NEMHESYS NGS Master Class

DETAILED PROGRAMME

Week 1

Pre-module

Pre-course Background

The Pre-workshop Module is the welcome module, and it will give a general overview of the Master Class programme outlining the course organization and expectations.

Topics such as “Why is NGS important for blood cancer” and “Diagnosis, prognosis, prediction / Precision medicine”, based on the use of NGS for clonality of lymphoid disorders, will exemplify the potentials of the NGS implementation in the clinical practice. They will serve as examples translatable to other scenarios.

Further introductory sections on “Patient selection and sample quality” and “bioinformatics” will set the ground for the later modules.

Weeks 2-5

Module A
NGS in the Clinic

This module will provide an overview of well-established NGS technologies such as DNA targeted sequencing and how it can be applied for patient care (examples of current applications), to more advanced technologies such as nanopore sequencing and single cell analytics, which can provide deeper insights into a patient’s disease.

Weeks 2-3

A1: Using NGS technology for diagnosis?

As translational laboratories with experience in NGS analysis applied to hematological cancer, this section will cover our experience in developing targeted DNA NGS solutions and how they can be applied in the clinical practice.

  • Examples of NGS applications in different hematological diseases: (i) acute lymphoblastic leukemia; (ii) chronic lymphocytic leukemia; (iii) myelodysplastic syndromes; (iv) inherited platelets disorders.
  • Targeted panel design & validation.
  • NGS interpretation.

Week 4

A2: Sequencing analysis applications

To follow up on Module A1, this section will provide additional practical examples of innovative NGS applications in the clinical setting.

  • Targeted approach: Application of short-read NGS technology for Monitoring of Measurable Residual Disease in acute myeloid leukemia with FLT3 internal tandem duplications (ITDs) (illumina): overview, wet lab, bioinformatics.
  • Genome-wide approach: Application of long-read NGS technology for copy number variation profiling and in daily routine hemato- oncology (Oxford Nanopore Technology).

Week 5

A3: Expanding the NGS repertoire

This session will go beyond DNA-seq and will cover RNA sequencing, as well as single cell analytics, plus cell free DNA-seq, and how these technologies can be applied to interrogate changes in the tumor and surrounding environment.

Weeks 6-7

Module B
NGS Data Analysis

This module will cover the basics of the NGS data analysis, including file formats and how to analyze data, and a practical workshop based on an open-source and user-friendly resource such as Galaxy.

  • Raw data processing and key steps of the bioinformatics workflow.
  • Variant calling, filtering, and interpretation.
  • Commonly used tools for data processing.
  • An in-house bioinformatics pipeline step-by-step: advantages & disadvantages.
  • Workshop on sequencing & NGS analysis using Galaxy.

Week 8

Module C

NGS Implementation issues

This module will focus on the technical, regulatory, and ethical limitations that are frequently encountered when implementing NGS technologies for research and patient care.

  • Possible barriers and risks in wide implementation of NGS into health care
    systems.
  • Ethical issues connected with DNA/RNA testing.

Weeks 9-10

Module D

Linked Data & Knowledge Graph

The main goal of this module, providing an introduction to Linked Data and Knowledge Graph, is to transmit the main foundations of a Linked and Open data culture. Students will find their way around the different types of open data available on the Web and target the data sources and formats relevant to their fields. They will know the main principles of the Web of linked data, known as the Semantic Web, and will be able to find, query and exploit data in RDF format. The most advanced students will be able to start producing their own knowledge graphs and linked data sets.

Week 11

Module E

Entrepreneurship & Innovation

This workshop aims to improve innovation and entrepreneurial skills of the participants, and how their research can be spun off to improve patient care.

Our LECTURERS & TEAM

Ken Mills

Ken Mills is a Professor and Chair of Experimental Hematology at Queen’s University Belfast based in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences (MDBS), where he leads a team at the Patrick G Johnson Centre for Cancer Research (PGJCCR).

His research focus is on the molecular and cytogenetic abnormalities in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) which are increasingly well defined and these are being implicated in stratification for diagnosis and prognosis.

