Scientific Advisory Committee

Fahd Al-Mulla is Professor of molecular pathology and heads a Molecular Pathology Unit, aiming delivering state-of-the-art diagnostic, targeted or tailored therapy and research facilities. Currently, his mandate is to build collaborative partnerships, invest institutional outputs, generate capital and resources, and promote public awareness as regards to the importance of scientific research outputs in resolving society’s problems and in expediting the development process. His research activities currently focus on identifying metastasis suppressor genes in colorectal cancer.

Prof. Angela Brand, MD PhD MPH (USA) is Founding Director and Full Professor of the Institute for Public Health Genomics (IPHG) at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, as well as Dr. T.M.Pai Endowed Chair on Public Health Genomics and Adjunct Professor at the Manipal Life Sciences Centre of Manipal University, India. Before she worked in the clinics, at various academic institutions and in governmental bodies in the USA and Germany.

David N. Cooper is Professor of Human Molecular Genetics at Cardiff University in the UK. His research interests are largely focused upon elucidating the mechanisms of mutagenesis underlying human genetic disease, but include genotype–phenotype relationships in various inherited conditions, as well as human evolutionary and population genetics.

Prof. Vita Dolžan, MD PhD received her degree in medicine, as well as MSc and PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular biology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. In  2000 - 2001 she was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg  at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. 

Paolo Fortina received his MD/PhD in Pediatrics from the University of Turin School of Medicine in Italy and in 1991 joined the Department of Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Dr. Innocenti is Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He is the first Associate Director for Oncology Research in the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. He holds appointments in the UNC School of Medicine and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Innocenti obtained his MD from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, followed by residencies in Clinical Pharmacology and Oncology. He has a PhD in Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Chemotherapy from the same institution.

Ming Ta Michael Lee graduated from the University of Toronto in 1998 with a B.Sc. degree in Medical Genetics. He then obtained his PhD in Virology from the University of Cambridge in 2002. Subsequently, he joined Dr. Bryan Cullen’s lab as a Research Associate at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University Medical Center working on HIV. He then joined Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen’s lab as a postdoc at Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica in Sept 2003 and was promoted to assistant director at the National Center for Genome Medicine (NCGM) from April 2004 and serves as the Director of the Pharmacogenomic Center in 2011 at Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica. In September 2012, he joined Center for Genomic Medicine at RIKEN as Team Leader of Laboratory for International Alliance.

Professor Milan Macek Jr. MD, DSc is the chairman of the largest academic medical / molecular genetics institution in the Czech Republic, which also comprises a research / diagnostics reproductive genetics centre (http://ublg.lf2.cuni.cz). He is also the Vice President of the European Society of Human Genetics, board member of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology and of the European Cystic Fibrosis Society. His institute is a "clearing centre" for dissemination of knowledge in genetics gathered within various international European projects, such as CF Thematic Network, EuroGentest, EuroCareCF or Techgene, to Central and Eastern Europe.

George P. Patrinos currently serves as Associate Professor of Pharmacogenomics at the University of Patras (Greece), and since 2010, as expert and Greece’s National representative at the CHMP Pharmacogenomics Working Party of the European Medicines Agency (London, UK). His research interests involve pharmacogenomics for hemoglobinopathies and neuropsychiatric disorders, transcriptional regulation of human fetal globin genes and genotype-phenotype correlation in human genetic disorders.

Barbara Prainsack is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of Social science, Health & Medicine at King's College London; a Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology at St. Thomas' Hospital, King's College London, and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Biomedicine & Society at Brunel University. A political scientist by background, Barbara has published widely on the societal, regulatory, and ethical dimensions of biomedicine and bioscience.

Alessio Squassina is a researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of the Section of Clinical Pharmacology of the University of Cagliari (Italy), where he has been working since 2002. Alessio has a degree in Biology, a PhD in Neuroscience and a specialty in Applied Pharmacology. His research interests are mainly focused on the genetic bases of mood disorders, schizophrenia and related phenotypes.

Domenica Taruscio, Director of the National Centre for Rare Diseases, at the Italian National Institute of Health, Rome (Italy). For decades, her efforts have been mainly directed to face the many and complex challenges posed by rare diseases. She has addressed them from various facets from science to society; she authored about 100 indexed scientific papers, in addition to many international reports and book chapters.

Effy Vayena is a senior fellow at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich and the academic coordinator of the PhD program in Biomedical Ethics and Law/medical track. Before joining the IBME she worked for the World Health Organization in Geneva where she was involved with the Organization’s activities on infertility, assisted reproduction and research ethics. She has served as a member of the WHO's Research Ethics Review committee and she continues consulting for the Organization.

Prof. Dr. Ron van Schaik, PhD is a registered European specialist Laboratory medicine (2003) and a Full Professor of Pharmacogenetics (2013). He is working at the Dept. Clinical Chemistry at the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is Director of the International (IFCC) Reference Center for Pharmacogenetics and he leads the Unit Research & Development of the Dept. Clinical Chemistry. He is also responsible for laboratory testing in Emergency Medicine and Cardiology, and is involved in development of new prostate cancer biomarkers.

Vozikis Athanassios is Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Piraeus. He holds a degree in Public Administration from the Panteion University, a M.Sc. in Health Informatics from National Kapodistriako University of Athens and a Ph.D. in Health Economics and Information Systems from the University of Piraeus. He has been an I.K.Y. (State Scholarships Foundation) scholar for his M.Sc. and Ph.D. studies.

Marc S. Williams, MD, FAAP, FACMG is a clinical geneticist. As of January 2012, he has been the director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania.  He is the co-PI of the Geisinger Electronic Medical Records in Genomics (eMERGE) project and is the medical director of the whole genome sequencing clinical research project. He represents Geisinger Health System on the NHGRI funded Genomic Medicine working group.