously the co-Chairman of the Master and Doctorate courses for Neurobiology at the Universities of Paris 5 and Paris 7 and the advisor for psychiatry in the then newly created INSERM thematic institute (ITMO Neurosciences).
International Brain Research Organization Pan-European Committee
José L. Lanciego’s current research focuses on gene therapy approaches for neurodegenerative diseases using non-human primate models. He is the Chair of the International Brain Research Organization Pan-European Committee, a Board Member of the European Brain Council and the International Basal Ganglia Society Council. He has published 132 papers with an h index of 46. In September 2019, he has co-founded Handl Therapeutics B.V. for pushing forward the development of novel therapies for Parkinson’s disease.
Portuguese MEP, S&D
Sara Cerdas is a Portuguese medical doctor and, since July of 2019, a Member of the European Parliament. She is a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), the Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) and S&D coordinator of the Sub-Committee on Public Health (SANT). She was also vice-president of the Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA) and S&D coordinator of the Special Committee on COVID-19 (COVI). Currently, MEP Cerdas is shadow rapporteur of the proposal for Regulation for the European Health Data Space and main rapporteur of the INI report on Mental Health.
She holds a master’s degree in Medicine from the University of Lisbon, a postgraduate degree in traveler’s medicine from NOVA University Lisbon and a master’s degree in Public Health from the Umeå University.
Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU
Csaba Kontor has been working as health attaché since 2015. During this period he participated at all the Council discussions in health matters (e.g. medical devices, health technology assessment, health union package and covid related dossiers). Currently he is following the discussion on the current dossiers such as regulations on European Health Dataspace and Substances of Human Origin. Besides he is in charge of the negotiations on the pharmaceutical package. Beforehand he worked in the ministry responsible for health as deputy head of the pharmaceutical department.
European Youth Forum
Policy officer for social and economic inclusion at the European Youth with a particular focus on fair working conditions and access to social protection for young people.
Boehringer Ingelheim
Vanessa leads BI’s strategic engagements with the mental health community, aiming to shine a light on chronic and complex conditions such as schizophrenia, PTSD and bipolar disorder, and involving these patients and carers in the development of future treatments. She has previous experience in developing successful advocacy campaigns on different health policy issues in Brussels and Berlin, and has also worked with global organizations, such as the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition. Her passion for patient advocacy is motivated by her brother, who lives with a rare chromosomal disorder.
Limbic AI
Nathaniel Rose is the Co-Founder of Lymbic AI and a neurotechnology researcher building novel authentication paradigms through brain-computer interfaces. During his graduate studies, Nathaniel’s previous research under Dr. Aldo Faisal at Imperial College London focused on immersive applications using gaze selection and non-invasive BCI for the control of open-sourced robotic platforms. He has over 10 years of software engineering experience having led development teams at Microsoft, Circle Pay & Ripple, provisioning distributed data platform infrastructure, automated ML operation pipelines, and web3 smart contract governance for the XRP ledger. Nathaniel and his team at Lymbic AI now pioneering brain signal biometric security to combat the growing cyberattacks and authentication exploits in the industry.
Belgian Headache Society
Prof. Dr. Jan Versijpt (born 1972) studied medicine at the University of Ghent, Belgium. After his medical studies he did a PhD in Alzheimer’s disease and neuroimaging. He then pursued in Nuclear Medicine to graduate as a licensed practitioner specialist in Nuclear Medicine. Afterwards he started a second specialty being Neurology, this in Antwerp (Belgium) and Groningen (the Netherlands). Since November 2008 he works as a Neurologist at the University Hospital in Brussels (Belgium) where he is the coordinating physician of the Clinic for Head and Facial Pain and the Memory Clinic. He is (co-)author of more than 80 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. He is the current president of the Belgian Headache Society and board member of the European Headache Federation.
ALAN Maladies Rares
Antoni Montserrat Moliner (born in Barcelona, Catalonia). He was responsible for the policies on rare diseases and cancer at the Public Health Directorate of the European Commission from 2004 to 2017, where he initiated the Commission’s Communication, the Council’s Recommendation on rare diseases and the creation of the EUCERD and other expert committees on RD as well as their implementation and some of the Joint Actions in different areas (rare cancers, national plans, registers, etc.). He’s always Active Senior on Public Health for the European Commission.
As a person with extensive international experience in rare diseases and being himself affected by a rare disease, he joined ALAN Maladies Rares’s Board of Directors in Luxembourg in 2018 to contribute within his areas of expertise and became Vice President of ALAN in 2023. He was appointed as member of the Steering Committee of the National Plan for Rare Diseases (CNMR) and Supervisor for the creation of the Luxembourg register of RD and became Vice President of the CNMR in 2021.
He’s also member of the Scientific Committee of the FEDER Foundation in Spain. Member of the EURORDIS Woking Group on Newborn Screening. He does activities of advice for several organisations and companies in the field of RD.
MBA Essentials from the London School of Economics and Political Science and MBA on Innovation and Leadership from the Solvay Brussels School on Management.
RTW Charitable Foundation
Juan Carlos López is Managing Director, Research Grants, at the RTW Charitable Foundation. A native of Oaxaca, Mexico, Juan Carlos obtained his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University (New York) in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel and carried out postdoctoral research at the Instituto Cajal (Madrid). In 2000, Juan Carlos moved to London to launch the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, subsequently becoming its Chief Editor. Four years later, he returned to New York as Chief Editor of the prestigious journal Nature Medicine. In 2014, Juan Carlos joined Hoffmann-La Roche as Head of Academic Relations and Collaborations, leading a team in charge of fostering scientific interactions between the company and academic institutions worldwide. After leaving Roche, Juan Carlos founded Haystack Science, a consulting firm specialized in editorial services and science commercialization. In 2020, Juan Carlos returned to the pharmaceutical industry as Director of Academic Research Collaborations at Bristol Myers Squibb. Throughout his career, Juan Carlos has served on the Boards of multiple organizations in the non-profit and biotechnology sectors, most recently on the Board of Directors of Keystone Symposia.
ERA-Net NEURON
Marlies Dorlöchter, PhD, is the coordinator of the ERA-Net NEURON, the “Network of European funding for Neuroscience research”. She initiated in 2007 this network of funding organizations from altogether 28 countries working together to jointly promote research into the brain and its disorders, mental and neurological. She is affiliated with the DLR-PT in Bonn, Germany, a project management agency acting on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. She is in charge of a number of funding programmes at national and international levels in the area of brain disorders. In this regard, she is leading the Coordination and Support Action BrainHealth that aims to prepare a future European Partnership on Brain Health. Marlies Dorlöchter is a neurobiologist by training and worked after her doctoral studies on various neuroscientific topics at universities in Bonn, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Aachen.
European Federation of Neurological Associations
Dr. Orla Galvin came to patient advocacy with a PhD in Medicine and background in drug discovery and design in both academic and industry environments. Transitioning to advocacy work at the umbrella patient organisation Retina International, Orla led high impact, multi-stakeholder socio-economic studies, patient preference studies, and accessibility studies across the globe assessing both rare and common conditions.
Orla is an internationally invited speaker to both research and clinical learned societies (for example EURORDIS, EU Retina, ERN-EYE), patient organisations, and industries on topics such as:
Patient and public involvement in advocacy, research and policy,
Research in advocacy and policy/evidence-based advocacy,
Education in advocacy,
Generation of real-world data,
Patient reported outcomes, and
Health economics.
European Academy of Neurology
Paul Boon is senior full professor of neurology and Director of Neuroscience at Ghent University, Belgium. He is also chair of the Department of Neurology and Chair of the Division of Head, Movement and Senses, as well as professor of Neuromodulation, at Eindhoven University of Technology. As a board member and former chair of the EAN Programme Committee, he has actively contributed to the annual EAN congresses. He has also previously served as co-chair of the EAN Scientific Panel on Epilepsy, member of the European Journal of Neurology Editorial Board, and as a member of the EAN Scientific Committee. He is a Fellow of the European Academy of Neurology (FEAN).
Prof. Boon’s main neurological interests are clinical epilepsy, neurological sleep disorders, quantitative EEG and MEG analysis, neuromodulation and functional neuroimaging. He founded the 4Brain Laboratory for Clinical and Experimental Neurophysiology, Neurobiology and Neuropsychology at Ghent University.
DG Research and Innovation
Irene Norstedt works at the European Commission, where she is Acting Director responsible for the Health Directorate within the DG for Research and Innovation, European Commission. She is also Head of the Innovative and Personalised Medicine Unit.
She has been at the European Commission since 1996, and was instrumental in the creation of IM in 2008 From 16 December 2014 to15 September 2015, Irene served as Acting Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Prior to joining the European Commission, she worked for the Swedish life science company Biacore AB and at the Swedish embassy in London. Irene studied biotechnology and polymer science, and holds a Master of Science (MC) in Chemical Engineering.
