INNOVATION
FLOW CYTOMETRY
AND MICROSCOPY

Madison Strine, PhD

Yale School of Medicine Science Fellow
Postdoctoral Associate 
Laboratory of Liza Konnikova, MD PhD
Department of Immunobiology 

Dr. Madison Strine earned her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Gettysburg College in 2018 having won the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and American Society for Microbiology Undergraduate Research Fellowship for her research on bacteria-phage interactions. For her doctoral work, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Craig Wilen in the Department of Immunobiology at Yale University. In her thesis work, she studied host-viral interactions at mucosal barrier surfaces and was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her work. Her doctoral work showed that tuft cells, a rare cell type in the intestine, are immune privileged to cytotoxic T cells, allowing chronic viral infection. She earned her PhD in 2023 from this work and was awarded an inaugural position in the Yale School of Medicine Science Fellows program, an early-independence fellowship to bridge postdoctoral associates to faculty positions at Yale. As a Science Fellow, Dr. Strine joined Dr. Liza Konnikova’s group in the joint departments of Immunobiology and Pediatrics, where she is applying her expertise in immune-epithelial interactions to study the pediatric intestine in humans. Her long-term goal is to understand how immune cells contribute to epithelial homeostasis and to identify new strategies to treat intestinal disorders.

Muzamil Majid Khan, PhD

DZL Principal Investigator, Staff Scientist
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Meyerhofstr. 01
69117 Heidelberg, Germany
phone: +4962213878232
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8188-0251

I am currently a German Centre for Lung Research (DZL)- Principal Investigator in the Cell Biology and Biophysics (CBB) Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. I also hold a staff scientists position in CBB unit at EMBL. 

Translating fundamental scientific discoveries into practical solutions to improve patient care is the driving force behind my research.   I have a strong commitment to advancing drug discovery efforts, particularly in the context of respiratory diseases, with a focus on understanding how extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling contributes to the progression of chronic lung diseases and fibrosis. My research integrates multiomic technologies, multiphoton and spatial proteomics imaging to uncover how ECM dynamics — including stiffness, composition, and organisation — influence cell behaviour, tissue architecture, and disease progression.

Michelle S. Itano, Ph.D.

Director, UNC Neuroscience Microscopy Core Facility (RRID:SCR_019060)
Associate Professor, Cell Biology & Physiology
UNC Neuroscience Center & Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities
Editor-in-Chief, BioTechniques
neuro-microscopy@unc.edu

Dr. Itano is a cellular biophysicist who received her doctorate degree from the UNC School of Medicine, did her postdoctoral work at The Rockefeller University, and is now an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. As director of the Neuroscience Microscopy Core at the UNC Neuroscience Center, she trains and consults with investigators to fully address their imaging needs and make crucial discoveries about human health and disease. In 2019, she was selected to be a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Imaging Scientist in recognition of her investment in facilitating collaborations between researchers, software and infrastructure engineers, and computing specialists to design and disseminate efficient bioimaging pipelines. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief for BioTechniques since 2021 and participates as an instructor in many microscopy courses at UNC-Chapel Hill and beyond, including Advanced Courses at the MBL, Imaging Africa, Okinawa Microscopy Workshop, and the PAIR-UP Live Cell Imaging Workshop.

Gert Van Isterdael

Head of VIB Flow Core
VIB Flow Core, VIB Technologies, VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research

Gert Van Isterdael is head of the VIB Flow Core Ghent. After obtaining his Bachelor of Science, he was subsequently a member of the De Jaeger lab (2003-2007) and the Beeckman lab (2007-2013) at the VIB Center of Plant Systems Biology (PSB). During his time at PSB, he became the cell sorter operator for the department and his passion for flow cytometry started. Early 2013, he joined the VIB Center for Inflammation Research (IRC) in the Lambrecht and Hammad lab. He became responsible for all flow cytometers and cell sorters located at IRC and was strongly involved in the conception of the IRC Flow Core facility, which matured in the VIB Flow Core Ghent. His primary role is to provide flow cytometry expertise to the users of the core facility. Under his leadership the VIB Flow Core has become a top academic core facility within Europe and the core is actively involved in benchmarking and testing new technologies. Gert Van Isterdael is an active member of ISAC, the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry and has received an ISAC SRL Emerging leader award (2016-2020) and the RMS Award for Flow Cytometry 2021. In 2024, he was elected to the position of ISAC Councilor by the members of the ISAC community.

