Dr Malgorzata Barczyk graduated with MSc in Molecular Biology from the Jagiellonian University in Poland and holds a PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Bergen, Norway. Following her PhD in 2009, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Princes Margaret Cancer Centre at University Health Network in Toronto in prof. Tsao laboratory. After moving back to Norway Malgorzata continued the cancer research and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Western Norway Regional Health Authority. During almost a decade of successful scientific career in Sweden, Norway and Canada, she published 13 scientific papers in peer review journals.

In 2014 she joined VIS, a technology transfer office serving several research institutions in Bergen, including University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital. As a Senior Innovation Manager at VIS she is managing the portfolio of projects within drug development, diagnostics and medical devices. Her experience within the technology transfer includes evaluation and development of proof-of-concept projects until exit phase, commercialization strategy development, IP portfolio management and handling partnering agreements.

Dr Bauer is a graduate of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt (Biology) and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. 

After spending four years as a research scientist at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne, Dr Bauer joined the R&D Center of Lesaffre International, the world leader in the baker’s yeast market, where he was Head of the Molecular Biology and Genetics Team. In 2000 he joined Axaron Bioscience AG in Heidelberg, a joint venture of BASF and Lynx Therapeutics from where he moved on to Gentana GmbH, a biotech company providing gene expression analysis services based on its proprietary technology platform. After acting as CEO of Gentana for two years, Dr Bauer joined EMBL Enterprise Management Technology Transfer GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory as Business Development Manager.

As of May 2011 he is appointed as Deputy Managing Director of EMBLEM and responsible for Business Development. Dr Bauer is alumnus of the Chemical Industry Fund within the German Chemical Industry Association and the St. Gallen Business School.

Angela Calvert is a Deputy Head of Group, in the Licensing & Ventures at Oxford University Innovation (OUI), where she manages a team of Licensing and Ventures Managers, specialising in Life Sciences. She overseas her team in the management of a large intellectual property portfolio, identification and protection new IP, project management, market evaluation, development of commercial strategy and commercialisation of the technology portfolio through technology licensing, creation of spin outs, raising investment, material sales, post deal management and in leading other strategic collaborations. Angela also represents the University as an Observer on the board of Osler Diagnostics, which spun out of the University in 2016.

Prior to working at OUI she held a commercial role at the UK Human Tissue Bank, responsible for Business Development and Sales. Here she played an influential role in evaluation of new products and business strategy and was instrumental in establishing a number of relationships, which ultimately led into a series of merger negotiations and exit opportunities for the business. Before this she held roles in knowledge and technology transfer and sales. She has a PhD and MSc in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Birmingham.  

Currently member of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Business Development & Licensing Team, and based in Germany, Julie is responsible for leading contract negotiations and managing strategic alliances (CAM) that support the scientific and business development objectives of the Innovation Unit at Boehringer Ingelheim. In this role and throughout her career, Julie has proactively and effectively interacted with key stakeholders of the life sciences ecosystem to drive the establishment of strategic alliances and partnerships to progress innovative science towards application. Prior to joining Contracts and Alliance Management, Julie was Head, Research Beyond Borders (RBB) Project Office and Strategic Partnering at Boehringer Ingelheim, where she fostered the development and implementation of new science project proposals and their enablement through external sources of innovation. Prior to joining RBB, Julie was Director, Corporate Development at Genome Canada, where she developed and lead strategic international partnerships with an emphasis on public-private partnerships.

Earlier in her career, Julie supported Boehringer’s Infectious Disease Research efforts at its Canadian research site, in her role as Head, Scientific Administration and External Scientific Affairs. Julie has also acted as consultant, working with inventors, academic institutions, start-up companies, investors and other stakeholders, on strategic planning including business development and partnering initiatives, commercialization strategies, and licensing and due diligence of new technologies with both high applied and commercial potential. Julie graduated with an M.Sc in Immunology and Virology from Institut Armand-Frappier, Quebec, Canada.