French Ministry of Economy and Finance
Dr. Françoise Roure is an economist, former civil servant in charge of Security and Safety Evaluation of Technologies at Conseil général de l’économie, Ministry of Economy and Finance… As the former Chair of OECD Working Party of Biotechnologies, Nanotechnologies and Converging Technologies, she prepared the adoption of the OECD Recommendation 457 for Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnologies in 2019. She is a member and represents the French Charter Committee for Responsible Development of Neurotechnologies at the Brain Innovations Day
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Dr. Medalia is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of Cognitive Health Services for the New York State Office of Mental Health. She is also a member of the Columbia University Academy of Clinical Excellence, and the founding director of the Lieber Recovery and Rehabilitation Clinic, a comprehensive psychiatric rehabilitation program for individuals with persistent mental illness. Professor Medalia has been instrumental in raising awareness about the need to address cognition as a central aspect of health related to functional outcome. She brought the concept of Cognitive Health to the field of Psychiatry and identified the need for the treatment of cognition to embrace an understanding of how motivation and learning interact. She developed the widely used Neuropsychological & Educational Approach to Remediation (NEAR) model of cognitive remediation, which has been disseminated worldwide. In 1998 she started Cognitive Remediation in Psychiatry, the largest annual international conference devoted to addressing cognitive health for people with psychiatric disorders. Professor Medalia is the founding director of www.teachrecovery.com, a website devoted to facilitating training of mental health professionals in cognitive health interventions for people with psychiatric disorders. She is a NIMH funded researcher, prolific author, and the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding leadership in psychiatric rehabilitation.
European Federation of Associations of Families of People with Mental Illness (EUFAMI)
John Saunders is the Executive Director at EUFAMI, an organisation of family member associations across Europe. John was the Director of Shine, Supporting People Affected by Mental Ill Health from 2001 until 2021. He previously worked in the field of Autism and Learning Disabilities.
He is Chair of the National Implementation Monitoring Committee, an Irish Government body established to oversee and report on the implementation of its new Mental Health policy – Sharing the Vision.
He was a member of the National Expert Group to review and update Mental Health Services – A Vision for Change, established by the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Ireland, Chair of the second Implementation Monitoring Group, and Chair of the Irish Mental Health Commission.
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
Dr. Miguel Angel Lara Otaola is a practitioner and scholar with extensive experience in the field of democracy and elections. He has worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Overseas Development Institute in the UK, the Electoral Integrity Project at the Universities of Sydney and Harvard and Mexico’s Electoral Tribunal and National Electoral Institute. He was Head of Mission for Mexico and Central America and is currently Senior Democracy Assessment Specialist for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Dr. Lara Otaola holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Sussex, an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and an MPA in Public Administration and Public Policy from the Tecnológico de Monterrey. He has participated in the design and implementation of over 30 technical assistance, training and election observation missions in 17 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. He has delivered over 100 conferences, is a frequent radio and TV commentator and has over 60 publications in outlets including Newsweek, Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica and The Washington Post.
EFPIA
Magda Chlebus is Executive Director Science Policy & Regulatory Affairs at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), representing the R&D-based pharmaceutical industry in Europe.
Ms. Chlebus and her team are in charge of following policy and legislative developments that influence the research and regulatory environments for the healthcare industry in Europe. This includes public private collaborations (inter alia the Innovative Medicines Initiative), enabling sensitive technologies and the interface between new science and technology and regulation.
After a Master Degree in Applied Linguistics at University of Warsaw in 1992 and a carrier as translator and teacher, in 1995 she joined EFPIA, the representative voice of R&D-based pharmaceutical industry in Europe.
Her experience covers public and government affairs, including designing and implementing advocacy campaigns on EU legislation as well as implementation of the pharmaceutical legislation in new Member States.
Convergence Partners
Daniel is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Convergence Partners, a European HealthTech venture capital firm that actively supports the internationalisation and business development of its portfolio companies in the world’s largest healthcare markets. Convergence currently focuses on investment opportunities in Behavioural Health and is in the process of launching a EUR 100m Brain Health Fund. Daniel has more than 15 years of High tech venture capital investing – and company building experience, focused on sectors that have a positive impact on planet and society. From 2009 to 2017, Daniel was Investment Partner and Investment Committee Member at Jadeberg Partners, a pioneering VC firm in European Cleantech-investing. Prior, Daniel worked for 7 years at Man Group, one of the world’s leading alternative investment management firms, in London, Chicago and Hong Kong, focused on environmental technology investments. Before joining Man Group, Daniel worked at the EU headquarters of Intel Corporation. Daniel holds an MBA and BSc in Business Studies from Bayes Business School, London (formerly Cass Business School) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Epihunter
With more than a decade steering global digital initiatives at Bose, Tim Buckinx is no stranger to the power of technology. But it’s his personal journey as a father to a son living with refractory epilepsy that truly ignited his passion. Driven by this deep personal connection, Tim founded epihunter, a trailblazing digital therapeutics company aimed at transforming lives.
His vision? To leverage the untapped potential of digital technology in diminishing the everyday challenges posed by neurological disorders. Imagine glasses, which don’t cure bad vision but drastically reduce its impact, enabling people to engage fully with the world. Now, what if digital solutions could do the same magic for those grappling with brain disorders? Tim Buckinx believes they can—and he’s on a mission to prove it.
French Ministry of Higher Education & Research
Pascal MAIGNÉ is a project manager at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR) and is part of the French delegation participating in the OECD working group on Biotechnologies, Nanotechnologies and Converging Technologies since 2016. Pascal Maigné obtained a PhD in Physics as well as an Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches at Sorbonne University. He subsequently held various research and higher education positions in Canada and France. At MESR, Pascal Maigné has coordinated the development of the French charter for responsible development in neurotechnologies. He is interested in the governance of emerging technologies presenting a strong potential for economic development and a source of benefits for society, but also touching on questions of ethics and social responsibility.
Institut de la Vision
Serge PICAUD has worked in the field of Neurosciences, precisely in vision and ophthalmology. After investigating retinal information processing, his interest has moved to visual restoration in blind patients. In a successful translation to the clinic, his team has validated a photovoltaic and wireless retinal prosthesis both ex vivo and in vivo on the primate retina, paving the way for clinical trials in patients affected by age-related macular degeneration. As an alternative to retinal prosthesis, he has evaluated optogenetic therapy on rodents and primates, opening the path toward clinical trials on blind patients affected by retinitis pigmentosa with a recovery of some visual performances. Moving toward visual restoration at the cortical level for patients with optic neuropathies, the team has provided a proof of concept in rodents for the application of sonogenetic therapy. These novel forms of non-contact and genetic-based brain machine interfaces relies on the expression of either a microbial opsin by gene therapy for optogenetics, or a mechanosensitive ionic channel for sonogenetics to render neurons sensitive to light or ultrasounds, respectively.
Brightmind.AI
Florian Lerchbammer-Kreith has worked in management consulting for over 5 years at BCG focusing on MedTech, Private Equity and Corporate Finance. He specialized in International Business and Finance, particularly in M&A and valuation and holds an MBA from INSEAD. Florian previously co-founded a system community platform for fertility treatments abroad.
Syntropic Medical
Mark Caffrey is a co-founder and the CEO of Syntropic Medical, a company revolutionising the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. Mark is an experienced medical device entrepreneur having led the development of several new technologies spanning oncology, medical imaging, and neurotechnology. He spent several years working at the acclaimed Translational Medical Device Lab in Galway, Ireland, working closely with clinicians to identify unmet clinical needs and develop solutions through a patient-centric approach. Having previously been the CTO at both IntellAblate and NeuriTec, Mark is now developing the Syntropic technology alongside Dr. Alessandro Venturino and Prof. Sandra Siegert with the goal of providing an effective solution to patients suffering from treatment resistant depression.
MindAhead
Nina Kiwit is a serial entrepreneur with a background in predictive modeling, design thinking, and digital health. She led and built two previous startups, one in fintech that exited in 2022 and one in healthcare that is running successfully with about 100 employees in the US and Germany. In her role as managing director at MindAhead, she strives to combine AI with personalized healthcare to combat the world’s increasing cognitive decline.
Axinesis
Pieter Van den Steen started his career as an environmental economist in researcher and consulting.
After his MBA at INSEAD he oriented his career on healthcare and has worked for the last 20 years in the medical devices industry with growing international responsibilities in commercial and general management functions. He joined big companies like J&J and Boston Scientific and worked for the last 7 years for start-ups of which nearly 4 years as CEO of Axinesis.
Neurolentech
Fiona Nielsen, CEO of Neurolentech – Serial entrepreneur in bioinformatics, genomics and big data. Previously at Illumina and Genomics England and o2h; Founder of DNAdigest and co-founder of Repositive.
In 2013 Fiona founded the charity DNAdigest promoting best practices for efficient and ethical data sharing for genomics research for the benefit of patients. She next founded the startup Repositive, a company that focused on sharing of genetic data and patient-derived cancer models for preclinical research. Fiona led Repositive for 7 years as CEO, partnering with 25+ biopharma and preclinical CROs worldwide creating a global marketplace for patient-derived preclinical cancer models. Fiona Nielsen has accumulated several accolades, among them Highly Commended for CEO of the year by Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards as well as WISE100 – Women in Social Enterprise. Fiona is a highly sought after speaker and mentor for companies in life sciences and technology. Fiona joined Neurolentech on a part-time basis from December 2022 and full-time from April 2023.