Prof. Said Dermime MSc, PhD

Senior Scientist/ Director of Translational Cancer Research Facility
National Center for Cancer Care and Research
Hamad Medical Corporation
Clinical Professor of Biomedical Sciences
College of Health Sciences, Qatar University

Prof. Dr. Said Dermime is a distinguished Algerian/British senior scientist specializing in cancer immunology and immunotherapy, with over 30 years of experience in academia and research. He currently serves as the Senior Scientist and Director of the Translational Cancer Research Facility at the National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) within Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar.

Prof. Dr. Said Dermime holds an adjunct associate professorship at the College of Health and Life Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and a clinical professorship in Biomedical Sciences at the College of Health Sciences, Qatar University.

His academic journey began with a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Constantine, Algeria, followed by a Master’s in Immunology/Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Immunology/Microbiology from the University of Salford, Manchester, UK.

Throughout his career, Prof. Dr. Said Dermime has held notable positions, including leading the Lymphoma-Cancer Vaccine Team at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, Christie Hospital, Manchester, UK; serving as Senior Scientist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; chairing the Department of Biomedical Research at Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait; and leading the Department of Biomedical Research at King Fahad Specialist Hospital in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Prof. Dr. Said Dermime has made significant contributions to cancer immunotherapy, including identifying causes of resistance to retinoic acid in acute leukemia, discovering a novel leukemia vaccine targeting proteinase-3, and demonstrating the potential of the lymphoma idiotype as a cancer vaccine target. He was among the first to report the expression of the PD-L1 inhibitory molecule in breast cancer patients and its role in immune evasion. Additionally, he identified an antigen-specific regulatory T cell population in leukemia patients. His recent work involves studying anti-NY-ESO-1 immunity and cytokine profiles to predict responses to PD-1 blockade in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients.

Prof. Dr. Said Dermime published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals and contributed to several book chapters. He is also an editor and reviewer for numerous international scientific journals. In addition to his research, Prof. Dr. Said Dermime has supervised multiple PhD and master’s students, fostering the next generation of scientists in the field.

Rayaz A. Malik

BSc. (Hons), MSc., MB ChB, PhD, FRCP.
Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine.
Senior Consultant Physician in Hamad General Hospital.

Rayaz Malik graduated in Medicine from the University of Aberdeen in 1991, obtained his MRCP (London) in 1996, PhD from the University of Manchester in 1997 and FRCP (Royal College of Physicians England) in 2007.

Appointed Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and Senior Consultant Physician in Hamad General Hospital in 2014. 

Expertscape (world’s leading index of academic achievement and expertise in healthcare) rankedhim 2nd (UK) and 7^th (World) most influential researcher on diabetes complications.

Research.com ranked him the number 1 researcher in Medicine in Qatar in 2023 and 2024.

He has published 550 peer reviewed papers.
Web of Science H-index=93, Citations=26,307
Google scholar H-index=101, Citations=46,205

Paola Lanuti, Ph.D

Prof. Paola Lanuti is an Italian pharmacist with a Ph.D. in biomedical and cytomorphological sciences, currently Associate Professor of Human Anatomy at the University "G. d’Annunzio" in Chieti-Pescara. She leads the Flow Cytometry Core Facility at the Center of Advanced Studies and Technologies (CAST), where her research focuses on biomarker discovery, extracellular vesicles, and immune cell signaling, particularly in cancer and chronic disease models.
She has extensive expertise in high-dimensional and imaging flow cytometry, cell sorting, and immunological assays. Prof. Lanuti has held several academic positions since 2004, progressively expanding her research scope and leadership roles.
She is author or co-author of 147 publications (H-index: 34), with several national and international collaborations. She has obtained significant research funding (over €4 million) and holds two patents on extracellular vesicle analysis.

Juan J. Garcia-Vallejo, MD, PhD, MBA

Associate Professor, Dept. Molecular Cell Biology & Immunology, Amsterdam UMC – Location VUMC
Scientific Director, Microscopy and Cytometry Core Facility, Amsterdam UMC – Location VUMC

Dr. Garcia-Vallejo leads the Immune System CytOMICs research group, where he focuses on a variety of topics, such as deciphering the escape mechanisms of deadly tumors such as pancreatic and brain cancer with the aim of identifying new targets for diagnostics and therapy, the immunological effects of exposure to environmental microplastics, the immunopathology of COVID-19, as well as developing an immune monitoring pipeline at the Amsterdam UMC. Besides his research and teaching activities, Dr. Garcia Vallejo started in 2014 the Microscopy and Cytometry Core Facility at the Amsterdam UMC – Location VUmc. In order to future-proof his facility and to help bridging the gap of between academic science and technology exploitation, Dr. Garcia-Vallejo followed an executive MBA program of the University of Amsterdam. An amateur cook and photographer, Juan loves spending his free time with his wife, his two daughters, and his Border Collie.