Prof. Dr Frank Entschladen has studied Biology in Aachen (Germany). He has made his PhD at the McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and at the University of Witten/Herdecke (Germany). He has been researcher in Witten for 20 years. During his research, his group established a new cell migration technology as a pre-clinical in vitro test system for immune and tumor cell behavior. As one of his most important research discoveries, Prof. Entschladen identified and validated beta-blockers as the first anti-metastatic drugs in a translational research from cell assays, through animal experiments, to patient studies. His research has been published in over 70 scientific papers.
Prof. Entschladen joined the pharmaceutical industry as co-founder of the start-up company MetaVì Labs (Austin, TX) in 2011, and he is Chief Scientific Officer of this company. MetaVì Labs is one of the leading providers of automated analysis of life cell microscopy. Since 2015, Prof. Entschladen is Manager Patents & Licenses in the Life Science team at PROvendis.

Thomas Hegendörfer is the New Ventures Lead for Germany at Johnson & Johnson Innovation. He is responsible for identifying collaboration opportunities and forging partnerships between the London Innovation Center and German scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Thomas was Head of Business Development at Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC), a leading translational center in Germany advancing academic drug discovery into application. In this position, he was responsible for closing numerous partnerships and licensing deals with partners from the pharmaceutical industry and biotech companies across major indications.

Prior to joining the LDC he worked in Licensing and Patent Management at Max-Planck-Innovation. Thomas graduated with an M.Sc in Molecular Medicine from Imperial College, London, and holds a B.Sc. degree in Molecular Biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich.

Thomas Hesterkamp is heading an office of the product development unit of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). Thomas serves various project steering committees of DZIF (more generally BMBF) funded projects and provides access to early and informal scientific and regulatory advice through the competent authorities.

Thomas also serves the technology transfer committee of DZIF and the TT offices of the DZIF member institutions. In doing so DZIF wishes to advance the much-needed product related projects to a stage of value inflection, ready for external partnerships and innovation. Previously Thomas held scientific and managerial positions in the private sector, at Evotec and Arpida. Thomas is a trained human biologist.

Karolina is the commercialization manager at the Centre of Technology and Knowledge Transfer (CTKT), University of Pardubice. She holds her degree in chemistry and chemical technology from Faculty of Chemical Technology.

She has been responsible for negotiations and licensing to the industry, has been directly involved in evaluation and development of the proof-of-concept projects including the intellectual property protection strategy and management of their commercialization activities (particularly in the area of chemical and pharmaceutical technologies, new materials, biochemistry and diagnostics). Lately she has participated in raising nearly 2 million GBP from public funds for proof-of-concept activities and education and mentorship to researchers in academia in the area of intellectual property protection and evaluation, marketing and business development.

Karolina has also gained her expertise based on the robust training at the world leading technology transfer entities or platforms (Cambridge Enterprise, AUTM, London Business School, ETPL A*STAR, IPI Singapore, etc.). Recently she has initiated the cooperation with Stanford Medical School and their SPARK Programme in Translational Research.

Currently Director of International Development at FIST S.A. (French Technology Transfer Company of the CNRS), Stéphane Mottola has 20 years experience in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. For more than a decade, she has been involved in the evaluation and selection of innovative technologies, the management of the industrial property strategy, and the negotiation of strategic deals, such as licences and collaboration agreements with Start-up, SME and Big pharma.

Previously to FIST S.A., Stéphane Mottola worked as a Patent attorney in Paris. She has also well rounded experience of international organization as she was for three years examiner for pharmaceuticals at the European Patent Office in Munich. After that, she joined the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in Roma, where she was an associate expert within the Nutrition Division. She enhanced her international culture by working one year in Los Angeles within the marketing department of an US technology company.

Stéphane Mottola is Doctor in Pharmacy, member of the LES; she is from French mother tong and speaks fluently English, German and Italian.

Stefanie Possekel spent more than 10 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and has broad experience in in- and outlicensing of clinical and preclinical projects. In particular, she successfully worked on a number of major research and development collaborations with academic institutions. 

She joined Ascenion in October 2012 from Novartis, where she served as Director Strategic Alliances with global responsibilities for the Musculoskeletal Disease Area and Oncology. Prior to that she worked as Director Business Development at Santhera Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss-based specialty pharmaceutical company for orphan neuromuscular diseases. 