Neurocentury
Paweł Świeboda is Founder of NeuroCentury, a brain health hub and advisory company based in Brussels. He is Member of the Steering Committee of the Brain Capital Alliance and the Strategic Council of the European Policy Centre. In August 2023, he had completed his term as Director General of the Human Brain Project and CEO of EBRAINS AISBL. In this capacity, he oversaw the building of the Research Infrastructure for the study of the brain – EBRAINS. He is a contributor to the OECD Neuroscience-Inspired Policy Initiative. In his earlier role, he was Deputy Head and Head of Research of the European Political Strategy Centre at the European Commission. He had served on the European Commission’s Sounding Board on the EU’s Science, Research and Innovation Performance and the Global Agenda Council on Europe of the World Economic Forum. He is an advisor to European and global companies and policy organisations.
European Multiple Sclerosis Platform
Elisabeth Kasilingam is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform (EMSP) and as Vice-President of the European Patients’ Forum. In these roles, she is highly committed to working towards better quality of life of patients with MS and other chronic conditions by the implementation of successful, results-oriented projects and policy campaigns and actions. Elisabeth entered the European political arena more than 15 years ago, pursuing her interests in the field of human rights and specialising in the health and social sectors.
In her work with EMSP, Elisabeth has been developing capacity-building programmes to support the further development of national MS patient organisations and health and social advocacy campaigns, as well as engagement activities to develop young patient advocates.
Merck
As Global Business Franchise Head for Neurology and Immunology at Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, Dimitrios is leading a cross-functional team that is responsible for the development, the strategy, and the commercialization of key assets in the relevant disease areas, with a greater focus in Multiple Sclerosis, where Merck aspires to be among the top leaders with the current in market portfolio as well as its pipeline.
Prior to joining Merck, in his most recent role, Dimitrios led the Global Commercial Launch for Kesimpta, as a Global Executive Marketing Director Multiple Sclerosis for Novartis. The Kesimpta launch has been widely assessed as one of the top launches across the pharmaceutical industry in recent years.
Dimitrios has ~25 years of experience in health care, starting his career as a physician and then joined the pharmaceutical industry assuming roles of increasing impact over the past 15 years. He has led cross-functional teams across Commercial, Medical & Development both globally and in multiple countries.
A native of Greece, he is a physician by training, with a Specialty in Internal Medicine from Evangelismos Hospital of Athens. He is continuously looking for opportunities for learning and self-development and for that reason he has recently concluded an executive program in leadership and commercial strategies at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.
Wise Angle
With an academic background in political economics, Valentina is an expert in European R&I project design and management in the field of public health and healthcare innovation. She has a vast experience in international project management and proposal writing under several R&I funding programmes (FP6, FP7, H2020, Horizon Europe). Her research interests focus on health and social care and cover public health policy design and intervention planning, social innovation and digital transformation of public services. In the last 12 years she has been working as Research Project Manager at different healthcare, research and industry organizations providing consultancy services to public administration bodies and non-profit entities.
Currently, she is the Senior Project Manager in charge of the large EU-wide Coordination and Support Action CORE-MD, led by the European Society of Cardiology, which is reviewing and coordinating research and clinical evidence on high risk medical devices in order to provide expert advice to EU regulators, notified bodies and industry. She is also Dissemination and Communication manager of the ALAMEDA project aiming at developing AI based solution for early risk detection and disease progression monitoring for neurological disorders.
At the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance), she has been the International Projects Director from 2019 to 2021, the Dissemination and Exploitation leader of the H2020 projects PULSE and SmartWork, and the Dissemination leader of the IMI2 Gravitate-Health project.
She is a registered expert reviewer and proposal evaluator for HaDEA and EISMEA.
In 2018, Valentina founded Wise Angle, a social research and consulting company based in Spain, which has been awarded several R&I grants and service contracts from EU institutions and European organisations. She has recently authored socio-economic studies for the EESC and the EU-OSHA on the human impacts of digital transformation, COVID-19 and mental health in the workplace.
Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer
Mavi Sanchez-Vives, MD, PhD, has been an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Biomedical Research August Pi i Sunyer -Hospital Clinic Foundation in Barcelona since 2008, where she leads the Systems Neuroscience group. Previously, she was a professor of physiology at the Faculty of Medicine and research group leader at the Institute of Neurosciences (Miguel Hernandez University-CSIC). She completed her postdoctoral training in the biophysics laboratory at Rockefeller University and in the neurobiology department at Yale University (USA). She has authored over 150 scientific articles. She has been principal investigator on more than 10 European projects, including the Graphene Flagship, where her team worked on new graphene brain interfaces. She led a work package in the Human Brain Project on “Networks underlying cognition and consciousness” She recently obtained an ERC Synergy project. Her main interests in neuroscience are the generation of rhythmic brain activity, brain states, neurotechnology, and neuromodulation.
Since 2004, Mavi has also used virtual reality, originally for sensory perception research and from a neuroscientific perspective. She has been one of the pioneers in researching “embodiment” in virtual bodies and its multiple applications, especially in medicine and psychology. Her team has shown that pain can be modulated through transformations of the virtual body and that virtual embodiment can be a powerful tool for movement rehabilitation. Furthermore, she has led the use of virtual reality for the rehabilitation of violent behaviors in intimate partner violence, an approach currently being used in rehabilitation programs in prisons.
Mavi is one of the co-founders of the company Kiin, which uses virtual reality in the area of diversity and inclusion.
Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience
Pieter R. Roelfsema (MD, PhD) is director of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam. He is professor in Amsterdam and affiliated with the Institute de la Vision in Paris. He received a NWO-VICI award and two ERC-Advanced grants. He studies visual perception, plasticity, memory and consciousness in the visual system of animals, humans, and with neural networks. He develops the neurotechnology for high-bandwidth visual prostheses for blind people, aiming to restore a rudimentary form of sight. Roelfsema coordinates the Dutch neurotechnology initiative NeuroTech-NL. In 2019 he co-founded the start-up company Phosphoenix that aims to develop a visual brain prosthesis.
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
Joanna DRAKE has been the Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) since 2021. In this role, she provides overall assistance to the Director-General in the management of the DG, contributing to the definition, coordination and implementation of strategy and policy orientation. She is also Mission Manager for the EU Mission Cancer.
She was previously Deputy Director-General of DG Environment (2016-2021) where she chaired a cross-cutting Task Force spear-heading strategic positions for the DG on (inter-alia) the post-2020 Commission financial framework negotiations, Brexit co-ordination, the urban agenda and the future-proofing of the EU’s environmental acquis. Between 2010 and 2015 she was director for SME’s and Entrepreneurship in the DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). During her tenure in DG GROW she also led the Commission’s Task Force on The Collaborative Economy, New Business Models And SME’s.
By training, Joanna is a doctor of laws from the University of Malta, where she also lectured full time in the Department of European and Comparative Law. She acquired a post-graduate degree in Advanced European Legal Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She held various legal and management posts in the private and public sector before joining the European Commission as head of the European Commission Representation in Malta in 2005. She also had a key role in the Malta-EU accession negotiations as member of the Malta-EU Steering and Action Committee.
GAMIAN-Europe
Péter Kéri was born in Budapest and graduated as a teacher in 1992. He obtained his second degree in Public Relations in 2007. After a brief period of teaching in primary and secondary schools, he pursued a certificate in advanced travel management. Over the course of ten years, he specialized in designing special incentive group travel for multinational companies in Hungary, which allowed him to travel to various countries around the world and gain exposure to diverse cultural environments. During this time, his outspoken blog gained popularity not only within his cultural circles but also across the country.
For several years, Peter has been working at the Hungarian organization Awakenings Foundation, where he is responsible for the foundation’s innovations and projects. In addition to his involvement with self-help groups, he has contributed his own innovations to ensure that people with chronic mental illness in different care systems can access daily assistance, similar to other chronic patients.
He states, “My personal experience of the life events contributed to my late onset psychosocial problems, dealing with mental illness at the age of 43 and my journey to overcome it have helped others learn how to navigate some of life’s most difficult situations.”
Peter has also co-authored numerous studies and research papers and has been honored with the Anti-stigma Award in Hungary.
For more than 5 years, Peter has been actively collaborating with GAMIAN-Europe, dedicated to sharing knowledge and promoting the best models of care, research, and self-help for all individuals. He is President of GAMIAN-Europe and Member of the Board of European Psychiatric Association, Founder of felepules.org the first digital peer-support booking system.
FH Joanneum
Sten Hanke (FHJ) is Assoc Prof. for health IT infrastructure at the eHealth Institute at the Applied University FH Joanneum. He has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in medical science. The research focus has been health informatics, personal health, biomedical engineering as well as digital biomarkers. He has over ten years of expertise in coordinating different national and international research projects and initiatives involving academic, industrial and end users. He is a working member if the international ISO/IEEE 11072, European ISO/TC 215 and CEN/TC 251 healthcare and medical device communication working group. In terms of his professorship at the FHJ he is teaching lectures like mHealth, EHR and mIoT. He is currently coordinator of the H2020 project LETHE investigating digital biomarkers for dementia prediction and technical leader of the IMI H2020 project Trials@Home – investigating technology use in decentralized clinical trials. Sten Hanke has published over 100 publications and is well cited.
