3–8 Jun 2018
Cascais
Europe/Zurich timezone

Speakers Biography

Antero Abrunhosa

First degree in Biochemistry and MSc in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Coimbra. PhD work under Prof. Terry Jones supervision at the MRC - Cyclotron Unit, Hammersmith Hospital in London. Currently Director of ICNAS, the Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health at the University of Coimbra and coordinator of the Radiochemistry and Radiopharmacy Group. Research interests include the development of targeted probes for molecular imaging (PET, SPECT), radiopharmaceutical production, drug development and translational research.

 

 

 

Jacques Barbet

Trained as an engineer at the École Polytechnique in Paris, Jacques Barbet received his PhD degree in organic chemistry from the Paris University in 1978 for his work on the synthesis and DNA-binding properties of bivalent DNA intercalating drugs. He then moved to the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy to work on radioimmunoassays, antibodies, drug targeting and anti-cancer drug pharmacokinetics. He spent two years in John Weinstein's laboratory at NIH working on antibody-mediated radionuclide delivery. From 1987 to 1997, Jacques Barbet headed the Imaging and Therapeutics department of Immunotech in Marseille that developed the Affinity Enhancement System, a pretargeting approach for cancer imaging and therapy. In Nantes, from 2001 to 2010, he was the leader of the Nantes-Angers Cancer Research Center team that focuses on pretargeted immuno-PET, radioimmunotherapy and alpha-immunotherapy. Jacques Barbet is one of the scientists, with Jean-François Chatal, Jacques Martino and Yves Thomas, who promoted the installation in Nantes of Arronax, a high-energy (70 MeV) high-intensity cyclotron dedicated to biomedical and radiochemistry research. Arronax has been in operation since October 2010. From April 2010 to June 2014, Jacques Barbet was the director of the Arronax GIP. Thereafter, Jacques Barbet was the leader of the ArronaxPlus Equipment of Excellence, which was selected as one the French Equipment of Excellence “Investissements d’Avenir” and he contributed to the creation of the IRON Laboratory of Excellence (coordinator: Prof. Françoise Kraeber-Bodéré) of the same program.Jacques Barbet is now senior scientific advisor for the Arronax GIP and the ArronaxPlus Equipment of Excellence. He is involved in translational projects on the use of innovative radionuclides in cancer imaging and therapy and the pharmacokinetics of tumor targeting.

 

João D. G. Correia

João D. G. Correia graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1991 from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He pursued his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry with Prof. W. A. Herrmann at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, studying rhenium oxides as oxidation catalysts. In 1998 he moved to former Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear in Sacavém, Portugal, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Inorganic and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry Group. From 2000 - 2006 we worked as Invited Researcher in the same Group, and in since 2006 was appointed Associate Researcher. His current research interests include the syntheses and radiometalation of biologically active peptides and antibody fragments for nuclear molecular imaging and/or internal radiotherapy. João D. G. Correia is responsible for the scientific supervision of three PhD students, and is author or co-author of more than 70 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals. He participates in several national and international projects (e.g. IAEA, COST actions), being the Principal Investigator of projects funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation.

 

Célia Fernandes

Célia Fernandes is Assistant Researcher at the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group and member of the Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C2TN) of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). She concluded a PhD in Pharmacy (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon, in 2009, with a thesis focusing the development of specific radiopharmaceuticals. She started her work activities at the former Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear on the production and quality control of radiopharmaceuticals to supply to nuclear medicine centers. Her main scientific activity is focused on the design, synthesis, and radiolabelling of target-specific radiometallated (99mTc, 188Re, 111In, 67/68Ga, 64Cu) compounds interesting for nuclear molecular imaging and/or targeted internal radiotherapy. Some of these compounds are based on small peptides, receptor-specific small molecules and enzymatic inhibitors. Other topic of her research is related with radiolabelled block copolymer micelles (BCMs) for drug delivery. She was responsible for the supervision of 2 MSc thesis and co-supervised a PhD thesis, and is the author or co-author of more than 30 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals.