Currently, his group has a series of studies being undertaken to identify repurposed therapies to target different sub-groups of adult and paediatric AML; the MuSICAL and the CaUSAL studies alongside these, are studies introducing clinically relevant mutations using the CRISPR-Cas mechanism to investigate the role of chromatin modelling or DNA repair in sub-cohorts of MDS and AML. Current funding is from the Leukaemia & Lymphoma NI (LLNI), Leukaemia UK, Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG)/Little Princess Trust, MDS UK, CureLeukaemia and the Department for Education (DfE).  The laboratory is an associated member of the IMI2 funded HARMONY project contributing to the AML and CLL workstreams and a lead partner in the Erasmus Plus Knowledge Exchange Network (Nemhesys) with specific responsibility for WP2.

Professor:School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, | Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, Queen’s Univ. Belfast, UK

Associate Director for Education:Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, Queen’s Univ. Belfast, UK

Email:k.mills@qub.ac.uk

Jesús M. Hernández

Dr. Jesús María Hernández Rivas is a Professor in the Department of Medicine of the Univ. of Salamanca, a senior haematologist at the University Hospital of Salamanca, and Head of the Molecular Cytogenetics Unit (MCU), a service for cytogenetics and Next Generation Sequencing analysis of cancer patients (all over Spain and occasionally EU).

In addition, he leads the research group of Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca (IBSAL) – Cancer Research Centre (CIC-IBMCC, USAL-CSIC). His group research focuses in the molecular characterisation of tumour cells from haematological malignancies by integrating next generation sequencing, multiomics, and functional studies with clinical information to improve patient management in the context of precision medicine.

Furthermore, he has been involved in many international NGS-related research projects: IRON, ELAN and NGS-PTL, amongst others. He currently leads the IMI2 projects HARMONY/HARMONY PLUS to harness Big Data to speed up the development of improved treatments for blood cancer patients, as well as the Erasmus+ NEMHESYS and ERA PerMed SYNtherapy projects. Dr. Hernández is also responsible for two subjects in the degrees of Medicine, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy and Biotechnology, being also responsible of the “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain). Moreover, he has directed 20 Doctoral Theses and several Master and Final-year Projects, and has been in charge of more than 45 under-/postgraduate students coming from other countries (Italy, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, England, Latin America, Iran).

Professor:Dept. of Medicine, Univ. of Salamanca, Spain

Director:Molecular Cytogenetics Unit, Univ. Hospital of Salamanca, Spain

Haematologist:Dept. of Haematology, Univ. Hospital of Salamanca, Spain

Email:jmhr@usal.es

Šárka Pospíšilová

Lars Bullinger

Dr. Lars Bullinger holds a full professorship for “Haematology and Oncology” and is the Medical Director of the Department of Haematology, Oncology and Tumour Immunology as well as the Charité Stem Cell Facility at the Virchow Klinikum Campus of the Charité University Medicine in Berlin (Germany).

He is engaged in translational research with a focus on the integrative analyses of “omics” and “next generation sequencing” data to further refine molecular tumour classification of both haematological malignancies and solid tumours and to implement insights into innovative precision medicine approaches, by connecting bench and bedside and a dynamic exchange between dry in-silico and hands-on wet lab work.

In addition, he is coordinating the Charité Leukaemia, Stem Cell Transplant, and Advanced Cellular Therapy Programs.

Professor:Dept. of Haematology and Oncology, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany

Medical Director:Dept. of Haematology, Oncology and Tumour Immunology | Charité Stem Cell Facility, Campus Virchow Klinikum - Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany

Email:lars.bullinger@charite.de

Caroline Heckman

Mark Catherwood

Paul Strain

Paul Strain (Bachelor’s and Master’s degree) is currently a final year PhD student at the Patrick G Johnson Centre for Cancer Research (PGJCCR) based with Queen’s University Belfast.

As a PhD student his research activities are mainly focused on studying drug repositioning in blood cancers.

Paul’s work heavily focuses on using bioinformatic tools such as R and Python to develop bioinformatics based pipelines that analyse large patient datasets.

PhD Research Fellow:Patrick G Johnson Centre for Cancer Research, Queen’s Univ. Belfast, UK

Email:pstrain05@qub.ac.uk

Peter Stewart

Peter Stewart is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Precision Medicine Centre (PMC) based with Queen’s University Belfast.  His work focuses on the development and validation of custom next generation sequencing capture/hybridisation panels for lymphoproliferative disorders. He has recently published the validation of the EuroClonality-NGS DNA Capture assay as an integrated genomic tool for lymphoproliferative disorders, which involved multiple European laboratories and was performed on behalf of the EuroClonality-NGS working group (PMID: 34424321).