Contact details

Juan J. Garcia Vallejo, MD, PhD, MBA
Amsterdam UMC – Location VUMC
Dept. Molecular Cell Biology & Immunology
OI2 building, room 11E35
De Boelelaan 1108
1081 HZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31204448259 / +31204448080 (secretary)
jj.garciavallejo@amsterdamumc.nl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjgv/

Dr. Yongsoo Park

Senior Scientist
Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, HBKU

Dr. Yongsoo Park earned his PhD at POSTECH, South Korea, studying exocytosis and plasticity of vesicle fusion. He then trained under Prof. Reinhard Jahn at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, focusing on neurotransmitter release. In 2015 he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute and the Koç University, Turkey.

Dr. Park is a Senior Scientist and Associate Professor at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute and College of Health & Life Sciences, HBKU, aiming to model neurological disease with patient-specific hiPSC-derived neurons. His lab focusses on extracellular vesicle biomarkers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer's disease. He also studies lipid dysregulation in neurological disease condition with focus on calcium signaling and vesicle fusion. By applying the interdisciplinary approaches his team investigates molecular mechanisms of neurological disorders and development of therapeutics.

Erdener Ozer

Division Chief - Anatomical Pathology

Dr. Erdener Ozer is the Division Chief of Anatomical Pathology, having joined Sidra Medicine in 2021. He is also senior attending physician managing integrated digital pathology reporting service for full range of pediatric surgical pathology and perinatal pathology. In addition to his role in Anatomical Pathology at Sidra Medicine as a consultant pediatric pathologist, he does research at Sidra Research Center as a leading PI or co-PI in the pediatric tumor-related projects. His research interest is essentially genomic pathology of pediatric tumors including neuroblastoma and pediatric brain tumors focusing on genetic and molecular profiling, biomarker discovery, tumor microenvironment, novel treatments like immunotherapy, and precision medicine. He is leading tumor biobanking facility for Sidra Pediatric Precision Oncology Initiative. In addition, he is one of committee members of Cancer Research Program and Neurological Disorders Research Program at Sidra Medicine. Dr. Ozer is an active member of Paediatric Pathology Society, Society for Pediatric Pathology, European Society of Pathology, European Society of Paediatric Oncology, and International Academy of Pathology. He publishes regularly in international scientific literature as a glance at his CV will confirm with over 120 original papers and three books to his name and is a regular presenter at many international pathology meetings.

Mo Li, PhD

Associate Professor of Bioscience
 Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regeneration Lab
Editorial Board Member:
Communications Biology
Life Medicine
Science China Life Sciences
Blood Science
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=tuhn270AAAAJ
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mo-Li-9/research
https://regeneration.kaust.edu.sa/
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division
4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Mo Li is an Associate Professor of Bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He earned his BS from Peking University and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, then trained as a postdoc at the Salk Institute. His research focuses on modelling human diseases, human embryonic development, and regeneration using pluripotent stem cells, cellular reprogramming, and genome editing technologies. His lab develops novel nanopore sequencing methods for identifying mutations in genetic diseases, genome editing, and the aging process. To date, he has published 80 articles in prestigious journals, including Nature, Science, and the New England Journal of Medicine. His work has been featured in the New York Times and China Science and Technology Daily. He serves as an editorial board member of Communications Biology, Life Medicine, and Science China Life Sciences.

Sven Terclavers

Head of Product & Application Sales Specialists
 EMEA/LA Region
 ZEISS Research Microscopy Solutions
Carl Zeiss Limited
ZEISS Group
1030 Cambourne Business Park
Cambourne
Cambridge CB23 6DW United Kingdom

Sven Terclavers is the Head of Product & Application Sales Specialists for the EMEA/LA Region at Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH. He began his career in Belgium as an Imaging Specialist after obtaining his degree in BioEngineering at KULeuven/GroepT in Leuven. Before joining ZEISS Benelux as an Imaging Specialist, Sven worked as an Imaging Facility Manager at KULeuven/VIB in the departments of Physiology and Cardiovascular & Research.

In 2014, he moved to the United States where he first worked as a 3D Specialist supporting the South-East region. He then held a three-year position as an Embedded Specialist at the Harvard Centre for Biological Imaging in Cambridge, MA, USA.

Upon his return to Europe in 2018, Sven took up the role of Head of PASS EMEA-LA, leading a group of international specialists responsible for sales and application support, as well as business development in the fields of Light-, Electron-, and X-ray Microscopy. He is currently based in London, UK.