Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Adrian Egli (Zürich, Switzerland)

Keynote lecture - Digitalisation and machine learning in microbiology: addressing promises and challenges

After graduating with a PhD in medicine at the University of Basel, Adrian Egli moved to Canada, for a Clinical Fellowship and a Post-doctoral fellowship, Li Ka Shing Institute for Virology, both at the University of Alberta. Back in Switzerland, at the University Hospital of Basel, he became a fellow in Clinical Microbiology (FAMH) (2012 - 2015). Since 2014, he is appointed as Research Group Leader “Applied Microbiology Research” in the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel. After being Head of Department, Clinical Microbiology at the University Hospital of Basel (2015-2022), Prof Egli is, since August 2022, Director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zürich. His main aims of research are: developing new diagnostic for rapid detection of multidrug resistant and virulent pathogens; exploring novel typing technologies such as whole genome sequencing and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for clinical applications; and understanding pathogens evolution within the host and in the broad context of the host/pathogen/environment interaction. This could lead to the identification of critical factors for pathogenicity and resistance development and will allow the generation of novel intervention strategies.

Tom Harrison (Birmingham, United Kingdom)

Keynote Lecture - A revolution in the management of cryptococcal meningitis

Tom Harrison is Professor of Infectious Diseases and Medicine, Lead for the Centre for Global Health, and Deputy Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity, at St Georges University of London, Honorary Consultant at St Georges Hospital, London, and Professor of Medical Mycology at the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter. He trained in Infectious Diseases in London and Boston, USA, and works on a clinical and laboratory research programme on the prevention and treatment of cryptococcal meningitis with colleagues at St George’s, the London and Liverpool Schools of Tropical Medicine and across sites in Sub-Saharan Africa. The programme includes studies of pathogen virulence and drug resistance, host immunity, and the development and delivery of phase II and major phase III trials, health economic analyses, and implementation.

Birgitta Henriques-Normark (Stockholm, Sweden)

Keynote lecture - Pneumococcal epidemiology, pathogenesis and intervention

Birgitta Henriques-Normark is professor and senior consultant physician in clinical microbiology at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University hospital and associated to the Public Health agency of Sweden. Her research focuses on respiratory tract infections, especially pneumococcal diseases. The approach is translational going from basic mechanisms of pathogenesis to epidemiological and clinical studies. New antimicrobial therapies and novel vaccine candidates are being identified.  She has had several leadership appointments at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, and at Karolinska Institutet, such as Vice dean for recruitments, and academic Vice president for research.  She has been elected member in the European Academy and Microbiology (EAM), American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and is part of the Nobel assembly at Karolinska Institutet. She has got awards such as Wallenberg Clinical Scholars, the Petterkofer Award, Prix Aboensis Prize, and Torsten Söderberg Academy professorship. Since July 2022, she is the President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Scott J. Hultgren (St. Louis, United States)

Keynote lecture - Urinary tract infections: from fundamental bench science to translatable therapeutics

Scott J. Hultgren, Ph.D. is the Helen Lehbrink Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Director of the Center for Women’s Infectious Disease Research at Washington University in St. Louis.  Hultgren has developed antibiotic-sparing therapeutics for treatment of UTIs and a vaccine to prevent recurrent UTI.  He has received the 2nd Century Award, the Eli Lilly award, a Nobel Fellowship, an NIH Merit grant, an honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Umeå University and was named a College Luminary by Indiana University. He holds 37 U.S. patents and 51 foreign patents that have been licensed to 7 companies.  He is a co-founder of Fimbrion Therapeutics, Inc. and QureTech Bio.  He has published 331 articles, books and book chapters.  Hultgren is a member of the National Academies of: i) Sciences; ii) Medicine; and fellow of National Academy of Inventors (2020).

Gagandeep Kang (Vellore, India)

Keynote lecture - Mitigation of rotavirus: current and future

Prof. Kang is a physician scientist working on vaccines and public health. Her inter-disciplinary research on the transmission, development and prevention of enteric infections and their sequelae in children in India has led to new insights and practical approaches to prevention. She participated in building national rotavirus and typhoid surveillance networks to estimate disease burden and inform policy, established laboratories to support vaccine trials and conducted phase I-III clinical trials of vaccines. She is investigating the complex relationships between infection, gut function and physical and cognitive development, and seeking to build a stronger human immunology research in India. From 2016 to 2020, she was the executive director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, where she developed vaccine science and clinical research as key focus areas.  She is an elected Fellow of all the Indian science academies, is the first Indian woman to be elected to Fellowship of the American Academy of Microbiology and to the Royal Society and the only physician-scientist to receive the Infosys Award in Life Sciences.

Christine Moissl-Eichinger (Graz, Austria)

Keynote lecture - The role of the archaeome; composition and function in human health and disease

Christine Moissl-Eichinger earned a diploma degree in microbiology in 2000 from the University of Regensburg, Germany. She received her Dr. rer. nat. from the same University in 2005 (“summa cum laude”). Subsequently she worked as a PostDoc at the University clinics in Regensburg (rheumatology) and joined afterwards (2005-2006) the CALTECH/ NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, US. She returned as a junior group leader to the University of Regensburg, Chair for Microbiology and Archaea Center, where she obtained her habilitation in 2014. Also in 2014, she accepted an offer from the Medical University of Graz as university professor on “Interactive Microbiome Research”. She acted as head of the Center for Microbiome Research, which was recently turned into a designated research field “Microbiome and Infection” of the Medical University of Graz, of which she is acting as speaker. Further, she is coordinator of the extension study program “Medical Research”. To date, she has authored more than 120 publications, which mostly appeared in leading interdisciplinary and disciplinary journals. As a trained microbial ecologist and researcher focused on the third domain of life, archaea, she combined her expertise within (human) microbiome research. Her major expertise lies in the understanding of the contribution of the archaeome (community of all archaea) to human health and disease.

Monica Slavin (Melbourne, Australia)

Keynote lecture - Frontiers in the diagnosis and management of infections in the immunocompromised

Monica Slavin leads a National Centre of Research Excellence in Infections in Cancer at University of Melbourne, Australia. She is Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and of the Immunocompromised Host Infection Service at Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Her research is in diagnosis and management of infections in the immunocompromised host with a particular interest in fungal infection.