NanoTME 2025 · 3rd edition

Speakers

5 — 8 May
Van der Valk Hotel, Enschede

The confirmed invited speakers of the NanoTME 2025 conference.

Michele de Palma

Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Michele (Miki) De Palma is tenured associate professor of cancer biology at EPFL and executive director and chair of the scientific committee of the AGORA Cancer Research Center (Lausanne). He performed post-doctoral training at TIGET, Milan, under gene therapy pioneer Dr. Luigi Naldini; his work led to a first-in-kind clinical trial of gene-modified monocytes in patients with brain cancer (NCT03866109). He joined EPFL in 2012. Current research in the De Palma lab focuses on mechanisms of tumor resistance to immunotherapies and the development of engineered dendritic cell therapies. He serves or has served on the editorial advisory boards of Science Translational Medicine, Cell Reports, Cancer Immunology Research and BBA–Reviews on Cancer; he received two ERC programme grants, the Robert Wenner Prize for cancer research (2017), and was nominated Highly Cited Researcher 2023 (Web of Science–Clarivate).

Leila Akkari

Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Netherlands. Leila Akkari is a group leader in the Tumor Biology & Immunology department and a senior member of the Oncode Institute. Her research focuses on innate immune cell plasticity applied to the biology of cancers, using elaborate murine models of primary tumors, including brain and liver cancers. Her group investigates and targets the functions of these immune cells in tumor maintenance and therapeutic resistance to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities. She is an expert on tumor-associated macrophages, as evident from her grants (KWF 2017-YIG, 2019, 2021, 2022; NWO-XL 2022; ERC-Synergy 2023; Vidi 2019), international brain cancer (BTCF) and myeloid cells in cancer (KWF) consortium grants, the EMBO Young Investigator Program (2021) and several pioneering studies on this subject. She is also involved in science communication advocating for diversity and inclusion in the STEM community.

Erik Sahai

Francis Crick Institute, United Kingdom. Erik Sahai is head of the Tumour Cell Biology laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. He obtained his PhD with Richard Treisman in London studying RhoGTPases and their effectors, and carried out post-doctoral work in London (Chris Marshall) and New York (John Condeelis). He set up his own group at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in 2004 and transferred to the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. His research focuses on the spread of cancer through the body and responses to cancer therapy — in particular stromal fibroblasts and their interplay with tumour and immune cells — using techniques from computational modelling of cell migration to intravital imaging of mouse tumours and live analysis of patient-derived material. His contributions have been recognised by the Hooke Medal and election to EMBO, the European Academy of Cancer Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is president-elect of the Metastasis Research Society and serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Journal of Cell Biology, Developmental Cell and Trends in Cell Biology.

Neta Erez

Tel Aviv University, Israel. Prof. Erez studies the biology of tumor metastasis, focusing on the metastatic microenvironment; the main goal of her research is to characterize stromal and immune pathways that can be targeted by novel therapeutics. She did her MSc and PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science and her postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Doug Hanahan at UCSF. She is Vice Dean for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring at the TAU Faculty of Medicine and former Chair of Pathology; President of the Israeli Society for Cancer Research (ISCR), President-Elect of the Metastasis Research Society (MRS), a board member of the EACR and a member of the AACR TME Working Group. She was recently awarded the Kadar Award for Outstanding Research, and in 2020 the Nature Research Award for Mentoring in Science.

Natalie Artzi

Harvard Medical School, United States of America. Dr. Natalie Artzi is a biomedical scientist-engineer renowned for her contributions to structural nanomedicine. She developed materials that activate based on chemical cues, enabling targeted drug delivery and creating a novel “depot effect” where nanotherapeutics release to neighboring cells to enhance immune therapy, resulting in translational research application. She has received many awards, including Harvard University's first ARPA-H grant, the Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal, the Mid-Career Award from the Society for Biomaterials, and the Massachusetts Life Science Center award for Women Entrepreneurs.

