New chairs elected for the EATRIS Product Platforms

Published 13 July 2016

In January 2016, new chair and co-chairs were appointed by the EATRIS Board of National Directors following an open consultation and election process among the EATRIS Platform members. We are excited to have this team of experts in place to work together with our institutions. Their scientific leadership and translational expertise will guide the EATRIS Product Platforms towards consolidation of translational research services, with continued optimisation of the biomedical product pipeline moving from pre-clinical to clinical while facilitating (public-private) collaborations in a client-oriented manner.

The team of EATRIS Product Platform Chairs is represented by:

Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products
Maria Cristina Galli (chair, ISS, Italy) Maria Cristina Galli is a Senior Researcher of the Cell Biology and Neurosciences Dept. at the Instituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome, Italy. She is active in the field of translational medicine as a quality assessor for gene therapy and biotechnology medicines and is also a GMP and GLP inspector in the field.
Miguel Chillon (co-chair, VHIR, Spain) Miguel Chillon is a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, UAB. He is the Scientific Responsible of the Vector Production Unit, a technological platform that produces viral vectors, since 2004 and is Co-founder of NanoTherapix.

Imaging & Tracing
Otto Boerman (chair, Radboudumc, Netherlands). Otto Boerman is full Professor Radiochemistry, Head of Preclinical Research at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Radboud Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His group focuses on translational radionuclide imaging and radionuclide therapy with radiolabeled peptides and antibodies and offering state-of-the-art services through the PRIME Imaging Centre.
Bert Windhorst (co-chair, Vumc, Netherlands) Bert Windhorst is full professor and Head of Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry at the VU University Medical Center and has broad expertise in the (clinical) development and application of small molecule PET tracers for various indications, including CNS related disorders. His group is profoundly involved in GMP-compliant production of radiopharmaceuticals for clinical research in collaborations with industry.

Biomarkers
Alain van Gool (chair, Radboudumc, Netherlands) Alain van Gool is professor Personalized Healthcare at the Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen, Netherlands and applied biomarker scientist at TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). His passion is in the application of biomarkers in translational medicine and personalized healthcare.
Maria Laura Garcia Bermejo (co-chair, IRYCIS, Spain) Maria Laura García Bermejo heads the Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets Group and Core Facility of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital and Research Institute (IRYCIS) (Madrid, Spain) and is Associate Professor of Physiology, Medical School, Alcala University. She is involved in translation of miRNAs-based Biomarkers, Translational Genomics, Epidemiology and Health Technologies and is advisor to the IRYCIS Innovation Office.

Andreas Scherer (co-chair, FIMM, Finland) Andreas Scherer is National EATRIS Coordinator of Finland and is Project Director Biomarkers and Molecular Diagnostics at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM, Helsinki, Finland). His expertise areas are bioinformatics (e.g. integrative expression profiling) to support biomarker development for immunological disorders (former Novartis AG, Basel, Switzerland)
Sulev Koks (co-chair, University of Tartu, Estonia) Sulev Koks is professor of pathophysiology at the University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia and Project leader in the Competence Centre of Health Technologies. Currently his main research area is the implementation of genomics to clinical applications and longitudinal studies. Sulev is Estonia’s representative at the Board of National Directors

Vaccines
Jan Langermans (chair, BPRC, Netherlands) Jan Langermans is the Chairman of the Animal Science Department, BPRC, Rijswijk, in the Netherlands. His research interests include the development of animal models for infectious disease research, vaccine development, and immunology. Previously he held the position of Director of the Experimental Animal Services and BioMedical Research, ASG Wageningen UR, Lelystad and the Head of the Parasitic and Bacterial Immunology Department at BPRC.

Small Molecules
Mario Salmona (chair, Mario Negri Institution, Italy). Mario Salmona is Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology of the Mario Negri Institution in Milan, Italy. He has held the position of Dean of the School of Advanced Pharmacology and his scientific interests relate to problems of human and animal diseases originating from the aberrant folding of proteins.