 

 

Lurdes Gano

Lurdes Gano is researcher at the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group from Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN) of IST. She graduated in Pharmacy and has got a PhD in Pharmacy (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) in 2000 by the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon (FFUL), with a thesis about Radiolabelled Monoclonal Antibodies and Receptor Specific Peptides. She initiated her work activities on the production and quality control of radiopharmaceuticals to supply to nuclear medicine centers. Her main scientific activity is focused on the development of specific radiopharmaceuticals for molecular imaging, targeted therapy and theranostics of cancer especially on the biological evaluation of radioactive compounds in cellular and animal models. She has experience in teaching Radiopharmacy in national and international courses and has been responsible for the supervision of 2 PhD and 3 MSc thesis being author or co-author of more than 90 papers and 34 proceedings.

 

 

Filipa Mendes

Filipa F. Mendes is Assistant Researcher at the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Engineering (DECN) and member of the Centre for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C2TN). She completed a PhD in Cellular Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of ULisboa in 2004 with a thesis focusing on the disease Cystic Fibrosis. During the post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Health in Lisboa she received 2 awards: the Gulbenkian Award “Estímulo à Investigação” and the L'Oréal Medal of Honour for Women in Science. She joined the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group of Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear as an Assistant Researcher in 2008, and from 2013 to 2015 she held a FCT Principal Investigator Development Grant. Her multidisciplinary scientific activity is focused in molecular imaging and therapy, and in particular in the pre-clinical evaluation of non-invasive cancer probes. Recently, she began to explore a molecular imaging approach to Cystic Fibrosis for the evaluation of the therapeutic effect of novel drugs.

 

Cristina Müller

Cristina Müller is a Research Group Leader at the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences (CRS) at the Paul Scherrer Institute and Private Docent at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. She studied Pharmaceutical Sciences and obtained her PhD at ETH Zurich in 2005. The topic of her PhD thesis was the synthesis and evaluation of folate conjugates for labeling with 99mTc and 188Re. Later she moved to the Netherlands and worked as a postdoc fellow at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. Over this period, she gained expertise in preclinical research, particularly with regard to therapy experiments using 177Lu. After returning to Switzerland, PD Dr. Müller won a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, which allowed her to build up her own research group at CRS. She focused on the development of folate-receptor targeted radionuclide therapy and developed new folate ligands with improved pharmacokinetics to avoid high kidney accumulation. This was also the topic of her Habilitation thesis, which earned her a PD at ETH in 2015. Currently, she supervises a well-established research group at PSI and conducts research dedicated to design and evaluation of small-molecular-weight ligands for radiotheragnostic applications. Among the main interests are the investigation and application of exotic radionuclides (particularly terbium and scandium radioisotopes) for nuclear imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy. PD Dr. Müller has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals, most of them as first or last author.

 

 

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Oehlke

Elisabeth Oehlke studied from 2001 to 2006 chemistry and obtained her PhD in 2010 at the Free University Berlin, Germany. Her PhD thesis concerned novel coordination and organometallic compounds of Re, 99Tc, and 99mTc. Afterwards, she held two postdoc positions at ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) and at TRIUMF (Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle Physics). At both places she focused on the production and radiolabeling of medical isotopes, e.g. reactor production of 177Lu, 68Ge/68Ga generator development, and liquid-target cyclotron production of various radiometals. In 2014, Elisabeth Oehlke accepted a tenure track position as assistant professor at the TU Delft, The Netherlands, and started to develop her own research topic - the application of microfluidics for the purification and radiolabeling of medical relevant metal isotopes. Since 2017 she works as professor for nuclear chemistry at the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Jülich, Germany, while still holding a part-time position as assistant professor at the TU Delft.

 

 

 

 

Antonio Paulo

António Paulo has got a PhD in Chemistry (Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon, Portugal) in 1998, being the coordinator of the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group from Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN) of IST, since 2015. His domain of specialization is in the field of inorganic and organometallic chemistry and radiochemistry. In the past few years, he has been involved in the synthesis and characterization of metal-based compounds aiming their application in the design of novel radiopharmaceuticals. Among other relevant contributions, his most successful inputs to this field include novel 99mTc-based imaging probes with translational potential for myocardium imaging and new tridentate tailor-made chelators for a stable radiolabeling of biologically active peptides with 99mTc or 186/188Re, which were developed within a research contract with Covidien (former Tyco International). Currently, his main research interests are focused on molecular and nanometric radiocompounds for imaging and/or therapy of cancer, based on peptidic molecules and on beta- and Auger-emitting radiometals. He was responsible by 7 research projects (1 underway) and a member of team in several other projects, including international projects (e.g. bilateral and COST actions) and the Marie Curie ITN Medicis-Promed. António Paulo supervised 5 PhD, 6 MSc, and 2 graduation thesis, being the author or co-author of more than 80 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, 2 chapter books and 3 patents.