Arne Östman

Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. The Östman research group performs translational studies on autocrine and paracrine growth factor signalling in the tumour microenvironment, with particular emphasis on regulation of cancer-associated fibroblasts. Studies have been performed across a broad range of tumour types, including breast, prostate, ovarian, colorectal and kidney cancer, taking advantage of novel methods for high-content tissue profiling used both for tumour biology discovery and identification of drug targets and biomarkers. Östman has published more than 175 research articles and 45+ reviews and supervised approximately 40 post-docs and PhD students. He was coordinator 2006–2016 of a 10 million euro-funded Center-of-Excellence for translational studies on tumour stroma, is a member of the Nobel Assembly since 2020, and was a member of the ERC LS7 Consolidator Grant panel 2023.

Dan Peer

Tel Aviv University, Israel. Dan Peer is a Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Precision Nanomedicine and Vice President for Research at Tel Aviv University. He pioneered strategies to deliver RNA payloads in a cell-specific manner and developed one of the largest lipid libraries, with more than 100,000 different lipids. His lab was the first to show systemic cell-specific delivery of mRNA molecules in an animal and the first to show highly efficient therapeutic genome editing in cancer in a cell-type-specific manner; he also developed the first bacterial mRNA vaccine. He is the recipient of more than 35 awards and honors, holds 148 pending and granted patents licensed to 13 companies, and more than 10 strategies he developed are in clinical testing. He has published more than 180 manuscripts and 3 books, serves as an editor and on the editorial boards of more than 20 journals, is an International Member of the US National Academy of Engineering (elected 2023) and was elected a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors in 2024.

Alberto Gabizon

Hebrew University, Israel. Alberto Gabizon received his M.D. from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Spain, and his Ph.D. in Cancer Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. He completed his training and certification in Radiation and Medical Oncology at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem. During his research fellowship at the Cancer Research Institute of UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, he pioneered the development of a new generation of long-circulating liposomes known as Stealth liposomes, which have greatly improved stability and selective accumulation in tumors. He is active in medical oncology and early-phase clinical trials with three first-in-man studies on record; his preclinical research focuses on applications of liposomes in drug delivery, drug targeting and experimental cancer therapy. He has published over 180 articles and specialized book chapters and is an inventor of 15 USPTO- and EPO-approved patents. In 2002 he was appointed full Professor at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine in Jerusalem; he is currently head of the Nano-oncology Research Center at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, and Medical Advisor for various biotech companies.

Jonathan Sleeman

Mannheim University, Germany. Jonathan Sleeman studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received his PhD in 1992 from the University of Cambridge. After postdoctoral work at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), he was appointed Group Leader at KIT in 1997 and was acting Chair of Genetics 2004–2007. He took up the position of Professor of Microvascular Biology and Pathobiology at the University of Heidelberg in 2008 and is a core member of the European Center for Angioscience; he also remains a department head at KIT and is executive director of the School of Translational Medicine Mannheim. He coordinated the EU-funded multi-centre projects BRECOSM and TuMIC and was President of the Metastasis Research Society 2014–2016. His research aims to understand the cellular and molecular regulation of metastasis and to use this knowledge to develop novel anti-cancer therapies.

Assaf Zinger

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel. At the Technion, his research group is developing biomimetic nanoparticles to treat neurodegenerative pediatric diseases, traumatic brain injuries, and breast and ovarian cancers. The lab's main goal is to develop targeted biomimetic nanoparticles that can encapsulate a wide range of therapeutic molecules, including mRNA, proteins and small molecules. Achievements include improving the therapeutic outcome of pancreatic cancer treatment using a controlled-release enzyme delivery system; mimicking white blood cell binding to inflammatory sites to develop a macrophage-biomimetic drug delivery system; and developing the first-ever neuron-biomimetic nanoparticles that mimic how neurons bind to other neurons through homotypic cell-cell adhesion proteins. These breakthroughs were published in top-tier journals (2,132 citations, h-index 20).

Maria J. Vicent

Príncipe Felipe Research Center Foundation (CIPF), Spain. Prof. María J. Vicent leads the Polymer Therapeutics Lab at CIPF since 2006, where she also serves as Cancer Program Coordinator and Scientific Director. She is President-Elect of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) and Editor-in-Chief of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. Her group pioneers nanopharmaceuticals and polymer therapeutics for unmet clinical needs, with major national and European funding including the ERC Consolidator Grant (MyNano), two ERC Proof-of-Concept grants (Polybraint, Polymmune) and FundLaCaixa grants (NanoPanTher, PINT). She is a Fellow of AIMBE, CRS and the National Academy of Inventors, and has received awards from IDEA, Samyang and Women in Science initiatives. With over 160 publications and 15 patents (six licensed, one enabling the spin-off Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions S.L., now Curapath), her translational work bridges academia and industry.