Italian MS Society – Italian MS Foundation
Paola Zaratin is the Director of Scientific Research for the Italian MS Society and its Foundation. She has over 30 years’ of experience working in Neuroscience research acquired in Public, Private and Patients’ Organizations, and over 15 years of experience in drug discovery and development. Doctor Zaratin’s professional education is on neuronal plasticity mechanisms underlying Multiple Sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases. As coordinator (2018- 2021) of the EU Responsible Research Innovation H2020 MULTI-ACT project, Paola has led the development of a new research governance model and guidelines to engage patients as key stakeholder in multistakeholder research initiatives. Several international and national multistakeholders initiatives are applying the MULTI-ACT model. Paola is the co-chair of the global Patient Reported Outcomes Initiative for Multiple Sclerosis (PROMS). Paola is author of more than 80 publications (1987-2023).
Innovative Health Initiative
Elisabetta is the most senior scientific staff at IHI. She was born in Italy and trained as DVM, MSc in Animal Laboratory Science and PhD in Molecular Neurobiology first Italy and then in UK. Elisabetta has a solid scientific background acquired working as scientist in prestigious academic institutions in England and Scandinavia. Elisabetta has also large experience in R&I and in scientific management in the private sector, acquired via a series of positions at increasing level of responsibility in the pharma industry and in biotech in Denmark. From 2010 to the kick start of IHI in December 2021, Elisabetta worked at the Innovative Medicine Initiative and has a deep and long experience in alliance management, capacity building, mentoring, stakeholder engagement across the public-private spectrum, fostering and setting up of public-private partnerships, management of complex and large portfolio of international research consortia and on funding mechanisms and processes and administration of European Research programmes.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Charlèss Dupont is a registered nurse and graduated from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2019 as MSc in Healthcare Management and Policy. In October 2017 she started working as a research assistant to implement quality indicators into the Flemish palliative care services. As of summer 2019 she is working on the CAPACITY project as a doctoral researcher developing an online advance care planning tool for people with dementia and their informal caregivers.
UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
Dr Gabriele Lignani is Professor of Translational Neuroscience at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy. He received his PhD in 2012 in Experimental Neuroscience from the University of Genoa and he did his first postdoc at the Italian Institute of Technology. Then he moved to UCL for his second postdoc and was awarded a Marie-Curie individual fellowship to develop new CRISPR-based editing tools to treat epilepsy. In 2018 he started his own lab as Epilepsy Research UK Emerging Leader to further develop novel gene therapies for epilepsy. He then obtained an MRC New Investigator Award to develop new CRISPR-based technologies and obtained several other discovery and translational grants. He is board member of several committees and Associate editor for Frontiers in Gene Editing and Contributing Editor for Epilepsy Currents; he also leads the Athena Swan initiative for gender balance in his Institute. Recently he has been awarded the Harinarayan Young Scientist Award by ILAE for his research in gene therapy for epilepsy, and the Michael Prize 2023 for the best scientific contribution to progress in the field of experimental epilepsy. The focus of his lab is to develop gene therapy and editing techniques for neurological disorders, to study the role of homeostatic plasticity in epilepsy and understand the basic epileptic mechanisms. He is co-founder of an UCL spin-out company which aims to bring gene therapy for epilepsy in the clinic.
Royal Hospital for Children (Glasgow), EPNS, EBC
Sameer is Paediatric Neurologist at the Royal Hospital for Children and Honorary Professor, University of Glasgow. His interests include epilepsy, neurogenetics and innovation. He leads the Paediatric Neurosciences Research Group in the University of Glasgow and is clinical lead of the Scottish Genetic Epilepsy service. He is a Board Member & immediate past President of the European Paediatric Neurology Society (EPNS) and sits on the Board of the European Brain Council. Other roles have included Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology (2015-21 and Chair of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Commission on Classification & Terminology (2013-17). He co-designed vCreate Neuro, a smartphone video diagnosis and management web-application. Established in Glasgow in 2020 it is now used by >100 services in the UK and internationally.
Swiss office of the Confederation of Laboratories for AI Research in Europe (CLAIRE)
Neuroscientist and public speaker in neurotechnologies, artificial intelligence, and responsible innovation. Dr Chavarriaga is senior researcher at the Zürich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and head of the Swiss office of the Confederation of Laboratories for AI Research in Europe (CLAIRE). His work is focused on leveraging neuroscience, AI, and ethics for advancing responsible innovation and governance of human-centered technology.
Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre
Francesco Muntoni is a Professor of Paediatric Neurologist and the Director of the Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre, at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, UK. In the Institute and hospital he led the Novel Therapies Programme of the Biomedical Research Centre and between 2008 and 2022 and also led the Developmental Neuroscience Programme between 2008 and 2018.
Since 2008 he is the co-director of the MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases at UCL.
Muntoni has an interest in pathogenesis, deep phenotyping, gene identification for rare neuromuscular conditions and translational research in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy and congenital myopathies. He is involved in several natural history studies and clinical trials. His research funded by the Department of Health, MRC and the European commission lead to the development and early clinical trials of 2 morpholino antisense oligonucleotides, now approved by FDA, that induce partial correction of the processing defect of the DMD gene in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He is the UK chief investigator for multiple clinical trials on DMD and SMA, including genetic therapies involving antisense oligonucleotides and AAV delivered transgenes.
In 2022 Muntoni was made director of the Genetic Therapy Accelerator Centre, a new gene therapy translational research partnership, based at Queen Square Institute of Neurology and in close collaboration with the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. This cross-faculty collaboration within UCL will drive forward an exciting evolving area with direct therapeutic benefits for patients with disabling neurological conditions.
In the last few years he obtained several international awards, including the 2022 Ottorino Rossi Award, the World Duchenne Organisation 2022 Leadership Awards and the 2023 European Paediatric Neurology Society Jean Aicardi Award.
European Innovation Council
Enric Claverol-Tinture oversees the Medical Technologies and Medical Devices portfolio at the EIC, bringing over 20 years of experience in the field. Prior to joining the EIC he was Director General of the Catalonia Science Foundation (FCRi), the Barcelona-based public vehicle supporting research, innovation and science-to-market startups in Catalonia. He brought to FCRi and eventually to EIC previous hands-on experience in medtech startups, fundraising, technology development and commercialization. Enric was in his early career a scientist/entrepreneur, tenured academic head of the neuroengineering program at the Catalonia Bioenginering Institute (IBEC), trained at the California Institute of Technology and Los Alamos National Laboratory (postdoctoral fellow) in the US, and at the University of Southampton in the UK (PhD).
European Migraine & Headache Alliance
Elena Ruiz de la Torre is one of the leading patient advocates and researchers in the world. She is a tireless and passionate champion for people with headache disorders in the workplace and beyond, with her advocacy career beginning in her native Spain, and then expanding to Europe, and now the world. Elena leads the European Migraine and Headache Alliance, a nonprofit patient umbrella group that represents 33 patient groups from across the continent. She also co-led the creation of WHAM, the World Health and Migraine organization, a patient-led coalition open to patient groups around the world. She has co-authored several publications, and her list of current advocacy work is extensive, including the “Eurolight”, “My Migraine Voice Global Survey,” “Migraine at Work”, “access to care”, and the “Migraine Friendly Workplace” projects.
Carthera
Frederic is the CEO of Carthera since 2014. He has an engineering background from ENST in Paris and an MBA from EM Lyon. After beginning his career at Siemens Healthcare in Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy, he held various management positions over 25 years at international level and has built solid experience in launching new medical technologies. As Business Manager at EDAP TMS, he led the launch of Ablatherm, the first device using therapeutic ultrasound for the treatment of prostate cancer. He was also CEO of Accuray Europe and launched the first CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery systems in Europe. Before joining Carthera, he was the Director of Strategy and Business Development for the Healthcare Incubator of Philips in Eindhoven.
European Medicine Agency
My background is in clinical psychiatry, and I practiced at the hospital in France (Paris) before joining the EMA where I am currently working in the Office for neurological and psychiatric disorders. One of my topics of interest is to try and understand better the various challenges of the clinical drug developments in psychiatry and how new technologies such as digital tools could help, so we try and develop better, safer and more personalised treatments for patients.
University of Padova
Barbara Di Camillo research activity is centred on the development and application of advanced modelling, data mining, and machine learning methods for high-throughput biological data analysis in the field of Bioinformatics and Health Informatics. This includes model/methods development and application in the field of systems biology, reverse engineering, and predictive medicine. In particular, she has been working on omics data studying metagenomics and transcriptomics regulatory networks and cell-cell communication networks from scRNAseq data. She is working on the use of dynamic Bayesian networks to model disease dynamics and the effect of the interaction of different variables (societal, clinical, environmental, and genetic) and their effect on complex clinical phenotype
More at: University of Padova & SysBioBig
Universidade de Lisboa
Bruno Miranda obtained is Medical degree at the University of Lisbon and his PhD degree in Neuroscience at the University College of London (and as part of the International Neurocience Doctoral Programme at the Champalimaud Foundation). His graduation work was on the computational models and neural signatures for different reinforcement learning strategies which can be used to guide decision-making, under the supervision of Doctor Steven Kennerley and Professor Peter Dayan (2017 Brain Prize). From a clinical perspective he obtained his title of Specialist in Neurology and has undertaken in-depth training in patient-oriented research skills. His clinical research has been centred on cognition and neurophysiology in neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases. At present, he is a researcher and assistant professor at the Lisbon School of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. His current research work is focused on how basic principles of human goal-directed behaviour and decision-making models can provide mechanistic explanations for human-environmental interactions in both health and disease. Moreover, he is actively involved in transdisciplinary collaborations and applications of such neurobiological principles to urban planning (neurourbanism) and architecture (neuroarchitecture). The experimental methods used to address these research questions include detailed behavioural analysis (e.g., biomonitoring and digital health), computational modelling, as well as neurophysiology and neuroimaging techniques. He is the leader of the Neuroscience Laboratory for this project, co-coordinator of the eMOTIONAL Cities project and co-leader of a workgroup in the European Urban Health cluster.
