Maria Grazia Cusi is Full Professor of Microbiology and Virology for the Medicine and Surgery at the University of Siena. Since 2015 she has been Director of the Microbiology and Virology Laboratory at the "S. Maria delle Scotte" Hospital in Siena. In 2017 she was appointed member of the Technical Health Committee on Biotechnology at the Ministry of Health and, in 2019, Director of the Specialty School of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Siena, Italy. In 2021, she was awarded the Honorary distinction of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for her contribution to the fight against COVID-19.
She has 30 years of experience in research and development of novel virus vaccines. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of emergent viruses antagonism to the innate immunity (SARS CoV-2, Toscana Virus) and mechanisms of pathogenesis of some arboviruses (in particular Phleboviruses) and their neurovirulence. Prof. Cusi is the author of more than 180 articles published in international journals and 7 patents.
Orcid: 0000-0001-8869-8164
Mark Taylor is Professor of Parasitology, Director of the Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases and the A-WOL consortium at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which he joined in 1993. He is a former Head of the Department of Tropical Disease Biology and a former President of the British Society for Parasitology and recipient of the BSP Wright Medal in 2012. In 2023 he was awarded the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine & Hygiene/LSTM Hemingway Award, and in 2024 The Royal Society for Chemistry Horizon Award in recognition of the impact of his translational research. His area of research is the filarial nematode diseases of humans; lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis - two of the leading causes of global disability. His research focuses on the role of Wolbachia-bacterial endosymbionts, which have evolved a mutualistic symbiosis that is essential for parasite development, fertility, transmission and survival. His translational research exploits the Wolbachia/worm symbiosis as a target for antibiotic therapy, which delivers a safe curative therapy for both onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. Recently his research group has discovered 91 novel RNA viruses infecting 70% of parasitic nematodes infecting >1.5 billion people, livestock and pets, which has revealed a previously hidden abundant and diverse RNA virome of parasitic nematodes, with potential impacts on parasite biology and disease.
Martin Beer was born in Erlangen and graduated in veterinary medicine in 1992 in Munich. In 1995, he received his PhD from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich studying the T-cell immunity against bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV). In 2000, Martin Beer moved to the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) as head of the reference laboratory for bovine herpesvirus type 1 infections and continued his work on BVDV and other pestiviruses. Since 2004, he is head of the Institute of Diagnostic Virology at the FLI, working with transboundary animal diseases, zoonosis and emerging diseases like avian influenza virus, Schmallenberg virus or bornaviruses. Modern diagnostics, molecular epidemiology and pathogenesis studies with transboundary viral diseases (e.g. Bluetongue Disease virus and African swine fever virus) and viral zoonoses (e.g. poxviruses and influenza viruses) are a major focus of his research since more than 20 years. For selected viruses, also the development of strategies for immunoprophylaxis is an important research goal. A special feature is the work with animals including livestock animals under BLS3 and BSL4 (animal) conditions. During the past years, especially workflows for virus discovery using next-generation sequencing (NGS) based metagenomics were developed and several new viruses could be identified and further characterized. NGS was also used to generate whole-genomes for phylogeny and molecular epidemiology e.g. of HPAIV H5N1. In addition, new vaccine strategies were developed for avian influenza viruses.
Dr Balistreri obtained a Master of Science in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Palermo (Sicily, Italy) and a PhD in Molecular Virology from the University of Helsinki. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor Ari Helenius, at the ETH Zurich, where he focused on how viruses enter cells, and which cellular factors are needed for infection. In 2018, Dr Balistreri became the head of the ‘Viral Cell Biology Laboratory’ at the University of Helsinki and from 2020 an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. His current research focuses on how human viruses enter our cells and spread to different tissues, particularly the brain. His research team, half in Finland and half in Australia, is developing new antiviral therapies and studying the possible connection between viral brain infections and neurodegenerative diseases.
Anna Överby is a professor at the department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University, and deputy director of MIMS, (The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden), Umeå University. She graduated with a Master of Science in Engineering Biology at Umeå University in 2003, and in 2007 she completed her PhD at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm where she studied the assembly of bunyaviruses. Thereafter, Anna moved to Freiburg, Germany for a post doc in the laboratory of Prof Friedemann Weber were the focus was tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) interaction with the innate immune system. In 2011 she started her own research group within the MIMS, one of the Nordic EMBL nodes at Umeå University. Her research team has characterized different aspects of what determines TBEV pathogenicity and tropism in mice in particular how the local type I interferon response within the central nervous system restricts viral replication. Her team recently developed tools to study viral distribution in whole mouse brains. She has been awarded several prizes for her research, Göran Gustavsson Prize in Medicine and Erik K Fernströms prize among others.
Nolwenn Jouvenet's team is based in the Virology department of the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Her team is exploring molecular interactions between host cells and RNA viruses, with a focus on medically relevant viruses, such as orthoflaviviruses, coronaviruses and enteroviruses. Their approach integrates biochemical and virological assays with high-throughput screening strategies to characterize the mechanisms underlying viral replication and innate antiviral immunity. Recently, they have broadened their studies to examine these processes in cells derived from animal species known to be viral reservoirs, including bats and birds. Their aim is to uncover potential vulnerabilities in the life cycle of these emerging and re-emerging RNA viruses, paving the way for innovative interventions.