With his current role, his focus is to develop new and existing collaborations with EuroClonality-NGS partners to further examine the potential of the EuroClonality-NGS DNA Capture assay in larger cohorts of individual lymphoproliferative disorders subtypes. Additionally, he has worked with several other custom and commercial NGS panels on solid tumours such as sarcomas and lung cancer (PMID: 32047232, 33287361 & 31571426).

Senior Researcher:Precision Medicine Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Email: p.stewart@qub.ac.uk

M. Rocío Benito

Rocío Benito is a biologist and a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher with a background of over 20 years of accredited experience in Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genomics, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), and Haematological Cancer conducting basic, clinical, and translational research activities.

She has headed up the implementation of the main NGS technologies for the study of haematological patients, focused on diagnosis, stratification, treatment, and prevention. In fact, she has participated in several national and international research projects (61), most of them aiming at applying NGS in the precision medicine field: IRON, ELAN, NGS-PTL, HARMONY/HARMONY PLUS, SYNtherapy and NEMHESYS, amongst others.

Furthermore, Rocío has experience in training research staff and mentoring students. During her predoctoral stage (2000-2003) she taught classes “Experimental Methods and Techniques” (BSc Biological Science), and “Human Genetics” (BSc Biochemistry). Since 2011 she is involved in teaching “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain) and “Molecular Medicine” (BSc Biotechnology). Besides, she has mentored several undergraduate students in preparation and presentation of research findings. In addition, she has co-directed 2 Final-year projects, 6 Master and 6 Doctoral Theses.

Senior Researcher:Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology, Cancer Research Centre, Univ. of Salamanca, Spain

Emial:beniroc@usal.es

Ana E. Rodríguez

Ana E Rodríguez is a pharmacist and biochemist with a background of over 15 years of specialised research in haematological cancers and Pharmacogenomics in international laboratories and leading research institutions. She has a PhD in genetics of chronic leukaemias at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain), and postdoctoral studies at The Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine (Liverpool, UK).

Her scientific career has been always linked up with the translation of research findings and evidence into clinical practice, working within multidisciplinary teams at clinical environments. She has been fully involved in several national and international projects (21).

Ana has experience in training research staff and mentoring students, both in Spain and UK. In fact, she has been in charge of the laboratory work of “Pharmacology Research Projects” (BSc Pharmacology, Univ. of Liverpool), and she is currently involved in teaching “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain) and “Molecular Medicine” (BSc Biotechnology, Univ. of Salamanca). Besides, she has co-directed 5 Final-year projects, 3 Master Theses, and 3 Doctoral Theses.

Postdoctoral Researcher:Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology, Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca, Spain

Email:anita82@usal.es

José M. Bastida

Dr. José María Bastida is a clinician (degree in Medicine, Univ. of Salamanca) and researcher (PhD, Univ. of Salamanca) with an accredited experience in Inherited Bleeding Disorders.

His scientific career has always focused on the biological and genetic research of inherited bleeding disorders by applying NGS and genetic editing tools (CRISPR/Cas9), and the translation of these findings into clinical practice. In this regard, he has been the principal investigator of several national projects, and has received funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Regional Health Management (GRS), Institute of Biomedical Research (IBY) and Mutua Madrileña Foundation.

Furthermore, he takes an active role as coordinator of the Spanish Group of Congenital Platelet Alterations (GEAPC) of the Spanish Thrombosis and Haemostasia Society (SETH).

Dr. Bastida has participated in the Clinical Research Training in Haematology program from the European Haematology Association (EHA), which encourages the development of the clinical haematological research. Moreover, he has experience in training research staff and mentoring students. Indeed, he currently belongs to the Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology as an Associated Professor, teaching classes in the subjects of “Physiology” and “Neurophysiology”, and he has co-directed 5 Final-year projects and 2 Doctoral Theses.

Haematologist:Dept. of Haematology, Unit of Thrombosis and Haemostasia, Univ. Hospital of Salamanca, Spain

Associated Professor:Dept. of Physiology, Univ. of Salamanca, Spain

Email:chema@usal.es

Mónica del Rey

Mónica del Rey is a biologist with an accredited experience in Genetics, Molecular Biology and Haematological Cancer research, mainly myeloid neoplasms, at the basic, clinical, and translational level.