Stefanie studied Biology at the Philipps University Marburg with a specific focus on Microbiology, Immunology, Genetics and Biochemistry and received her PhD in 1995. During her thesis she spent time at the Biocenter in Basel and worked closely with researchers at the Institute de Myologie in Paris, France. After her PhD, Stefanie spent 3 years in the Bay Area (California), working as a freelance science writer and scientific consultant to Affymetrix.

After graduating in Biochemistry from the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald, Germany Julie joined the group of Martin Groschup at the Friedrich Loeffler Institute in Germany to earn a PhD on the topic of Mad Cow Disease.

After her PhD she moved to Calgary, Canada as a postdoc first in Jan Braun’s lab and followed by a stay in Peter K Stys’s lab. In both labs she focused on neurodegenerative diseases using molecular and biochemical methods and state of the art imaging techniques in the Stys lab. After returning to Europe in 2014 she started another postdoc at the IOCB in Prague focusing on cancer research and ultimately joined the TTO team full time in January 2016.

In the IOCB-TTO team Julie focuses mainly on projects related to cancer research and is involved in PR and communication.

Dr Laura Spinardi graduated in Biology at the University of Turin and holds a PhD in Neurobiology under the joint supervision of the New York University Medical Center; she then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and Monterotondo (Rome). After a decade of successful scientific and professional achievements in the USA, France and Germany as a research scientist, she joined in 2007 the Ca’ Granda IRCCS Foundation - Milan Policlinico Hospital, a public medical and research center, where she founded the Technology Transfer Office. 

She is currently managing the Policlinico TTO and is in charge for scouting, patenting, transferring and educational activities; she is Board Member of Netval, the Italian Network of Technology Transfer Offices of Universities and Research Organizations.

Katharina is Deputy Head of Licensing at BayPAT, the Technology Transfer Office of 28 Bavarian Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences. In her role as Deputy Head of Licensing she is responsible for scientific and business Evaluation of Inventions, Developing Market Strategies, and Drafting and Negotiating of Intellectual Property Rights Agreements.

Katharina holds a Master in Biochemistry and received her PhD in pharmaceutical biology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. In her previous role as a Licensing Manager within BayPAT she was involved in the entire Business Development and Licensing Process to commercialize inventions.

Joachim Vogt is Director Search & Evaluation Western Europe at AbbVie. He is responsible for the identification of European business opportunities across all indications and technologies of interest for AbbVie and serves as key contact for European partners, including academic institutions, biotech companies, venture capital, governments and non-profit organizations.

Joachim spent more than 15 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in BD and research roles. He gained broad experience in- and outlicensing of preclinical and clinical projects as well as research technologies. Before joining AbbVie, Joachim was Director of Early Stage Partnering at Roche, served as Senior Manager at Wilex AG and was Head of IP Licensing at the tech transfer office Bayerische Patentallianz.  Joachim holds a diploma in chemistry and received his PhD in protein crystallography at the University of Freiburg.

Dr Jürgen Walkenhorst studied biology/molecular biology in Osnabrück and Aberdeen (UK). After his diploma thesis at the EMBL in Heidelberg, he worked at Genentech, Inc. (USA). He undertook his PhD-thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. He joined Cellzome AG (Heidelberg) as the first employee where he was instrumental in setting up the company and was later responsible for IP-issues. After a stint in the patent department of Baxter AG in Vienna, he changed to technology transfer. At Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, Vienna, he was managing life science inventions developed at Austrian universities.

In 2007 he moved to PROvendis, the central technology transfer agency of the universities of North Rhine-Westphalia, where he served as the head of the Life sciences team. Moving back to Austria in 2019, he is currently the head of technology transfer at the University of Vienna.

Sven is a Business Development Manager at the Lead Discovery Center (LDC) in Germany. The LDC is a professional drug discovery company, with experienced drug discovery experts, set up to advance ideas from the academic sector into the development of novel medicines. The projects are built upon the excellent science conducted at the Max Planck Society and other renowned research institutes in Europe. In his role at LDC, Sven manages the commercialisation of the drug discovery projects. This includes strategic alliances, licensing deals as well as attracting VCs for NewCo creations.

Prior to that, Sven worked in business development at a small biotech start-up. Sven received a Double Degree in Biomedical Sciences and holds a M.Sc. in Bio-Business with Medical Sciences from the University of Aberdeen.