Speakers Wednesday 12 february
Peetra Magnusson
Dr. Peetra Magnusson’s research is focused on immunothrombosis, specifically in cerebral cavernous malformations, and vascular protection focusing on pre-clinical analysis and pharmaceutical targets. During her career she has worked with in vitro assays and specifically stem cell research. She has strong collaborations with clinicians at Uppsala University Hospital, Helsinki University Hospital and Institute Mario Negri, Milan. Dr. Peetra Magnusson defended her thesis in 2005 and has authored and co-authored 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles (15 as senior author), 5 review articles and has presented her work at several international conferences including as keynote speaker (CVB2019 in Miami, USA and ISTH2020 in Milan, Italy). Since 2009, Dr. Peetra Magnusson has headed her research group. In 2017-2021 Dr. Peetra Magnusson was the co-director of Elisabetta Dejana’s group at IGP and in 2020 she became the Director of the Rudbeck Laboratory campus. Dr. Peetra Magnusson is also engaged in the patient advocacy organisation Cavernöst Angiom Sverige (CASE). Later this year she will collaborate in CCM gene therapy with Dr. Rajvinder Karda, University Collage London through financial support from Cavernoma Alliance UK. She has also contributed with exploratory investigations in two clinical trials; the phase 1 trial Renaparin in Kidney Transplantation (NCT03773211) and the phase 2 trial Treat_CCM (NCT03589014). Interaction with the pharma industry is recently initiated through the collaboration with Key2Brain AB, Sweden.
Doug Marchuk
Douglas Marchuk is a James B. Duke Distinguished Professor at Duke University School of Medicine, in Durham, North Carolina, USA. He received his PhD in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology from the University of Chicago working under the direction of Dr. Elaine V. Fuchs. He then performed postdoctoral research in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan under the direction of Dr. Francis Collins. His research interest is the genetics of vascular disease, using a genetic approach into the pathobiology of different vascular anomalies and disorders.
Petra Knaus
Petra Knaus received her PhD (Dr. rer. nat) at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) in Heidelberg in 1991. As a Research Fellow and Associate she did her Postdoctoral Training with Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (MIT, Cambridge, MA, US) until 1996. After her return to Germany, she received a Junior Group position at the Biocenter in Würzburg, in the Department of Walter Sebald. There she established her own lab with the focus on BMP receptor biology and signal transduction. In 2004 she became Full Professor for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction at the Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freie Universität Berlin. In 2010 she received a W3 Professorship for Biochemistry – Signaltransduction and Regeneration at the Freie Universität and BSRT/Charité.
Roxana Ola
Roxana Ola holds a PhD in Developmental Biology of Helsinki University (Finland) and a PhD in Molecular Genetics of the Babes Bolyai University (Romania). She had a postdoc position at the Yale Cardiovascular Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, USA. Since 2019, she is Junior Professor of CardioVascular Pharmacology at the European Center for Angioscience (ECAS), Medical Faculty Mannheim (UMM), Heidelberg University (UH), Germany.
The research in her lab is mainly focused on understanding the role of TGF-β/BMP signaling pathway in maintaining cardiovascular stability and homeostasis. They recently made discoveries on the role of blood flow and BMP9/10 signaling in murine models of HHT. By deciphering the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how and why these vascular malformations form, they try to shed light into the exact role of TGF-β/BMP signaling in maintaining vascular stability and also to give fundamental insight into one of the least well-known and most controversial vascular signaling pathways.
Claire Shovlin
Claire L. Shovlin is Professor of Practice (Clinical and Molecular Medicine) at Imperial College London. She developed and co-Leads the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre’s Social, Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Health theme, and is a clinically active NHS mainstream physician. Her personal skill sets include multi-generational phenotyping [32ys]; inheritance/genomic management [27ys, ongoing 3 clinics per week]; patient-derived cell culture [>26 years, ongoing]; and >14ys of DNA/RNA sequencing data analytics, delivering highly regarded teaching and training in generic Data Analysis, Genomics, and specialist clinical care. Through her 25 year reverse translational programme at Imperial, she has had an exclusive focus on questions that matter to patients, and for more than three decades, has delivered individualised patient education, feedback, and informed choice for personal risk management in the setting of inherited, infective and pharmaceutical challenges. Shovlin-led publications testify to her trans-disciplinary research for healthcare, and the preponderance of student first authors to her passion for training the next generation of scientists and clinical scientists.
Luisa Iruela-Arispe
Dr. Iruela-Arispe is Chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the Stephen Walter Ranson Professor of Cell Biology. Her research focuses on the signaling pathways that regulate vascular morphogenesis during development and pathological settings. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil in 1989 and from there she went on to complete post-doctoral training at the University of Washington in Seatlle. In 1994, Dr. Iruela-Arispe joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Prior to moving to Northwestern in 2019, she was Distinguished Professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She also served as director of the Molecular Biology Institute and chair of the Molecular Biology interdepartmental Graduate Program. She has published over 200 peer-review manuscripts and has been the recipient of several recognitions including the Innaugural recipient of the Judah Folkman Award in recognition of her research accomplishments and contributions to the field of vascular biology.