Sciensano
Dr. Irene Kesisoglou (F) is a senior researcher and project manager in the EU Health Information Systems unit at Sciensano since March 2021. She is working and leading tasks in several European projects, such as the HealthData@EU pilot project, the Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space (TEHDAS) and the HealthyCloud project. She is, therefore, highly involved and has developed an expertise in the establishment of the European Health Data Space for secondary use, metadata and the FAIR principles. Irini holds a BSc in Biology, an MSc and a PhD in Neuroscience (University of Sorbonne Paris, France) since 2020. She has previously worked as a scientist in different academic settings, as a process engineer and manager in a large multinational company, as a trainee at the European Commission in DG GROW and as a project officer at the Paris Brain Institute.
Foundation Lygature
Vera works as a Programme Manager at Foundation Lygature, a not-for-profit foundation based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Foundation Lygature sets up and manages large public-private partnerships, with the ultimate goal to make a long-lasting beneficial impact to the health of all.
Vera has been with Lygature since 2018, where she has been involved in the general management of several IMI-funded projects focussed on the development of innovative remote monitoring technologies and the discovery and development of novel digital endpoints (RADAR-CNS, RADAR-AD). In RADAR-AD, she coordinates the work package working on regulatory, ethics, and patient engagement. She is also leading a ZonMw-funded project on the regulatory hurdles of and opportunities of remote monitoring technologies in the context of pandemic preparedness. Next to that, she co-leads the patient engagement hub within Lygature.
In her current role she draws on knowledge gained during her work as a Regulatory Affairs Manager at Novartis pharma, where she worked before joining Lygature.
She was originally trained as a Medical Biologist at the Radboud University Nijmegen. After her studies, she obtained a PhD in the field of Molecular mechanisms of health and disease at the University of Groningen.
Broadreach Global
Christian is a business and innovation advisor in the biotech, health and pharma sectors, with 20 years strategic advisory, business creation, development and operational experience. His focus is business strategy, financing and business development for start-up and growth companies, and innovation policy for governments, university networks, and health systems. He founded the leading international biotech and health focused platform for connecting technology transfer, licensing and innovation office directors with serial entrepreneurs, industry and investors, over 10 years chairing more than 30 international summits on 5 continents, designed to the build expertise and capacity of tech transfer officers and startup and spinout CEOs to engage effectively with industry and investors. These summits were attended regularly by representatives of over 300 leading medical and life sciences universities and institutes world-wide and hosted by organizations such as the NIH, Wellcome Trust and Institut Pasteur. He was the lead rapporteur for the EC’s 3 year innovation in healthcare initiative, led a successful turn-around of a near bankrupt European biotechnology federation, coordinated the first European level entrepreneur training bootcamp for biotech founders/CEOs, developed the first pan-European biotech investment conference for start-ups in collaboration with the EC and EASDAQ (now Euronext), and convened the working group which led to some of the first formal collaborations and LP investments by large industrial biotechnology companies into venture capital funds.
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Maria Fernanda Cabrera received her doctoral degree with distinction in Biomedical Engineering, as well as her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Telecommunication Engineering (with two majors in signal processing and electronics) from Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM). Since 2005, she has been serving as the innovation director of the Life Supporting Technologies research group at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, where she holds the position of Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Additionally, she holds the roles of Financial Director in the universAAL IoT Alliance and Secretary General of ACTIVAGE.ORG association. From 2014 to 2018, she served as a visiting fellow at the Image and Pervasive Access Lab in Singapore.
In addition to her teaching activities, Maria works as a project coordinator and technical manager in leading research, innovation, and policy initiatives aimed at contributing to the digital transformation of health. Her expertise spans a wide range of applications in the domains of ICT applied to health and social inclusion, including gender and inclusiveness, personalization of services, persuasive design, citizen and data science, digital interventions, open innovation, and e-accessibility. She is a national expert of the European Accessibility Resource Centre AccessibleEU. Currently, she is coordinating a European initiative focused on leveraging big data to support patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis, along with their clinicians. She is also involved in another initiative focused on promoting gender equality in science, technology, and innovation.
Maria’s accolades include the UPM Extraordinary PhD Award in 2003, the National Civil Protection Research Award in 2006, and the International Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Award in 2011. She serves as an Editorial Committee Member of the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, as well as an Invited Editor of the Springer Universal Access in the Information Society. She is a member of the IEEE and Society of Women Engineers, the American Telemedicine Association, and the Spanish Society of Biomedical Engineering. She has an extensive record of service and involvement in various conferences and symposia. She has authored over 100 papers in scientific journals covering a range of related fields.
Fari Institute
Carl Mörch is co-director of FARI – AI for the Common Good Institute (ULB-VUB) and a member of the AI Ethics & Law Board of the Federal initiative AI4Belgium. He is also a member of the Ethics Special Interest Group of CLAIRE and a co-chair of CLAIRE Brussels office.
Carl aims at fostering high-quality applied projects related to AI, Data and Robotics that could serve the Brussels Region and its inhabitants. With FARI, he wants to support initiatives that can reinforce education around these technologies, and could help bridge the gap with civil society. He was in 2020-2021 a postdoctoral fellow at the Université de Montréal and Mila – Québec artificial Intelligence Institute. He was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies (OBVIA) in 2020. He is also a lecturer and adjunct professor at UQÀM (Montréal, Canada). His personal research work is oriented towards the concrete application of high-level ethical principles in applied domains. In general, he is interested in the responsible development of technologies in society, health care (Psychology and Dental Medicine in particular).
City of Brussels
Rémi Foulon has a rich and diverse background in customer service, hotel industry and retail management before joining the city of Brussels in 2017. With a current position as Cultural Mediator for the Museums of the City of Brussels since 2019, Rémi is responsible for accessibility, inclusion, and outreach projects for all 4 museums (Brussels City Museum, Fashion & Lace Museum, GardeRobe MannekenPis, SewerMuseum). This entails creating and developing guided tours and mediation tools for specific publics. He is also in charge of the project Museum on Prescription. Furthermore, Rémi plays a pivotal role in organizing prominent events like the Museum Night Fever or Pride at the Museum, fostering engagement and community participation.
Groningen Institue for Evolutionary Life Sciences
Martien Kas is Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. The research of his group focuses on determinants of behavior, especially of behavioral strategies and of biological processes that are essential across species and that are affected in various neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., social interaction and sensory information processing). By means of cross-species genetic analysis of neurobehavioral traits (of mice and men), they aim to identify genotype-phenotype relationships relevant to the development and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Alzheimer’s Disease, Eating Disorders, and Schizophrenia. These studies will lead to the understanding of conserved gene function in regulating essential behavioral strategies and will ultimately improve therapeutic and preventive strategies to contribute to healthy aging. In addition, he is Executive Committee Board member and President of the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacology (ECNP), Editorial board member of Mammalian Genome, and project coordinator of the PRISM1 and PRISM2 projects, two large EU Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) projects that aim to unpick the biological reasons underlying social dysfunction, which is a common early symptom of Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and Major Depressive Disorder.
European Psychiatric Association
Geert Dom is the President of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA), he is Professor of psychiatry at the University of Antwerp and Medical Director of the psychiatric center Multiversum, Boechout, Belgium. With teaching interest and research focus on addiction psychiatry and public mental health, Prof. Dom is the Past President of the European Federation of Addiction Societies (EUFAS), the Flemish Association of Psychiatry and of the Belgian Professional Association of Medical Specialists in Psychiatry.
Master of Ceremony
Lisa Burke is an experienced broadcaster having spent the bulk of her career presenting live television with Sky News, plus BBC, Channel 4, Fox News, many other Sky channels, RTE (Ireland) and RTL (Luxembourg). Her reporting has covered national and international assignments, documentaries and radio.
In Luxembourg, Lisa created RTL Today which has now become the biggest English news platform in the country. Now, she hosts and produces a weekly radio show (also available with video) and podcast: ‘The Lisa Burke Show’.
Lisa is in high demand as a host and moderator, covering TED talks, all Luxembourg Space Agency work, finance, health, entrepreneurship, tech, science, European Institution events and many more. She is a public speaking coach, and launched the first Presenting & Debating Society at the University of Luxembourg. Additionally, Lisa is a sought-after voice-over artist.
Whilst living in Abu Dhabi for two years, Lisa wrote for The National newspaper.
