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SPEAKERS

Session Speakers

Meet the session speakers who will share their expertise, insights, and unique perspectives at this year’s IVBM.

Rui Benedito

Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine

GERMANY

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Graeme Birdsey

Imperial College London

UNITED KINGDOM

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Dr Joyce Bischoff

Boston Children’s Hospital,
Harvard Medical School

UNITED STATES 

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Dr Jiulin Du

Institute of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science & Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

CHINA

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Mariona Graupera

Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute


BARCELONA

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Bong Ihn Koh

Yale Stem Cell Center, Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine

UNITED STATES 

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Professor Yoshiaki Kubota

Keio University School of Medicine


JAPAN

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Tim Padera

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

UNITED STATES 

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Professor Michael Potente

Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) & Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)

GERMANY

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Martin Schwartz

Yale University


UNITED STATES 

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Leon Smyth

Department of Physiology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University

AUSTRALIA

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Jean-Leon Thomas

Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, Paris Brain Institute, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris

UNITED STATES & FRANCE

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Dr Brant Weinstein

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)

UNITED STATES 

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Professor Ralf Adams

Director, Department of Tissue
Morphogenesis, Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Biomedicine

GERMANY

BIOGRAPHY

Ralf Adams started his independent career at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in 2000. Later, he became director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine and professor at the University of Münster, Germany. The main research interests of Ralf Adams are vascular biology, the growth and organ-specific specialization of blood vessels, and the crosstalk with cells in the surrounding tissue. A key discovery by his team is the identification specialized vessel subpopulations in bone with critical functional roles in skeletal development, bone homeostasis, age-related bone loss, and osteoporosis. His research uses advanced mouse genetics and confocal/two-photon microscopy together with a range of cell biology approaches. Ralf Adams is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation. He has received the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, the Werner Risau Memorial Award, the Malpighi Award of the European Society for Microcirculation, and the Feldberg Prize.

Rui Benedito

Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine 

GERMANY

BIOGRAPHY

Rui Benedito graduated in Microbiology and Genetics in Lisbon/Portugal, where he also completed his PhD. He subsequently undertook postdoctoral training with Dr. Ralf Adams in England and Germany, focusing on elucidating the roles of distinct Notch and VEGF signaling components in angiogenesis. Following his postdoctoral work, Rui Benedito joined the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid, Spain. His group has since developed innovative genetic and imaging tools of broad relevance, which are being applied to investigate vascular biology at high cellular and molecular resolution across both physiological and pathological contexts. This work provides fundamental insights that enable the development of improved strategies to therapeutically target blood vessels in cancer or to promote vascular development and function in cardiovascular disease. In 2025, he was appointed Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Germany, where he will continue his research in vascular biology.

Graeme Birdsey

Imperial College London

UNITED KINGDOM

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Birdsey leads a research program focused on uncovering novel transcriptional pathways that govern endothelial cell gene expression during angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. His work integrates cross-disciplinary methodologies, including in vitro molecular and cellular biology techniques, in vivo animal models, in silico modelling, and bioinformatics analysis of next-generation sequencing data. Dr. Birdsey’s research has significantly advanced our understanding of the master transcription factor ERG, elucidating its critical roles in maintaining endothelial lineage identity and homeostasis, as well as regulating angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in both health and disease.

Dr Joyce Bischoff

Boston Children’s Hospital,
Harvard Medical School

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Bischoff is Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School with a primary appointment in the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.  She received an A.B. in Chemistry from Duke University, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and post-doctoral training at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA.   Her current research focuses on endothelial plasticity and altered molecular mechanisms that cause  vascular tumors and vascular malformations. Dr. Bischoff was co-Editor-in-Chief of Angiogenesis from 2005-2020 and currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Clinical Investigation, ATVB, and the Journal of Vascular Anomalies.  She has served on numerous NIH study sections including as a member of the Cardiovascular Differentiation and Development Study Section from 2004-2008. She is the 2022 recipient of the Earl P. Benditt Award from the North American Vascular Biology Organization.

