Online 2021 Annual Symposium

After a general presentation of the Horizon Europe FP9 programme, the 2021 EURASC Symposium will be dedicated to the increasing roles of micro- and nanotechnologies for medicine and life sciences.

This will be illustrated by many examples: nanoparticles for drug delivery and as a tool to escape multidrug resistance in cancer, nano-sized recombinant viruses for gene therapy, nano-engines such as the CRSPR-Cas9 complex which is in the way to revolutionize precision medicine by allowing precise genome editing.

In addition, micrometer sized cells, which have been genetically modified by using nanometric recombinant viruses, have proved successful for numerous rare disorders, such as those of the immune system, or beta-thalassemia. Such gene/cell therapies represent also one of the most exciting recent breakthroughs in cancer.

Strikingly, the very same nanolipid particles which had been originally developed to treat rare disease by using oligonucleotides or RNA-interfering genetic drugs, have been successfully used for the recent mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 and other viruses.

Prestigious invited speakers will describe these dramatic advances and will also detail how mathematical epidemiological models can be implemented for the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the final presentation, ethical considerations for biomedicine will be presented and discussed.

Ana Buj Bello is research director at INSERM and head of the Gene-based Therapies for Congenital Myopathies team at the UMR-S 951, Genethon, France. She received her degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Lleida, Spain, and a PhD in Neurosciences from the University of St Andrews, UK. She also obtained a diploma in Myology from the University of Pierre et Marie Curie, France. Having done a post-doctorate at the « Institut de Génétique et Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire » (IGBMC), France, she joined the INSERM in 2004 and has worked at Genethon since 2009. Her research activities focus on developing AAV-based gene therapies for neuromuscular disorders, in particular congenital myopathies, with a major interest in clinical translation. Her pioneering work on gene replacement therapy for myotubular myopathy has led to the initiation of a clinical trial in patients.

________________________

Neil Ferguson is founding director of the Jameel Institute of Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA) and the  MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London. He also heads the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Modelling and Health Economics. He is an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.

Neil Ferguson uses mathematical and statistical models to investigate the processes shaping infectious disease pathogenesis, evolution and transmission. In addition to basic theoretical work, Professor Ferguson has applied models to study the transmission and control of COVID-19, Ebola, influenza, SARS, BSE/vCJD, HIV, dengue, foot-and-mouth disease and bioterrorist threats. He was educated at Oxford University where he also undertook postdoctoral research, before he moved to Imperial College.

He is best known for the real-time modelling of emerging infectious disease outbreaks, having worked on the transmission dynamics and control of SARS, avian (H5N1) and pandemic (H1N1) influenza, MERS-coronavirus, Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19. His other major research interest is in vector-borne diseases – he has worked on dengue throughout his career and more recently has expanded his research to include Yellow fever, Zika and malaria.

Neil Ferguson has always worked at the interface of science and policy, and advises governments, the World Health Organisation and multiple other bodies on emerging infections and infectious disease epidemiology and modelling.

http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/neil.ferguson/ 

________________________

Jean-Eric Paquet became Director-General of DG Research and Innovation on 1^stApril 2018; however, his involvement in EU research policy dates back from 2002, as Deputy Head of Cabinet of Philippe Busquin, then Commissioner in charge of Research and Development.

Jean-Eric’s career at the European Commission started in 1993. Since then he contributed in shaping EU policy in various fields and achieved major breakthroughs, notably in DG Transport, where he led the development of the Trans-European Transport Network Policy and was responsible for Europe’s transport infrastructure policy and investment strategies, the single European rail area, inland waterways and port policy.

He also gained considerable experience at international level: in DG Enlargement, his portfolio covered Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and FYROM. He was also EU Ambassador in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania from 2004 to 2007.

In 2015, he was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission, in charge of Better Regulation and Policy Coordination.

In all his endeavours, he puts co-creation and systemic change at the heart of the decision-making process, and strongly believes that citizens should be more involved in shaping public policy agendas.