Oliver Pearce

Barts Cancer Institute, United Kingdom. The focus of his research is the tumour microenvironment (TME), in particular understanding the composition and function of the tumour extracellular matrix in immunosuppression.

Peter Friedl

Radboud University Medical Centre, the Netherlands. Dr. Friedl received his M.D. from the University of Bochum, Germany, in 1992 and his Ph.D. from McGill University, Montreal, in 1996. He was board-certified as clinical dermatologist in 2002 and allergologist in 2003. Since 2007 he directs the Microscopical Imaging Centre of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, and since 2011 holds a joint-faculty position at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. He applies advanced microscopy and molecular intervention in 3D culture and preclinical tumor models to identify their response to molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy. His research interest is the mechanisms and plasticity of cell migration in immune regulation and cancer metastasis; his laboratory identified pathways determining diversity and plasticity of cell migration, collective cancer cell invasion, and the contribution of migration pathways to immune defense and cancer resistance. His therapeutic preclinical studies focus on the intravital visualization of niches and mechanisms and strategies to overcome therapy resistance.

Alejandro E. Mayorca-Guiliani

Nordic Bioscience A/S, Denmark. Alejandro E. Mayorca-Guiliani completed an oral surgery residency and an MSc in biomedicine at the University Hospital of Toulouse, France. He later entered the Monbukagakusho program in Japan and obtained a PhD in medicine from Ehime University. Afterwards he joined the Erler Lab at the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre of the University of Copenhagen, before joining Nordic Bioscience, where he is a senior research scientist.

Rajkumar Savai

Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Germany. Prof. Dr. Rajkumar Savai is Professor and Chair of Lung Microenvironmental Niche in Cancerogenesis at the Institute for Lung Health (ILH), Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), and Head of the Oncology Basic Research Unit at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg. He also leads a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim. Born in Warangal, India, he received his MSc in Biochemistry from Kakatiya University and completed his PhD and postdoctoral training in oncology at JLU. He joined the Max Planck Institute in 2010 as a junior group leader and was appointed full professor in 2020. He is Scientific Coordinator of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Co-Speaker of the LOEWE consortium ICANx and Principal Investigator at the Cardio-Pulmonary Institute (CPI), and serves on the Executive Committee of the ATS Thoracic Oncology Assembly and the national Network Genomic Medicine (nNGM) Lung Cancer. He is a recipient of the Heisenberg Professorship (DFG), the Takeda Oncology Research Award, and the Mid- and Early-Career Achievement Awards from the American Thoracic Society. With over 145 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals — including Nature Medicine, Science and Nature Genetics — and more than 9,800 citations (h-index 51), he is internationally recognized for his contributions to lung cancer biology and immunotherapy.

Derk Jan de Groot

University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands. Derk Jan de Groot is a medical oncologist at the University Medical Center Groningen. He has a master's degree in medical biology and a PhD in Medical Oncology from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. His clinical focus is gastrointestinal oncology, and he is a member of the Dutch guideline committee for colorectal cancer. He is one of the heads of the phase 1 unit at the UMCG and a member of the molecular imaging working group in the Department of Medical Oncology. He has worked on molecular imaging for the past 10 years, focusing mainly on antibody-based PET imaging to improve drug development.

Bruno Sarmento

University of Porto, Portugal. Bruno Sarmento is Principal Investigator, Group Leader and member of the Board of Directors at i3S – University of Porto, and invited Associate Professor at IUCS-CESPU. His research focuses on developing functionalized nanomedicines, namely nanoformulations for mucosal and targeted delivery, and he has specialized in 3D tissue engineering models to validate functionalized nanomedicines and perform in vitro/in vivo correlation. He has published 500 papers in international journals (24,000 citations in Scopus; h-index 78), has extensive experience mentoring PhD and post-doc researchers, and has attracted direct competitive funding worth more than 25 M€. He has strong involvement in EU projects, as WP coordinator in MEDiCS, GENEGUT, RESTORE and ERA-Chair MOBILIsE, and coordinator of the Litwin IBD Pioneers Program. He was the first Chair of the Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery Focus Group of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) and is now Secretary of CRS and a member of the CRS College of Fellows.