Other writing includes children’s science books. Lisa has been a science consultant and author with Dorling Kindersley since 2005. She studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, gaining a double first. Her specialism was chemistry.
Lisa is on the Cambridge University Communications Working Group. She is also a board member for Angel Aid Cares, a Californian-based foundation raising aid for the care-givers of children with rare disease.
Lisa is a trained classical singer and pianist. She has two daughters.
Greek MEP, EPP
Dr. MEP Stelios Kympouropoulos is a Greek psychiatrist and politician and has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. He joined the European People’s Party. He is a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), Committee on Petitions (PETI). He is also a Member of the newly established Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT). In addition, he is the EPP coordinator in COVI Committee; a substitute member of the ENVI Committee; REGI Committee and the Subcommittee on Human Right; and the co-chair of the Disability Intergroup of the European Parliament. He holds a master in “Mental Health Promotion – Prevention of Psychiatric Disorders” and a BA in Medicine from the Department of Medicine of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2013, he pioneered the organization of the first Greek delegation to the pan-European event “Freedom Drive”, which became the springboard for the creation of the first Independent Living Organization of Greece, “I-Living!”, which is an urban non-profit company run exclusively by individuals with a disability.
Finish MEP, EPP
Aura Salla , PhD, Member of the Finnish Parliament. Before being elected, Salla worked as Managing Public Policy Director, Head of EU Affairs and the office at Meta (previous Facebook) Brussels.
Before joining Facebook, Aura was working in the European Commission as a Foreign Policy and Communications Adviser in the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), in-house think thank to President Jean-Claude Juncker. Previously she served as a Member of Cabinet of Jyrki Katainen, European Commission Vice President responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness.
Before joining the Commission 2014, she worked in consultancy company Recommended Finland as a Project Manager specialising in Public Affairs and EU Communications and before that as a speechwriter and political adviser in the Finnish Parliament. She also served from 2018-2020 as a Chairwoman of the Party Council of the Coalition Party Finland / the EPP.
Aura is a Doctor of Political Science from Turku University. Her dissertation focused on politicisation of the Europeans Commission during the euro crisis 2009-2014. She has also studied Economics of the European Union at the University of Leipzig, Germany and has been a visiting lecturer on European economics at Harvard University. Since 2017 Aura has been a non resident research fellow in the Circular Economy Research Center at École des Ponts Business School Paris.
Irish Dementia Working Group
Limerick native Kevin Quaid was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in 2017 aged 53, after being diagnosed firstly with Parkinson’s. He is a member of the Irish Dementia Working Group as well as vice chair of the European Working Group of People with dementia and co founder of Lewy body Ireland.
Kevin is an avid GAA fan and speaks about the fighting spirit of the Limerick hurling team in 2018 and the fact they never gave up. He brings that same spirit to his life with dementia.
Kevin is married to Helena. He has three children, three stepchildren and five grandchildren. This family man is an adventurer who spent time in Australia and loves to travel.
After his diagnosis Kevin realised there was a lack of information about his particular form of dementia and wrote a book called “Lewy Body Dementia, Survival and Me”. He was one of the first patients in the world to write a book about Lewy Body Dementia from the patients point of view as well as his families’ point of view. He has since written a second book called “I am KEVIN not Lewy”. He is now an active advocate and through his work with the Irish Dementia Working Group supported by the Alzheimer Society of Ireland raises awareness about the condition through speaking engagements and media appearances.
European Brain Council
Fernando Aguzzoli-Peres is a Brazilian journalist and bestselling writer, renowned for his work in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. He has authored five books on the subject, targeting both adults and children, which have been published in four countries and sold approximately 500,000 copies.
Fernando is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, at the Global Brain Health Institute – Trinity College Dublin. He is currently the Coordinator of Successful Aging and Dementia at the association Crônicos do Dia a Dia (CDD), an organization dedicated to mitigating the challenges faced by individuals with chronic diseases in Brazil.
Additionally, Fernando holds the position of Communication and Aging Coordinator at the International Longevity Centre Brazil (ILC BR). He is a two-time TEDx speaker, and one of the visionary partners behind the Walking the Talk for Dementia Experience and Symposium. This groundbreaking initiative brought together individuals with dementia, researchers, healthcare professionals, advocates, and policymakers from 25 different nationalities to walk 40 kilometers in Santiago de Compostela. The event aimed to raise awareness about dementia and foster collaborations among diverse participants
Frédéric Destrebecq is the Executive Director of the European Brain Council since October 2014. In this capacity, he is responsible for providing strategic direction and leadership while managing the day to day operations of EBC and its ongoing relationships with its member associations and other stakeholders, as well as representing the organisation in various European and national forums.
Fred holds a Master Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He also studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Paris) and University of Wales College (Cardiff), in the framework of the former EU Socrates exchange programme. Prior to EBC, Fred served the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) as Chief Executive Officer, and previously as Director for European Affairs.
Founder of Panakes, Diana has over 20 years of international experience in managing Venture Capital investment funds, through which she invested in over 60 start-ups across Europe. After several years of experience in the strategic consultancy sector at A.T. Kearney, Diana worked as Senior Advisor in the Investment Banking division of Lazard. In 2001 she co-founded 360 Capital Partners, a leading pan-European Venture Capital firm. She is a member of several national and international committees (EU and US) for the selection and promotion of innovative start-ups. She has also co-founded and chaired the International Venture Club, an association that brings together the main European venture capital firms. She is frequently involved as Scientific Advisor to Life Sciences conferences and acting in or chairing juries for the allocation of public funds at Italian, European and US level (i.e. Premio Marzotto, Life Star Awards, EIC H2020 and National Cancer Institute-SBIR initiative).
CEO, E-Health Venture
Marius started his career at the Boston Consulting Group, and then set up the digital department of Proximus Luxembourg. Since 2019, he runs Belgium’s specialist health-tech incubator E-Health Venture, which brings together health & care incumbents to support innovative projects.
Startup Scout & Project Officer, imec.istart
Maarten has worked very closely with early-stage digital health companies through his previous role as Regional Manager at BlueHealth Innovation Center, an early-stage Digital Health incubator in Belgium. Currently, he is the start-up scout at imec.istart, a leading tech accelerator for early-stage start-ups in Europe that has supported and invested more than 260 companies across the last 10 years.
In 2017, more than 300 million people worldwide were estimated to suffer from brain disorders, imposing an economic burden of nearly 900 billion EUR in patient care. Therefore, the urgent need of the hour is to identify creative interventions to heal the brain and cure the mind. The goal of this breakout session is to bring together a world-leading group of panelists to discuss creative interventions and the interface of neuroscience and artificial intelligence to identify therapeutic treatments for brain disorders.
The neurotech market as part of the neuroenhancement trend is rapidly growing and not shy of making big promises: consumer products for home use to boost attention, mood or memory. Gaining and maintaining the trust of consumers is paramount to succeeding in the neurotech market. However, in the scientific disciplines that form the foundation of these products – including Psychology, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science – concerns about the independent replication of research findings are acute. There is currently an evidence gap for both clinical and consumer product development – and filling this gap with trustworthy data requires robust research. Translational efforts in industry can therefore greatly benefit from robust and transparent research practices. Further, the call for responsible innovation and transparent R&D documentation is echoed by recent international policy updates of the European Medical Device Regulation and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Open science research practices seem to offer perfectly suited solutions to address these needs and reconcile innovation with robustness. Yet, their use is currently largely confined to academic communities. How can we close this knowledge gap efficiently and expedite the adoption of more robust research in the consumer market? We aim to engage with key stakeholders in the development of new neurotechnologies through:
Our session will explore four components of brain capital focused policy and investment innovations.
First, Dr. Harris Eyre will introduce brain capital. Brains are indispensable drivers of human progress. Why not invest more heavily in them? Dr. Eyre will talk about efforts to place brain capital at the center of a new narrative to fuel economic and societal recovery and resilience, along with efforts from the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative.
Second, Erin Smith will discuss women’s brain health innovations. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated global mental health and gender inequalities. To improve women’s brain capital, we must incorporate new data: namely, the perspective and experience of women. Erin will discuss how solutions that consider the experience of women are more likely to create structural change across sectors, from neuroscience and health care to racial equality, public policy, and workplace norms.
Third, Dr. Caroline Montojo will talk about opportunities for public-private partnerships to advance neuroscience within society. Major national investments are being made into neuroscience research and neurotechnology development. New tools and technologies that carry strong ethical, legal, and social implications are rapidly touching upon the public sphere. Increased attention and investment into issues at the intersection of neuroscience and society will be critical. Dr. Montojo will discuss models for partnership between the public and private sectors to strengthen neuroscience’s role within society.
Fourth, Dr. Karen Rommelfanger will explore the competitive edge of neuroethics for neurotech innovators. The world is mobilizing around the allure of unlocking the mysteries of the brain from universities to healthcare and industry start-ups. Neurotechnology is rapidly developing to be applied in wide-ranging contexts. These advances in neuroscience continue to surface thorny ethical issues further complicated by diverse cultural assumptions about brain and mind. In this talk, Dr. Rommelfanger will discuss how neuroethics can be a creative tool to advance and accelerate the most societally impactful global neuroscience innovation.
