PROGRAM and Speakers
The 2023 BioIron Conference will be held at the Darwin Convention Centre, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia on the 27th August 2023 until the 31st August 2023.
Note: this program may be updated at any time.
Educational Day Program
Speakers
We are delighted to acknowledge the speakers, who will be presenting at the 2023 BioIron Conference.
More speakers will be updated as time permits.
Keynote Speakers
Dr Paul Adams
Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Western University,
London, Ontario
Dr Marcus Conrad
German Research Center for Environmental Health, Germany Instuttue of Metabolism and Cell Death
Dr Elizabeta Nemeth
Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Director of the UCLA Center for Iron Disorders
Invited Speakers
Dr Hossein Ardehali, MD, PhD
Hossein Ardehali received M.D./Ph.D. degrees from Vanderbilt University, and completed his residency and cardiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He is currently Thomas D. Spies Professor of Cardiac metabolism, Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, and the Director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at Northwestern University. He has served as the president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He is a member of the AAP and has received several awards. His research focuses on the role of mitochondria and metabolism in cardiovascular disease, with a focus on of iron.
Dr Sarah Atkinson
Dr Sarah Atkinson is an Associate Professor of Paediatric Infectious Disease at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kilifi, Kenya and the Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford. Dr Atkinson works on anaemia, iron and other micronutrient deficiencies, and severe infections in young children using genomic and immunological approaches, to determine causality and mechanisms. Dr Atkinson is a member of the USAID Anaemia Taskforce and a Co-Commissioner for the Lancet Haematology Commission in Anaemia.
Dr Raphaël Rodriguez
Raphaël Rodriguez, PhD, FRSC, is a Research Director at the CNRS and a Senior Principal Investigator at Institut Curie where he holds the Marie Curie Chair of Chemical Biology. He trained as a PhD student, then a postdoctoral scientist under the mentorships of Sir J. E. Baldwin (Oxford, 2004) and Sir S. Balasubramanian (Cambridge, 2005) from whom he acquired the knowledge of chemistry. He then trained in biology with Prof. S. P. Jackson (Cambridge, 2009) with whom he co-founded Adrestia Therapeutics. At the age of 32, he established his laboratory at ICSN (Gif-sur-Yvette, 2012). He then moved to Institut Curie (Paris, 2015) to investigate the molecular bases underlying the biology of cancer. There, Rodriguez discovered the rate-limiting role of metals in the regulation of cell state transitions and founded OrbiThera shortly after. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and received a Knighthood of the National Order of Merit from Jean-Marie Lehn on behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron. He has received a few accolades for his scientific contribution including the Klaus Grohe Prize, Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award, Prix Lacassagne (Collège de France) and Grand Prix Charles Defforey (Institut de France).
Prof. Tom Vanden Berghe
Prof. Tom Vanden Berghe obtained his PhD in Science (Biotechnology) in 2005. He was a postdoc at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research and became Assistant professor at the University of Antwerp and Guest professor at Gent University in 2018. As a PI, his mission is to perform applied research in the context of cell death/ferroptosis, inflammation and disease. In particular, the Vanden Berghe lab studies the mechanisms, diagnostics and intervention strategies in the field of transplantation, critical illness, brain injuries and cancer.
Dr Francesca Vinchi
Dr. Vinchi received her Master Degree in Molecular Biotechnology in 2007 and a PhD in Biomedical Science and Human Oncology in 2012 at the Molecular Biotechnology Center, University of Turin, Italy. From 2013 to 2017, she performed her postdoctoral studies on iron biology in the Iron Homeostasis Group within the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit of Heidelberg University and the European Molecular Biology laboratory, Germany. In 2018 she joined the NYBC, where she is leading the Iron Research Laboratory of the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, the NYBC research branch. Dr.Vinchi’s expertise lies on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying heme- and iron-driven inflammation, vascular dysfunction and oxidative stress. She contributed to define the protective role of the heme scavenger hemopexin and the pro-inflammatory and vasculo-toxic action of iron through macrophage activation and vascular dysfunction in hemolytic and iron-overload diseases. Her research focuses on the impact of heme/iron overload or deficiency in disease pathophysiology and the preclinical development of therapeutic options aimed at improving these conditions. Since 2020, she serves as member and, currently, as Vice-Chair of the Heme and Iron Committee of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Dr.Vinchi seats in the editorial board of the EHA journal, Hemasphere, and Frontiers in Oncology, and is an active member of the BioIron Society, ASH, EHA and European Iron Club.