Her research activity began studying new genetic and functional alterations in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) through genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic analysis in the Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology group led by Prof. Dr. Jesús M Hernández, where she obtained her PhD. Then, as a postdoctoral researcher (2015-2019) at Dr. Christopher Park’s research team (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre / Langone Medical Centre, New York), her activity was focused on the identification of drug resistance genes in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and the study of the clonal haematopoiesis in human ageing and MDS. Additionally, during her career, she has been involved in 18 national and international projects.

Moreover, Mónica has experience in mentoring students. At present, she is involved in teaching “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain) and she is co-directing one Doctoral Thesis. In addition, she is the coordinator of the “Spanish Guidelines for Clonal Haematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP)”.

Postdoctoral Researcher:Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology, Cancer Research Centre, Foundation for Cancer Research from the Univ. of Salamanca, Spain ‘Grant from the Spanish Haematology and Haemotherapy Society (SEHH)’

Email:mdelrey@usal.es

Inmaculada Serramito

Inmaculada Serramito has a degree in Biotechnology, a master’s degree in Biology and Clinics of Cancer and a PhD in Biosciences by the Univ. of Salamanca.

Her researcher activity began focusing on the study of the association between autophagy and inflammatory bowel disease (mostly Crohn’s disease), from a molecular perspective, being part of the Dr. Pimentel Muiños’ research team. Then, she began her postdoctoral formation at the Molecular OncoHaematology Group led by Prof. Dr. Jesús M Hernández, where she currently studies the autophagy’s implication in haematological malignancies, mostly lymphoid leukaemia, by applying Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) methodologies and conducting functional studies.

She has a wide experience in cellular and molecular biology techniques, flow cytometry, CRISPR/Cas9 technology, quantitative PCR, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), animal models and bioinformatics. Moreover, she has participated in several national and international projects.

Additionally, Inmaculada has experience in mentoring students, supervising Final-year projects and Master Theses, and currently she is involved in teaching “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at the Cancer Research Centre-Univ. of Salamanca (Spain).

Postdoctoral Researcher:Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology, Cancer Research Centre, Univ. of Salamanca, Spain

Email:inma__sg@usal.es

María Abáigar

María Abáigar is a biologist with a PhD in Molecular Genetics of Haematological Cancer, by the Univ. of Salamanca, developed at the Cancer Research Centre (Spain).

As a PhD Student and as a Postdoctoral Researcher, her activities have been focused on unravelling the genomic and transcriptomic abnormalities leading up to and driving myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), studying the relationship with clinical phenotypes, evolution, outcome, and therapeutic response. She has experience in advanced high-throughput molecular techniques for studying gene expression (microarray-based) and genomic abnormalities (aCGH, NGS), being next-generation sequencing the most outstanding one. During her research career, she has been involved in several national and international projects (29): EuGESMA, IRON, NGS-PTL, MDS-RIGHT, SYNtherapy, oncNGS, HARMONY/HARMONY PLUS, and NEMHESYS.

Additionally, María has some experience in mentoring students, supervising and co-directing 4 Final-year projects, and 2 Master and 2 Doctoral Theses. Moreover, she currently participates in teaching “Molecular Cytogenetics in OncoHaematology” (MSc Biology and Clinics of Cancer and Translational Medicine) at Cancer Research Centre-University Salamanca (Spain).

Postdoctoral Researcher:Molecular Genetics in OncoHaematology, Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca, Spain

Email:mymary@usal.es

Jana Kotašková

Veronika Navrkalová

Veronika Navrkalová is a molecular biologist whose work is focused on lymphoproliferative diseases. Her research and publications concern particularly the pathogenesis of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) covering the analysis of prognostic and predictive markers, genetic landscape, and clonal evolution of CLL. She is also interested in the pathobiology of B-cell lymphomas. The next-generation sequencing is a principal tool for her exploration, but she is experienced in other molecular genetic methods. Veronika is also practiced in routine haemato-oncological diagnostic laboratory.

Her academic experience includes the supervision and teaching of pre-graduate and post-graduate students. Veronika is involved in several internal and international grants and projects.