Dr Jiulin Du

Institute of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science & Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

CHINA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Jiulin Du is a senior investigator and deputy director of Institute of Neuroscience (ION), Center for Excellence for Brain Science & Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained B.S. degree from University of Science & Technology of China in 1993 and Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Institute of Physiology, CAS in 1998, and then did postdoc studies at Tokyo University and UC Berkeley. He joined ION at 2006 as a principle investigator. He has received many awards, including Shanghai Penoy Award for Natural Sciences, Shanghai Natural Science Award, Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education of China, National Wen-Ren Talents, CAS Hundred Talents, National Outstanding Young Scientist, Hsiang-Tung Chang Outstanding Young Neuroscientist, and CNS-CST outstanding Neuroscientist. His laboratory has developed a series of innovative in vivo methods for zebrafish-based research and established a novel experimental paradigm for whole-brain scale research. His main research interests are to elucidate the general organization rules of the vertebrate brain and the neural circuit mechanisms underlying adaptive behaviors.

Mariona Graupera

Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute

BARCELONA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Mariona Graupera is a vascular biologist, dedicated to study the signaling, molecular and cellular mechanisms governing vascular growth in physiological and pathological contexts. Dr. Mariona Graupera received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2003 in vascular physiology. She completed 6 years of postdoctoral work at Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and the Bart’s Cancer Institute in London in the field of cell signalling and angiogenesis. In 2009 she established her laboratory as an independent investigator at IDIBELL funded by the Ramon y Cajal program. In February 2021, she joined the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute as Group leader, and in 2023 she became an ICREA professor.  She has authored more than 80 manuscripts, along with the organization of internationally recognised congresses. Her research is supported by key national and international funding bodies, ranging from leading national foundations to the European Research Council.

Bong-Ihn Koh

Yale Stem Cell Center, Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BIOGRAPHY

Bong-Ihn Koh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine and at the Yale Stem Cell Center. He began his research career in Dr. David Scadden’s laboratory as an undergraduate student at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from Princeton University, where he studied the mammary gland stem cell microenvironment in Dr. Yibin Kang’s laboratory. His military service and passion for vascular biology led him to study the meningeal vascular response following severe head injury in Dr. Injune Kim’s laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. In 2020, he joined Dr. Ralf Adams’ laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, where he made the surprising discovery that the skull bone marrow continues to grow throughout life and stays resilient against aging. Bong-Ihn investigates specialized stem cell microenvironments, with a particular focus on vasculature, in various craniofacial bones to find novel cellular/molecular targets to drive stem cell fate. 

Professor Yoshiaki Kubota

Keio University School of Medicine

JAPAN

BIOGRAPHY

Yoshiaki Kubota, MD, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Anatomy at Keio University School of Medicine. He graduated from Keio University School of Medicine in 2000 and completed his clinical training in the Department of Plastic Surgery at the same institution. He then entered the PhD program in the laboratory of Toshio Suda. After conducting postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health in Yosuke Mukouyama’s laboratory, he returned to Keio University and became a principal investigator of the Laboratory of Vascular Biology in 2013. He has served as a Professor in the Department of Anatomy at Keio University since 2017. He is a member of the Editorial Board of EMBO Molecular Medicine. His research interests focus on vascular biology, with particular emphasis on vascular patterning in the central nervous system and skeletal tissues.

Professor Tim Padera

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Padera earned dual Bachelor’s Degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. He earned his PhD in Medical Engineering from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program and performed his thesis work at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Padera is Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School and a Principal Investigator in the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories, Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Padera is also a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Faculty. He earned an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award in 2011 and was named the Rullo Family MGH Research Scholar 2021. He served on the National Commission on Lymphatic Diseases. Dr. Padera is recognized as a leader in the field of functional lymphatic imaging, particularly with respect to lymphatic vessel pumping, lymphatic metastasis and lymph node imaging. He has seminal papers describing the role of functional peritumor lymphatic vessels in tumor dissemination and showing lymph node metastasis can spread to distant organs. His group has also developed a novel method to study the autonomous contraction of collecting lymphatic vessels in mice. This work opened the door to the wide array of genetic mouse models to study underlying functional lymphatic deficits in lymphedema, states of inflammation, aging and bacterial infection.

Professor Michael Potente

Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) & Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)

GERMANY

BIOGRAPHY

Michael Potente is Professor of Vascular Biomedicine at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC). In addition to his academic appointments, he is a practicing physician at the German Heart Center of Charité (DZHC), where he works as an interventional cardiologist. As elected EMBO Member, he has received several prestigious awards, including the Louis N. and Arnold M. Katz Basic Science Research Prize and the Judah Folkman Award. His research focuses on fundamental mechanisms of vascular development and disease, with an emphasis on metabolic regulation.