 

 

Dr. Jean-Pierre Pouget

Dr Jean-Pierre Pouget obtained his PhD thesis in Radiobiology in 2000 from the Curie Institute in Paris and carried-out a post-doctoral fellowship in the Nuclear Medicine Research Laboratory at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. He then moved to Paris to the French Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (IRSN) for 4 years where he worked on radiation casualties. After moving to Montpellier, he joined the French National Institute for Health and Medical research (INSERM) where he is now leader of the Radiobiology and Targeted Radiotherapy team at the Cancer Research Institute of Montpellier (INSERM, France). He develops new radiopharmaceuticals for cancer imaging and therapy with a special focus on radiobiology. He has published about 60 papers dealing with radiobiology and radionuclide therapy and several patents. Besides research activity, Dr Pouget is involved in teaching at the University of Montpellier.

 

 

Paula Raposinho

Paula D. Raposinho graduated in Biochemistry in 1988 from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. She completed a PhD in Sciences (Biochemistry) at the Faculty of Sciences of Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland, in 2002, with a thesis on the Neuropeptides and Neuroendocrinology domains. From 1986 until now, she worked on the former Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear (Bobadela, Portugal), now Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), being actually Assistant Researcher at the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Group (RS) from Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN). Her scientific activity is focused on development and biological characterization of targeted-specific radiopharmaceuticals for Nuclear Medicine, namely metal-based specific probes for molecular imaging (SPECT or PET) and/or therapy of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, she is involved in the in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical evaluation of several potential cancer radioprobes. She is the author or co-author of more than 40 peer-reviewed journals.

 

 

Fiona Reid

Before joining UCL in 2015 Fiona had a career in the private sector as an entrepreneur and at universities such as Imperial College and Oxford University, where she was Founder Director of the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Said Business School for nine years. She has served as Director of UKCDS, which manages £440m of public research funding to support UK government’s international development interests. She is a Fellow of the RSA and lectures internationally on innovation, research impact and creating social and economic benefit from entrepreneurship. She has worked with large organisations such as Philips, the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs, with governments, and high-growth small businesses, and has been involved in the creation of many new spinouts and social ventures arising from Higher Education. Her expertise focuses on complex innovation spaces, the interface between science and business, and entrepreneurial thinking within organisations. Fiona was awarded UCL School of Management’s “Excellence in Teaching” award for 2017.

 

 

Prof. Hans-Jürgen

Prof. J.P. Wester, PhD, is Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Technical University Munich and Founder of SCINTOMICS GmbH, Germany. He received his PhD in chemistry from the University at Cologne and carried out his PhD in Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry under Gerhard Stöcklin´s mentorship. In 2006, he started his research activities at the Technical University Munich and built-up the radiopharmaceutical research group at the Department Nuclear Medicine (M.Schwaiger). He is full professor for Pharmaceutical Radiochemistry at the Technical University Munich (Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Chemistry) and received multiple offers for professorships at US and European universities. F-18-FET, radiolabeled RGD-peptides, F-18-Diprenorphine, Pentixafor, Pentixather, Avebetrin, Ga-68 labeled TRAP and DOTPI complexes, F-18-FIBT, Ga-68/Lu-177-PSMA I&T, the radioguided surgery probe Tc-99m-PSMA I&S and the recently developed radiohybrid tracer concept are some selected radiopharmaceuticals developed in his group. He was member of the Board of the German Society of Nuclear Medicine, is member of the Board of the Bavarian Society of Nuclear Medicine, co-spokesman of the Collaborative Research Center SFB824 of the German Res. Foundation, and is founder (2006), was CEO (until 2015) and is now scientific advisor of SCINTOMICS, GER. His main interest is the development and rapid transfer of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, i.e. peptides. He is author/co-author of >400 publications and inventor on various patents and patent applications on radiopharmaceuticals and tracer techniques.