Her educational background includes a PhD degree in Oncology from Masaryk University in Brno and a MSc in Molecular and cell biology from University Palacky in Olomouc. She made a six-month fellowship at Uppsala University in Sweden during her PhD studies. Veronika has a Certificate of professional competence for laboratory healthcare provider from the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education in Prague and currently she is doing Specialisation in Clinical Haematology and Transfusion Medicine under the same institution.

Postdoctoral Researcher:Molecular Medicine, Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) | Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Email:veronika.navrkalova@ceitec.muni.cz

Karla Plevová

Karla Plevova is a postdoctoral researcher at the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Masaryk University and at the University Hospital Brno, Brno, Czech Republic. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Molecular Biophysics at the Faculty of Science, and later, defended her PhD thesis in the genomics of lymphoproliferative disorders at the Department of Internal Medicine – Haematology and Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University.

She has earned long-term experience from a routine diagnostic laboratory at the University Hospital Brno, carrying out a wide range of molecular genetics methods. She moved temporarily to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany, to conduct her independent research and develop new skills. As a postdoctoral researcher at CEITEC, she works to interconnect various aspects of haemato-oncology research by creating links between molecular geneticists, bioinformaticians and haemato-oncologists. She is actively involved in several collaborative studies and international consortia, focusing mainly on chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. She holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, where she lectures on genetics and genomics in cancer diagnostics. She supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students from biomedically oriented study programs.

Postdoctoral Researcher:Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) | Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Email:karla.plevova@ceitec.muni.cz

Kateřina Staňo Kozubík

Kateřina Staňo Kozubík works as molecular biologist specialized in the field of oncology and inherited haematologic/haemato-oncologic disorders.

She uses massive parallel sequencing (i.e., exome sequencing) together with other genetic methods, such as comparative genetic hybridization, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification, Sanger sequencing etc. to determine genetic diagnosis. Her routine work also includes validation of new molecular methods for clinical use, functional analyses of genetic variants of unknown clinical significance segregating with clinical phenotype, and implementation of new methods for separation of cells of interest. As a member of Research Ethics Committee at Masaryk University, Kateřina is interested in the problematics of informed consent and its form for massive parallel sequencing.

Senior Researcher:Medical Genomics-Molecular Medicine, Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Email:katerina.stanokozubik@ceitec.muni.cz

Boris Tichý

Karol Pál

Anna Dolnik

Sabrina Skambraks

Sabrina Skambraks is a Medical-Technical Laboratory Assistant in the Molecular Genetics of Myeloid Leukemia group at the University Hospital of Ulm. She is the lead technician when it comes to taking care of the lab work and sample handling that recedes sequencing.
For many years, her main activities have been focused on next generation sequencing. She has worked with many Illumina protocols and has recently established the innovative Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology at the Ulm department.
She has extensive experience in library preparation, being well versed in the use and implementation of a wide variety of protocols. She is responsible of processing much of the amplicon-based DNA sequencing data herself, including manual and bioinformatic data analysis and data curation. Therefore, she’s been heavily involved in most of the projects conducted in the Ulm department.
Noteworthy, Sabrina played a key role, as co-lead, in the development of the novel NGS-based assay for the detection of FLT3-ITD and the accompanying analysis program getITD (Blätte TJ, Schmalbrock LK, Skambraks S, et al. Leukemia 33(10):2535-2539 (2019)).

Medical-Technical Laboratory Assistant:Dept. of Internal Medicine III, Molecular Genetics of Myeloid Leukemia, University Hospital of Ulm, Germany

Email:sabrina.skambraks@uni-ulm.de

Tamara J. Luck

Tamara J. Luck completed her doctoral thesis on the genomic and transcriptomic landscape of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in 2019 in Germany at Ulm University, while jointly working at the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

During this time, she established analysis pipelines for various types of next-generation sequencing data, including mutation and gene-expression analyses of whole-exome, whole-genome and different gene panel DNA– as well as mRNA-sequencing data. All of these have been made freely available on github (github.com/tjblaette/ngs) and have also since been applied in various collaboration projects.

Two noteworthy examples might be the work on novel, leukaemia-relevant circRNAs that used a combination of Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencing to uncover also the circRNAs’ internal structure (Lux S, et al. Blood Adv 5(5):1490-1503 (2021)), and the work on a novel algorithm to detect internal tandem duplications in the FLT3 gene (FLT3-ITDs), a specific type of mutation that is highly recurrent and of great clinical importance in AML (Blätte TJ, et al. Leukemia 33(10):2535-2539 (2019) | github.com/tjblaette/getitd).

