ADVANCE career coaching webinar – Career tracks in ATMPs

Are you an ATMP researcher who is looking for inspiration from the careers and knowledge of others? Do you have questions about your career or career planning that you would like to discuss? Would you like to explore new horizons on the ATMP labour market?

With the next webinar within the Advance Series we want to create a platform for dialogue and encounter by inviting four panelists to share their personal career story and talk about possible career tracks in the challenging field of ATMPs. What came after their PhD? What made them make their following career decision? What would they have appreciated to know earlier? What are interesting challenges in their domain? These questions and more are up for discussion.

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Speakers

• Stephen Sullivan, Managing Director @Lindville Bio (Manufacturing perspective)

  Dr Sullivan is the Managing Director of Lindville Bio, an ATMP consultancy service specializing in the scalable manufacture of Pluripotent Stem Cells (PSC/iPSC) and therapeutic development therefrom. Afer his PhD at Roslin Institute and research fellowship at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and UCSD, he worked for Novartis, dealing with clinical trial management and compliance, to better understand manufacturing, logistic, and regulatory challenges to bringing new therapeutics to market and earned an MBA at Trinity College Dublin focusing on risk mitigation during AMTP development. With more than 20 years’ experience in the ATMP space, he focuses on the development and translation of pluripotent and induced-pluripotent stem cell therapeutics to the clinic. See a complete biography at www.linkedin.com/stephensull More detail on Lindville Bio at www.lindvillebio.com

• Vincenzo Mercurio, Data partnership manager @BC platforms (Regulatory Perspective)

  “I am Vincenzo, and I am a Biotechnology, with a PhD in Molecular and Translational Medicine. I am curious and goal-oriented, a combination that is the driving force in my life, both professionally and personally. I started a PhD in Milan and continued it for a 2 year period at NIH in USA, working on immunology’s and viruses’ research. At NIH I learned more about Clinical Research and I moved back in Italy as Regulatory Affairs Officer on the Onco-Hematology and BMT field at San Rafael Hospital in Milan. In there, I facilitated clinical research activities, ensuring compliance with the applicable regulation. In this position I saw myself as a pivot between the different clinical trials actors, establishing communication lines with KOLs/Investigators, fostering a partnership approach and facilitating studies conduction. This helped me in transitioning recently on a new job position as Data partnership Manager at BC Platforms.”

• Luigi Aurisicchio, Founder, Chief Executive and Scientific Officer @Takis srl, Evvivax srl and NeoMatrix srl (perspective of Industry)

  Luigi Aurisicchio is a Molecular Biologist by training and currently Founder, Chief Executive and Scientific Officer at Takis srl, Evvivax srl and NeoMatrix srl, three Biotech companies operating in the Castel Romano Scientific Park, Rome. In addition, he is Founder and President at Vitares, a no profit organization. He currently leads a group of 30 scientists/technicians and coordinates research and regulatory activities aiming to the generation of Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines, Generation of Therapeutic Antibodies, identification of novel Tumor Associated Antigens and early biomarkers, Immunomonitoring and novel vaccine and antibody delivery systems.

• Mangala Srinivas, Chair Group Leader @Wageningen University & Research (Perspective of Academia and Perspective of spin off)

  Mangala is Professor and Head (Chair Group Leader) of Cell Biology and Immunology at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). She is also the C.S.O. and co-founder of Cenya Imaging B.V., a spin-off company based on her research. Her work focuses on agents for in vivo imaging. Mangala’s early work helped establish the field of 19F MRI for quantitative in vivo cell tracking, publishing the first paper showing that this was possible. More recently, her group works on customisable nanoparticles for imaging and advanced personalised medicine applications, such as cell therapies and immunomodulation. Some of these nanoparticles are produced at GMP-grade for a clinical cell tracking study using multimodal imaging. As Chair, she is directly responsible for the group, including the career trajectory and hiring of tenure trackers, finances, education and courses, and people management.

Hosts

• David Morrow, Senior Scientific Programme Manager @EATRIS

  David Morrow is Programme Manager Translational Medicine & Drug Development at EATRIS. David received a BSc (Hons) in Molecular Biology from University College Dublin in 2001 and a PhD in Vascular Biology from Dublin City University in 2006. This was followed by an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Rochester Medical Center, NY from 2006-08 which resulted in an American Heart Association Young Investigator Award in 2008. From 2009-2015 he was an NIH/American Heart funded Principal investigator heading multiple projects in Cardiovascular disease and Cancer. David also holds an MBA in health science management and has worked as a consultant and in technology transfer in life sciences.

• Merel Ackx, Career Development Advisor and Career Coach @YouReCa Career Center KU Leuven

  Before becoming a career coach in 2008, Merel obtained a Master’s degree in research psychology at KU Leuven and worked subsequently in research/academia, for the classical radio of the national broadcast company VRT and as a clinical psychologist in psychiatry. She learned by doing: how can I convince my future employer of my talents and motivation while adapting my CV and motivation letter to each new challenge? Her developed career skills and experience suited her well together with a passion for coaching and training people in becoming a career coach in HR. After building up expertise in this field at Arabel, a pioneer in career coaching located in Brussels, she returned to her first employer, KU Leuven, where she set up the YouReCa Career Center beginning of 2014 which has now grown to become a reference point for career coaching and training for young researchers. Ever since she has coached researchers in their careers, in communication skills and in well-being.

>> Register here <<