Educational Day Speakers
A/Prof Scott Ayton
Associate Professor Scott Ayton is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (L1), Director of the NHRMC Centre of Research Excellence in Enhanced Dementia Diagnosis and head of the Translational Neurodegeneration Laboratory at the Florey Institute. Dr. Ayton pursues both laboratory (biochemistry & physiology) and clinical research (fluid & imaging biomarkers, clinical trial) in neurodegenerative diseases to discover the underlying causes of these diseases, to develop better diagnostics, and to intervene with new therapeutics.
Pr Edouard Bardou-jacquet
Prof. James Collins
James Collins is a Professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Florida. He has studied intestinal nutrient absorption since he was a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University in the early 1990s. Initial studies focused on sodium-hydrogen exchangers and sodium-phosphate cotransporters. For the past 15+ years, his research has focused on intestinal iron absorption and iron homeostasis. His research group uses rat and mouse models of iron-related diseases, including iron-deficiency anemia, hereditary hemochromatosis and β-thalassemia, to delve into mechanistic aspects of enteral iron absorption. The overall goal of his research program is to develop new approaches to modulate iron absorption in disease states to mitigate pathophysiological outcomes associated with iron depletion or iron overload.
Prof. Darrell Crawford
Professor Darrell Crawford is the Head, Mayne Academy of Medicine and Associate Dean, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, and Director of Research, Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation. He is a clinical hepatologist with research interests in disorders of iron overload, hepatic co-toxicity, hepatocellular carcinoma and hepatic fibrosis. He has held multiple leadership positions in national and international organisations including chai, Australian Liver Association and President of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia and President, Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver.
Prof. Hal Drakesmith
Prof. Yelena Ginzburg
Prof. Esther G. Meyron-Holtz
Prof. Martina Muckenthaler
Prof. Dr. Martina Muckenthaler is Head of the Center for Translational Biomedical Iron Research at the Heidelberg University Hospital, group leader within the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (EMBL) and the current president of the BioIron Society. Her work contributes to the understanding of regulatory mechanisms maintaining iron homeostasis as well as to the pathological consequences of iron overload and iron deficiency.
Dr Sant-Rayn Pasricha
Dr Sant-Rayn Pasricha is a haematologist, pathologist, epidemiologist and biologist who leads a research program that aims to reduce the burden of anaemia and undernutrition in mothers and children in low-income countries, and has made transformative discoveries, resolved key evidence gaps, and directly translated knowledge into policy at the highest international level. His investigator-initiated trials have recruited >8000 women and children in Malawi and Bangladesh. Dr Pasricha’s key scientific contributions in the field of international nutrition include undertaking a series of large randomised controlled trials to build evidence for the functional benefits and safety of universal iron interventions in young children; establishing a program of trials to investigate the role of modern intravenous iron formulations to treat maternal anaemia; defining the diagnostic test characteristics of hepcidin as an index for iron deficiency in children and women; supporting WHO the process and evidence base for updating the global thresholds of haemoglobin that define anaemia; and undertaking basic and translational studies to help define the interaction between anaemia, erythropoiesis and iron metabolism. His work has influenced WHO iron intervention policies, and more recently, directly informed WHO criteria for diagnosis of anaemia. He has published >100 papers including lead author papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Lancet Global Health, and Blood. Dr Pasricha has co-chaired WHO committees, is lead Commissioner for the Lancet Haematology Commission in Anaemia, and leads the WHO Collaborating Centre of Anaemia Control.
Dr Caroline Philpott
Dr Laura Silvestri
Prof. Shinya Toyokuni
Shinya Toyokuni graduated from Kyoto University in 1985 (M.D.), and obtained his Ph.D. (Pathology) in 1991 from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. After a postdoctoral fellowship in CDRH, FDA in Rockville, MD, he became an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pathology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. In 1998, he became an Associate Professor. In 2008, he moved as a Full Professor at the Department of Pathology and Biological Responses, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. He is teaching pathology to medical students, diagnosing human specimens as a registered pathologist and performing research on the association of oxidative stress and carcinogenesis. He has published more than 400 papers in the areas of cancer, oxidative stress, redox biology and pathology, and is an associate editor for Arch Biochem Biophys, Cancer Sci, Free Radic Biol Med, Free Radic Res, J Clin Biochem Nutr, Nagoya J Med Sci and Pathol Int. He has obtained Japan Pathology Award in 2015, SFRR India Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 and SFRR Japan Prize in 2021.