In 2020 Tamara then moved to Glasgow for her first postdoc position at the CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, where her current research is centred around the study of post-transcriptional control in cancer and the search for novel disease drivers.

Postdoctoral Researcher:Computational Biology, CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, UK

Email:T.Luck@beatson.gla.ac.uk

Pirkko Mattila

Pirkko Mattila’s background is in biochemistry and since finishing her PhD in 1993 she has been working in biotechnology and project management first at the University of Helsinki and later in a startup company for 10 years.

She came back to the academy and joined the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) in 2010 to set up NGS services in transcriptomics. She was heavily involved in the establishment of FIMM Single Cell Analytics Unit in 2016 and has also acted as Head of the Unit since then.

Head & Senior Researcher:Single-Cell Analytics Unit, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland | HiLIFE, University of Helsinki, Finland

Email:pirkko.mattila@helsinki.fi

Jenni Lahtela

Jenni Lahtela received her MSc from the University of Oulu with a major in genetics and finished her PhD in 2016 from the group of Dr. Emmy Verschuren at the University of Helsinki. In her thesis work, entitled “Studying the functional relevance of lung cancer genetic drivers in their physiological niche”, Jenni’s aim was to get more clinically meaningful information on genetic and cell type-specific factors contributing to the development and progression of lung cancer.

Currently Jenni is working as a senior researcher in the Single-Cell Analytics (SCA) unit at the Technology Centre of the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM). She is specialised in development and implementation of single-cell sequencing methods together with the SCA-team.

Senior Researcher:Single-Cell Analytics Technology Centre, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland | HiLIFE, University of Helsinki, Finland

Email:jenni.lahtela@helsinki.fi

Saara Kallio

Saara Kallio completed her Bachelor’s degree in history at Bristol, UK. and obtained her Master’s degree in history from the University of Helsinki. 

Prior to joining the University of Helsinki, she worked in the courts dealing with recruitment and civil litigation matters. She has also qualified as a business trainer and coach.

Saara provides administrative support to the NEMHESYS Project by updating the Moodle platform and monitoring course progress and completion. She also acts as a point of contact for students and prospective participants.

Project Manager:University of Helsinki, Finland

Email:saara.kallio@helsinki.fi

Roberto López

Roberto López is the founder and CEO of Artelnics. He has a Degree in Physics from the University of Salamanca (Spain), an MSc in Computational Physics from the University of Salford (UK), and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the Technical University of Catalonia (Spain).

He has 20 years of experience developing algorithms and applying artificial intelligence at Tata Steel, the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), and Artelnics. During this time, he has participated in more than 50 R&D projects in the fields of data science and machine learning.

Roberto is the main developer of the open neural networks library OpenNN and the machine learning platform Neural Designer.

CEO:Artificial Intelligence Techniques, S.L. (Artelnics / Neural Designer), Salamanca, Spain

Email:robertolopez@artelnics.com

Philippe Dubois

Philippe holds a MSc in  in computer science and a MSc in Image processing and artificial intelligence. He began his career at Dassault Aviation as a research engineer in the field of image processing applied to composite materials (analysing the structure of the carbon fibres through image processing). Then he joins an AT&T company called DATAID as a project manager, then Institut Eurécom (a joint venture between EPFL and Sup’Telecom) in Sophia Antipolis as a researcher. At Institut Eurécom he has conducted research in the area of video transmission in high-speed networks. He has more than 20 international peer-reviewed papers and several book chapters.

He was then in charge of the technology transfer department and created his own startup in 2001. After leading it for 4 years, he was called by the prefect and president of the Pays de la Loire region to establish and manage the regional innovation network aimed at increasing the participation of regional research and innovation actors in the European Framework Programmes FP7 and Horizon 2020. After leading this network for 5 years, he became a consultant at Mnemotix and later decided to found the consulting firm  INNOfluence.

Senior Consultant:Mnemotix, France

CEO:INNOfluence, France

Email:philippe.dubois@mnemotix.com

Mylène Leitzelman

Mylène Leitzelman is the Co-founder of Mnemotix, in charge of administrative and financial tasks. She has a background as specialist in Competitive Intelligence & ICT with a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences.