João Mano

University of Aveiro, Portugal. João F. Mano is a Full Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Aveiro. He combines advanced biomaterials and cells towards multidisciplinary concepts in regenerative and personalized medicine, using biomimetic and nano/micro-technology approaches to develop polymer-based biomaterials for biomedical devices with enhanced structural and multi-functional properties. He also engineers microenvironments to regulate cell behavior and organization, with the goal of clinically applying these technologies in advanced therapies or in the bioengineering of disease models. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Materials Today Bio (Elsevier) and has coordinated multiple research projects, including 2 Advanced Grants and 3 Proof-of-Concept Grants from the European Research Council. He has received two honoris causa doctorates (Univ. of Lorraine and Univ. Utrecht), the George Winter Award 2020 from the ESB, and was elected fellow FEurASc, FBSE and FAIMBE.

Twan Lammers

RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Twan Lammers obtained a D.Sc. in Radiation Oncology from Heidelberg University in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Technology from Utrecht University in 2009. In the same year he started the Nanomedicine and Theranostics group at RWTH Aachen University, and in 2014 he was promoted to full professor of medicine at RWTH Aachen University Clinic. His group aims to individualize and improve disease treatment by combining drug targeting with imaging, developing image-guided (theranostic) drug delivery systems and materials and methods to monitor tumor growth, angiogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis and metastasis. He has received multiple scholarships and awards, including ERC starting, consolidator and proof-of-concept grants, the CRS Young Investigator Award, the Adritelf International Award, the Belgian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences International Award and the JNB Trailblazer Award. He served on the council of the European Society for Molecular Imaging for 10 years and was president of the Controlled Release Society in 2023–2024. He is a member of the editorial board of 10 journals, acts as associate editor for JCR, DDTR and MIB, and since 2019 is included in the Clarivate Analytics list of Highly Cited Researchers.

Jai Prakash

University of Twente, the Netherlands. Jai Prakash is Professor and Chair of Engineered Therapeutics at the Department of Advanced Organ Bioengineering and Therapeutics at the University of Twente. He obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 2006 from the University of Groningen in the field of drug targeting to treat renal fibrosis, then worked as Vice President – Preclinical Research at BiOrion Technologies with a joint position as junior group leader at the University of Groningen. In 2011 he joined Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, as Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncology-Pathology, followed by a Tenure-Track Professorship at the University of Twente to set up his research line on novel therapeutics against fibrosis and cancer. He is a (co)-inventor on several international patents and Founder and CSO of ScarTec Therapeutics, focusing on novel peptide therapeutics against fibrotic diseases and pancreatic cancer. He served as President of the CRS BeNeLux and France Local Chapter from 2020 to 2023 and is the Founder and Chair of the International Conference on Nanomedicine meets the Tumor Microenvironment (NanoTME). He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Controlled Release and several other journals, holds the position of Deputy Chair for Innovation Fund Denmark, and serves as expert referee, panel member and Chair on more than 35 national and international grant agencies. He was recently awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant 2024.

Yuval Shaked

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel. Yuval Shaked (PhD) is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Cancer Science at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion. He is the former vice dean and past director of the Rappaport Technion Integrated Cancer Center (RTICC). He earned his PhD from Hadassah University Hospital, studying neurodegenerative disorders, and trained at the University of Toronto in cancer biology and therapy. Since establishing his lab at the Technion in 2008, he has pioneered research on how cancer therapy can inadvertently promote tumor progression by altering the tumor microenvironment. He has received numerous awards, including the Yigal Allon Fellowship, the Krill Prize and the Youdim Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research. Supported by ISF and ERC grants, he has authored over 150 studies. As an entrepreneur, he has founded two companies focused on cancer diagnosis and therapy.