This breakout session will give an in-depth look at the current state and future developments of EEG technology for daily use. Speakers from different backgrounds will present their (consumer) wearable EEG, clinical-grade wearable EEG and implantable EEG, augmented by an overview of the wealth of possibilities daily EEG would bring to people living with a brain disorder. In the first half of the session, each speaker will present the latest development in their field in about 10 minutes. Next, the session will continue with a moderated debate on the future of daily EEG and how this can impact people with a brain disorder.
It is estimated that one billion people worldwide live with migraine. The disease is three times more frequent in women, independent of race, culture and socioeconomic status. Prof. Edvinsson will describe his 35-year journey with calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) from discovery to new medication. At the end of the Brain Talk, some recent thoughts on how hormone may be involved in the regulation of CGRP pathway will be shared.
Innovation is all around, also in Healthcare. In order to tackle the challenges, we’ll need an entrepreneurial mindset. What is that mindset? And why do startups sometimes succeed where others fail? In this session we’ll lift a tip of the veil on why startups matter and how organizations – both hospitals and corporates – can benefit from collaborating with them.
A social and innovative digital business leader with a critical and empathetic mindset, a lot of sense for responsibility and humor. And a touch of non-conformism. Loves the journey towards truly disruptive experiences by smart innovation and agility.
The workplace environment has a great impact on workers’ mental health and well-being, even more if considering the time people spend at work. A good psychosocial work environment can be very beneficial for workers’ mental health, whilst a poor one can have significant negative effects, including experiencing work-related stress, burnout, problems at home,drug and alcohol abuse. The negative effects impact the organizations too, that experience poor overall business performance, increased absenteeism, presenteeism and higher accident and injury rates.
This is the second most frequently reported work-related health problem in Europe, after musculoskeletal disorders.In the context of Industry 4.0, where robots, sensors and automated work are pervasive, conditions are potentially more harmful for workers’ mental health, as they could be exposed either to monotonous and alienating tasks or to very challenging tasks. The progressive adoption of collaborative robots (cobots) in manufacturing SMEs opens the way to a radical organizational and technological transformation, where by design the whole workplace environment could contribute to promote workers’ mental health.
The aim of our session is to show how an enhanced multi-stakeholder engagement takes into account manifold facets affecting mental health and intervenes on technological, relational and organizational aspects of the cobot-based work, fostering investment in research and innovation and facilitating SME business development.The objective is to design workplaces where level of challenge and difficulty of job tasks match with the workers’ abilities, in order to support their motivation and engagement by interacting with cobots in a flexible and personalized way. This will facilitate workers’ positive attitude, promoting good mental health and preventing negative experiences of anxiety or boredom and apathy that eventually lead to mental illnesses. Expected results are the definition of guidelines for the design of a “mental health friendly” manufacturing workplace and a new generation of cobots, the Mindbots.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Academy of Neurology had already decided to launch a taskforce on Gender and Diversity in Neurology, with the overall mission to increase awareness and improve knowledge about sex, gender, ethnic and racial differences and disparities in neurological disorders. Indeed, there are several biological, genetic, and epigenetic differences between men and women that can impact epidemiology, clinical manifestation, and treatment of many neurological disorders. Global burden ofneurological diseases affects much more women than men at any age.
Risk factors of stroke differs in women compare to men. Motor and non-motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease are not the same between men and women. Precision medicine in neurology needs neurologists to be aware of these differences to improve care and outcome of neurological patients. This session will provide new insights about this new expanding field of medicine applied to neurology.
What it takes to make Brain Pacemakers as routine as heart pacemakers and shifting the paradigm for Deep Brain Stimulation surgeries?
Similar to heart pacemakers, DBS is the gold standard for late-stage Parkinson’s treatment with world-wide regulatory approval, but adoption remains limited to ~5% due to patient access, procedure complexity, and cost, delaying and depriving eligible candidates. Diseases of cerebrovascular origins such as refractory hypertension, stroke, Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia rank alongside cancer as one of the greatest healthcare challenges faced by humanity, affecting one in three in later life.
Bioinduction has developed the first miniaturized precisely targeted, adaptive/responsive AI enabled, ‘brain-pacemaker’ called Picostim™, designed to be implanted directly into the skull and making it cosmetically invisible. Being a third of the size of conventional devices, it eliminates the need for tunneling extension wires (that need revision surgeries due to fractures) through neck tissue to a chest incision for the larger conventional batteries.
The elegant streamlined single-stage intra-operative skull integrated implantation workflow enables a safer, simpler, less traumatic, and less painful single-stage surgery, in less than half the time of conventional multi-stage, multi-day intervention, as well as doubling surgical productivity bringing cost savings for the health system, with lower life-cycle cost compared to conventional technologies. The procedure innovation harnesses convergence of state-of-the-art precise image guided planning and navigation enabling improved patient comfort with asleep surgery, an integrated surgical robot assistance, together delivering the future of brain pacemaker interventions.
Smart Picostim™ cranialized DBS platform innovation introduces a patient-centric brain pacemaker innovation together with an elegant single-stage procedure solution that enables paradigm change and introduces the future of brain pacemaker implantation to treat large unmet needs in chronic brain disorders via improved patient experience, increasing patient access, and improving overall outcomes for all the stakeholders.
Over the past decade we have demonstrated that the fusion of a patient’s own brain imaging data with computational dynamic models allows building personalized virtual brain models with diagnostic and prognostic performance. Our hybrid approach fuses data-driven with mechanistic modeling techniques and has been successfully applied in aging and stroke research and to clinical applications in epilepsy. Here we illustrate the workflow called Virtual Epileptic Patient (VEP) along the example of drug resistant epilepsy, where the application of machine learning and AI allows the estimation of the epileptogenic zone. A large multisite randomized clinical trial is testing VEP technology in epilepsy surgery patients. The workflow of end-to-end modeling is an integral part of the European neuroinformatics platform EBRAINS and enables neuroscientists worldwide to build and estimate personalized virtual brains. Virtual Brain Technologies (VB-Tech) has recently been created as a spin-off from AMU to exploit virtual brain technology with the mission of commercializing the VEP medical device as a trailblazer of TVB technology and the long-term vision of transversal extension to other diseases including Parkinson, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer. VB-Tech will address the market access challenge, for this technology and its future developments, transitioning from an academic prototype to an industrialized and certified medical device, allowing for the patients to benefit from it. VB-Tech will also be committed to adding a strong focus on medical education on top of the commercial objectives, placing the clinician in the center of the project.
Our objective is a drug correcting cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Our strategy is to use Down syndrome (DS) as a ‘back door’ to enter the AD therapeutic field. Cognitive deficits in AD and in DS can indeed be attributed to an excessive production/activity of the DYRK1A protein kinase (gene located on chromosome 21). Consequently, genetic and pharmacological inhibition of DYRK1A correct cognitive deficits in various animal models of AD and DS. These results have encouraged us to screen for, develop and optimize pharmacological inhibitors of DYRK1A for over 15 years. We discovered that Leucettamine B, a natural product extracted from the marine sponge Leucetta microraphis, inhibits DYRK1A with relatively good selectively. Inspired by this initial hit, we first synthesized, optimized and extensively characterized >500 analogues, the Leucettines. Improving the pharmacological properties of these compounds led us to Leucettinibs, a second-generation family of DYRK1A inhibitors (0.5-20 nM IC50, orally available, >560 compounds synthesized, 4 patents filed). Leucettines (ip) and Leucettinibs (p.o.) correct spatial and learning memory deficits observed in various animal models of AD and DS. This strong proof of concept (and data from other groups) supports the idea that pharmacological inhibition of DYRK1A might correct memory deficits in AD and DS patients. Our final clinical drug candidate, Leucettinib-21, was selected following a stringent GO/NO GO decision tree based on multiple in vitro and in vivo safety, pharmacology (ADMET) and IP parameters, strengthening our chance to develop a solid therapeutic drug candidate for the correction of cognitive deficits. The synthesis of a 1.5 kg, GLP batch of Leucettinib-21 is being carried for the regulatory preclinical studies which will start in January 2022.
Theoretical neuroscience suggests that consciousness depends on the ability of neural elements to engage in complex activity patterns that are, at once, distributed within a system of interacting cortical areas (integrated) and differentiated in space and time (information-rich) (i.e. brain complexity). Guided by this principle, we have been developing and testing empirical method to assess brain complexity based on a combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG). Overall, the estimation of brain complexity provides a reliable measuring scale along the unconsciousness/consciousness spectrum and allows a robust assessment of unresponsive individuals (such as locked-in, minimally conscious and vegetative state patients) whose level of consciousness cannot be assessed behaviorally. We are currently collaborating with a company (Nexstim, Finland) and other international partners to transform this strategy in a standardized clinical tool.
The recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) enabled a growing amount of people worldwide to remotely interact at affordable costs, embracing the possibility to join in complex human activities like neurorehabilitation. During the last decades telemedicine tools have been implemented, which have proven to be a solution for continuity of care in patients at risk of isolation (e.g. people living in remote areas worldwide) and in several clinical conditions (e.g. immunocompromised individuals) showing good adherence and also a positive impact in terms of efficacy in different areas of intervention. Additionally, telerehabilitation can be adapted to multiple clinical conditions and allows individualization of treatment to suit the needs of the patient and the pathology.