As an R&D engineer for over 15 years, Mylène provided expertise in the analysis of new technologies usages, managing and supervising relations and animation dedicated to the management of R&D projects. As data scientist and functional analyst, she has been advising on issues concerning information science and usages. She is particularly interested in the creation and animation of online communities, users’ co-creation, transfer, and update of knowledge to organise «collective intelligence«.

Co-Founder & Data Scientist:Mnemotix, France

Email:mylene.leitzelman@mnemotix.com

Freddy Limpens

Freddy Limpens is an engineer from the Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC), with a specialisation in information sciences and digital arts. He completed his PhD in knowledge engineering under the supervision of Fabien Gandon (Wimmics-INRIA) working on novel ways to bridge bottom-up ways of collecting and aggregating knowledge with top-down approaches. 

After 10 years of experience in research, design, and development of collaborative solutions, knowledge-based systems, and e-learning applications, he joined Mnemotix to take care of the consulting branch.

Project Manager & Semantic Web Expert:Mnemotix, France

Email:freddy.limpens@mnemotix.com

Henri Mennens

Dutchman, passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship.
This passion he started in the Netherlands, finally leading one of the country’s first innovation ecosystems that became a national best practice by bringing the main stakeholders of university, government, and industry together to stimulate knowledge transfer, innovation, and new business creation in the South.

He continued his passion in Spain, developing Innovation and Entrepreneurship activities first as a freelancer and then for almost 10 years working for Spain’s n.1 multinational technology consulting firm Indra. With lots of fantastic teams he enjoyed the many challenges he had as an innovation expert and strategy manager at Indra Business Consulting, Indra International, and Minsait, the digital solutions division.

Then, he decided to start his own boutique innovation consulting firm in Madrid, helping all parties of the Triple Helix with their innovation and entrepreneurship capacity building.

Besides, currently, he’s an Expert on Innovation & Entrepreneurship for EIT European Institute of Innovation and Technology, Director of the Incubation Program of EAE Business School for both startup incubators in Barcelona and Madrid, Mentor in Startup Lab IE Business School, Mentor in the Órbita Business Accelerator of CEEI Castellón and Mentor in Zakut Innovation Hub.

He loves to share his knowledge and experience with others… For that, he’s a tutor at MIT Media Lab in the field of Smart Cities, Associate Professor of Design Thinking at EAE Business School, Associate Professor of Business Design at Instituto Europeo di Design and the Program Leader of the Master of Design and Innovation at IED.

Innovation & Entrepreneurship Expert:EIT European Institute of Innovation and Technology

Director Incubation Program:EAE Business School, Madrid and Barcelona, Spain

Founder & CEO:innpulse Innovation consulting, Madrid, Spain

Tutor | Mentor:MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology | IE Business School | CEEI Castellón | Zakut Innovation Hub | IED Istituto Europeo di Design

Email:hmennens@me.com

Amparo Cantalejo

Amparo Cantalejo Herrera has a degree in Hispanic and English Philology from the University of Salamanca. She obtained a Master’s degree in specialised translation and applied linguistics from the Catholic University of Paris-CLUNY. She possesses full professional proficiency in the English, Spanish, French and Portuguese languages. She has worked for twenty years as an official translator.

She has also served as content director, editorial technician, documentation manager, writer, and reviewer. She also has participated as an internal quality evaluator in two previous Erasmus+.

Project Manager / Consultant:IDimás Gestión, Salamanca, Spain

Email:acantalejo@idimas.es

María Díaz Lorenzo

María Díaz Lorenzo has a degree in Psychology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and Health (2002) and in Neuropsychology (2016). She works as business psychologist, with more than 15 years of experience, specially focused in Change Management and Human Resources: recruitment, social learning, digital transformation, and assessment of management profiles.

She has been senior consultant at Indra for 12 years and is currently CEO of IDimás Gestión and other entities.

María has developed a versatile professional career that stands out for the management and direction of technological projects at national and international level in different sectors. Firmly committed to entrepreneurship, leads European funded projects supporting research, development, innovation, and education.

CEO:IDimás Gestión, Salamanca, Spain

Email:mdiaz@idimas.es

NEMHESYS – NGS Establishment in Multidisciplinary Healthcare Education System

  

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