Martin Schwartz

Yale University

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BIOGRAPHY

I earned my Ph.D. at Stanford University with Harden McConnell on biophysics of model membranes, then did postdoctoral research with Richard Hynes at MIT, where I learned cell biology studying interactions of fibronectin. As an independent scientist, my lab was among the first to demonstrate signaling by integrins and the first to report that integrin-mediated adhesion is required for transmission of signals downstream of growth factor receptors. We were the first to show that Rho family GTPases are signaling intermediates on integrin pathways and the first to report that cell adhesion is required for survival of endothelial and other cells. We developed the widely used pull down assay for Rho activity and were the first to show that adhesion regulates activity of Rho, Rac and Cdc42. Our work identified PECAM1 as the first bona fide mechanotransducer for fluid shear stress in endothelial cells and worked out key aspects of molecular mechanism and relevance to atherosclerosis.  We have applied our expertise in extracellular matrix and integrin signaling to elucidate the role of extracellular matrix proteins and receptors in vascular disease, tested these ideas in animal models of atherosclerosis, hypertensive remodeling and aneurysm. These studies led to identification of an integrin-phosphodiesterase pathway as a potential therapeutic target in atherosclerosis and aneurysms. We discovered and have extensively characterized shear stress mechanotransduction at endothelial cell-cell junctions through PECAM-1, VE-cadherin, VEGF receptors and latrophilin2. We have also invented and used fluorescence-based assays for visualizing signaling events in live cells, including sensors that measure molecular tension across specific proteins. Partnering with Dr. Chenxiang Lin’s lab, we have developed DNA origami nanodevices for applying tension to proteins on a biochemical scale. We recently identified protocadherin gamma A9 as a therapeutic target for treatment of atherosclerosis and are pursuing translational studies. My lab continues to invent and use novel and state of the art biophysical and cell biological tools and approaches integrated with animal models, to understanding the role of mechanical forces in cardiovascular physiology and disease.

Leon Smyth

Department of Physiology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University

AUSTRALIA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Leon Smyth is a new lab group leader and ARC Future Fellow within the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute. Driven by the unique relationship between the immune system and the central nervous system (CNS), his research investigates the brain’s borders, specifically the meninges, as an intermediary for neuro-immune communication. Currently, his team explores how meningeal stroma orchestrates immune responses in both healthy states and neurological diseases like stroke and brain cancer. This work builds on his postdoctoral research as a postdoc with Prof. Jonathan Kipnis (WUSTL), where he described anatomical structures surrounding bridging veins that facilitate CNS immune surveillance and identified novel stromal populations in the meninges and developed tools to target these.

Jean-Leon Thomas

Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, Paris Brain Institute, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris

CHINA

BIOGRAPHY

My research focuses on signaling molecules shared by neural cells and vascular cells, such as vascular endothelial growth Factors (VEGFs) and axon guidance molecules. Our laboratory is investigating the role of the VEGF-C dependent lymphatic vasculature of the meninges, as a communication route between the central nervous system and the immune system. We use novel imaging approaches for three-dimensional imaging of brain lymphatic drainage in mice and humans to assess the therapeutic potential of meningeal lymphatic vessels to treat neurological diseases, especially brain tumors and intracranial hypertension.

Dr Brant Weinstein

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Brant Weinstein received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and his Ph. D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He carried out postdoctoral studies on hematopoietic and vascular development in the zebrafish at Harvard with Mark Fishman.  He is currently a Senior Investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Bethesda, Maryland.  Dr. Weinstein is a leading expert on zebrafish development whose laboratory has pioneered many key tools and resources used for vascular biology research in the fish and made numerous seminal vascular biology research discoveries, including a novel pathway regulating arterial identity, a role for neuronal guidance factors in vascular patterning, a mechanism for vascular lumen formation in vivo, and identification and characterization of a lymphatic vascular system in the zebrafish. In addition to his research work, Dr. Weinstein has played numerous important leadership roles in the zebrafish and vascular biology research communities.  He was founding organizer of the Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators and founding President of the International Zebrafish Society (IZFS).  He also served as President of the North American Vascular Biology Organization (NAVBO) and was a founding and long-time organizer of the important NAVBO Developmental Vascular Biology (DVB) workshops.  Dr. Weinstein also served as Program Head and Associate Scientific Director for the NICHD intramural Division of Developmental Biology.