The health pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has limited the access of a large number of patients with acquired brain damage to neurorehabilitation programs [1]. The activities of the rehabilitative team were limited to those strictly necessary: the out-patients’ treatments or those delivered at home by therapists were suspended ante most of in-patients were confined to patient’s room. Noteworthy, beyond physical distancing measures, also changes in healthcare services access regulation are negatively affecting the access to rehabilitative services during the current pandemic [2].
Ensuring the continuity of cure, an adequate treatment intensity and repetition over time are major challenges in neurorehabilitation. Telerehabilitation can potentially enable continuum of care in situations of physical distancing, so it could be an effective alternative to physical intervention and mitigate some negative effects caused by the pandemic. As far as neurorehabilitation is concerned, most of the programmes developed have focused on specific aspects, especially motor aspects such as balance or upper limb, but not on a multi-specialist approach or within a more global framework. Moreover, most of these studies have used selected samples with restricted inclusion criteria (excluding cognitive problems, language, major dependencies…).
The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness, adherence and usability of a teleneurorehabilitation tool aimed at providing patients with acquired brain injury with clinical assistance during the pandemic.
Methods
All patients older than 18 years old who participated in a face-to-face neurorehabilitation program at the time of confinement were candidates to participate in a teleneurorehabilitation program. An individual intervention was planned for all the participants who accepted to participate in the teleneurorehabilitation program to replicate their face-to-face program, reproducing the contents, duration and frequency of the sessions, as well as their previously assigned therapists. This planning was reviewed weekly. The effectiveness of the program was determined from the change in functional independence, determined with the extended version of the Barthel Index, once the face-to-face activity was resumed. The adherence to the program was assessed by the responsible therapist using a 10-point Likert scale. The usability of the teleneurorehabilitation tool was determined by the participants using an “ad-hoc” questionnaire.
Conclusions
The teleneurorehabilitation intervention was effective at improving the independence of patients with acquired brain injury, and promoted high adherence and usability. These data could be seen as an opportunity to rethink current neurorehabilitative routines, envisioning mixed procedures in which face-to-face sessions are integrated and combined with telerehabilitation.
As an entrepreneur, there is a lot that is coming your way: While you’re developing your product and setting up your sales & marketing plan you also need to make sure you have the funds to execute your strategy and build a sustainable business. In this session, we will explore the different fundraising strategies (equity and non-equity) for start-ups.
We will go over pros & cons of different potential elements of the funding mix, take some time to dive deeper into the fundraising process and share some tips & tricks on how to prepare a solid story towards investors.
An interactive panel discussion where senior representatives from pharmaceutical companies will discuss their organizations areas of interest in neurology and psychiatry, their priorities for sponsored research, collaboration and partnering, criteria, and the approach to relationship development and collaboration. Special attention will be paid to challenges in the sector and addressing unmet medical needs. Questions from the audience will be encouraged.
An interactive panel discussion with senior representatives from large healthcare, technology and pharmaceutical companies. Discussion will focus on their application of imaging, Artificial Intelligence and digital technologies in the brain health space, their strategies and research and partnering interests. What are they developing internally and what are the priorities for external R&D and innovation partnering? In what areas are they keen to engage with partners, at what stage, and under what criteria? What areas are considered of greatest potential, and where are the most important challenges? Questions from the audience will be encouraged.
A discussion panel with leading European venture capital investors focused on or actively investing in CNS, neurology, psychiatry and brain related innovations, including both bio-pharma and imaging, AI, medtech and digital technologies. What are their specific investment interests, and why? What are their criteria, and at what stage do they engage and invest? How does this vary according to indication and approach? What data do they want to see and what other factors paly a key role in the decision to invest? How is risk assessed and managed, and are there greater barriers to investment in some areas of brain health than others, and why? Questions from the audience will be encouraged.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a severe and fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by an asymptomatic phase of undetermined duration while it takes on average about nine to 12 months for someone to be diagnosed with ALS. The time from the asymptomatic phase to the first notice of symptoms could last for years. However, there is no specific biomarker in the presympomatic phase, and there is no specific test for precise diagnostics in the symptomatic phase. At the early stages, ALS shows high clinical variability in presentation and prognosis and overlapping symptoms with other neurological disorders, so clinicians at that stage tend not to make such diagnosis. All of this leads to a diagnostic delay from several months to years causing progression of the disease that lead to complete patient disability and death without the possibility of successful treatment. Early, precise and more specific diagnosis is needed for adequate and personalized treatment.
We base our approach on decades of our pre-clinical research of ALS patient sera that led us to identify a set of novel biomarkers and a detection technology for early-stage ALS progression. We are developing a portable stand-alone clinical “lab on a chip”, NIMOCHIP® for disruptive in vitro diagnostics of ALS that could be further developed to diagnose other neurological disorders with an inflammatory component (e.g. multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease,). NIMOCHIP® contains multiple chambers with seeded living cells (of animal or human – cell line origin) labeled with fluorescent probes, that are treated with nanoliter volumes of patient’s samples (purified immunoglobulins G – IgGs from patient sera).
NIMOCHIP is using “optics on a chip” technology that could measure a set of physiological fluorescence molecular biomarker signatures (intracellular calcium, reactive oxygen species – ROS, pH, ion channel responses). The acquired optical signals are analyzed using specialized software to obtain a personalized biomarker signature and to generate a detailed diagnostic report for the clinician.
The peer-review system for academic papers has a long yet quite conservative history. Yet, nowadays trends and changes in the speed of scientific processes are challenging the old peer-review system. Today, there is an increased need for speed to publish, yet scientists wish to maintain (at least the appearance of) the rigorous scientific quality of their results. This speed-quality trade-off results in several issues to be solved In my talk I will sketch out a new platform that aims to solve the above-mentioned challenges in a novel way. The idea is to provide a platform for neuroscientists working in the same field to start a study with peer-reviewed methods, upload and share their data and write together scientific papers. The peer-reviewed method would be beneficial for the quality of the research output while the data-sharing process could be beneficial for the pace of the publication process. The last part of the talk will be a brainstorming session about the possibilities of the platform. Feel free to contribute and get some ideas by checking scirec.org!
Walk With Path will present: “The use of smart insoles to improve gait and mobility in people with neurodegenerative conditions”. Our latest product in development, Path Feel, is a smart pressure-sensing insole which provides patented haptic feedback to the soles of the feet in response to pressure.
This improves sensory perception and proprioception by enhancing the sensation of the ground. Simultaneously, the insoles can analyse gait data to provide personalised care and empower users to take control back in their life via data-driven app and adjoining health care professional online dashboard. Walk With Path aims to understand how to incorporate wearables into care pathways to improve service provision, personalise care and provide tailored patient education.
Walk With Path mandates a patient-centred design process with the mission to improve the quality of life of people living with neurodegenerative conditions, with specific interest in stroke, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy populations.
Apart from the recording of electrical brain oscillations using EEG or MEG technology, optical radiation can be used to track cerebral blood flow and oxygenation as a measure of brain activity. Recent progress in sensor technology, miniaturisation, and user-friendliness have made optical brain imaging a scalable technology for D2C and clinical neurotech products. Yet, this technology has received less attention than EEG, where we have already seen a rise in D2C and clinical products on the market. Like EEG, optical brain imaging is easy to use and hardware can be produced at low cost, but it offers additional advantages: more precise localisation of brain activity and higher tolerance to user movements allow for a wider range of product use cases. With companies beginning to exploit these advantages, optical brain imaging is poised to shape the neurotech industry in the near future. This talk will be dedicated to this new trend. We highlight recent advancements in the field with views on applications, such as brain-computer interfaces and neurofeedback, and discuss the role of optical brain imaging in the brain innovation field. What can optical brain imaging already be used for today? What are the limitations? What are potential future applications and products?
Postoperative delirium (POD) affects 20% of surgical patients over the age of 60, making it the most prevalent post-surgical complication in older patients. It has severe adverse outcomes: doubles the risk of nursing home admissions, increases the risk of mortality by 25%, and often continues into long-term cognitive decline where 38% are still suffering nine months after surgery.
Once the symptoms of POD appear, it’s too late. The key to postoperative delirium is prevention, shown to decrease the incidence by 40%. This talk will present the results of a collaboration spanning 24 hospitals, two universities, and the start-up PIPRA addressing this urgent unmet need. Together, we developed an AI-based software able to identify patients at risk before surgery, allowing for preventive measures to be taken.
Are you a policymaker, clinician, researcher, investor or brain health enthusiast? Join this talk to hear what can be done today and how you can help prevent POD.
With the increased access to easy-to-use neurostimulation devices for home use, in combination with an increased datastream from users physical and cognitive behaviour, how can we best combine the two to create new cognitive treatment paradigms?
Migraine is affected by 1 billion people worldside, 3 times more frequent in females, independent on race , culture and socioeconomic status. I wiil here describe my journey with CGRP from discovery to new medication. truely a 35 y period. At the end some recent thoughts on how hormones may be involved in the regulation of CGRP pathway.
