Invited Speaker

Anke Becker studied Biology at Bielefeld University, Germany. From 1992 to 1994, she did her PhD in microbial genetics in the laboratory of Prof. Alfred Pühler at Bielefeld University supported by a scholarship of the German National Merit Foundation. From 1994 to 2007,  she headed a research group with focus on microbial polysaccharide production and omics technologies at the Genetics Department and the Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) at Bielefeld University, and in 1999, was visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. From 2001 to 2006, she received junior group funding in the Bioinformatics Initiative of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Anke Becker was appointed adjunct professor at Bielefeld University in 2007. From 2008 to 2011, she was a professor of microbial genetics and systems biology and member of the Center for Biological Systems Analysis (ZBSA) at the University of Freiburg. Since 2011 she is full professor of microbiology and PI at the Center for Synthetic Microbiology (SYNMIKRO) at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. Since 2016, Anke Becker is the director of SYNMIKRO, a research center of the Philipps-Universität Marburg in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology.

Anke Becker has authored more than 160 original research articles, received a Lise-Meitner fellowship (Ministry for Sciences and Research, NRW, Germany) in 1998 and a Heisenberg fellowship (DFG) in 2002, was scientific member of the Permanent Senate Commission on Genetic Research of the DFG from 2015 to 2020, and is serving on the DFG review board since 2020 and as editor or associate editor of Journal of Bacteriology, Journal of Biotechnology and BioDesign Research.

After studying medicine at the University of Basel (MD 1998 - 2004, PhD thesis 2006 - 2008) at the University of Basel, I went abroad for a Clinical Fellowship “Transplant Infectious Disease” as well as a Post-doctoral fellowship, Li Ka Shing Institute for Virology (2010 - 2011), both at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Back in Switzerland, I became a fellow in Clinical Microbiolgy (FAMH) (2012 - 2015) at the University Hospital of Basel. During the same time (11/2014 - to date) I became Research Group Leader Applied Microbiology Research” Laboratory in the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel. From 2015 to 2022 I was the Head of the Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology at the University Hospital Basel. Since August 2022, I became the Director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Zurich.

My main aims for diagnostics and research are:

1. to develop new diagnostic for rapid detection of multidrug resistant and virulent pathogens (risk profiling);
2. to explore novel typing technologies such as whole genome sequencing (including long read sequencing) and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for clinical applications beyond species identification;
3. to develop novel diagnostic approaches handling complex information using bioinformatics and machine learning;
4. to understand pathogens evolution within the host (e.g. during antibiotic treatment); (v) to finally understand pathogen evolution in the broad context of the host/pathogen/environment interaction.

This could lead to the identification of the most critical factors for pathogenicity and resistance development. Such information will allow the generation of novel intervention strategies to impact disease outcomes for a single patient but also the population burden of infections.

Dr. Iliev is an immunologist known for his work on mycobiota and mucosal immunity. His research highlights the importance of fungal commensalism in the gastrointestinal tract, revealing insights into host immunity modulation by commensals and the fungal link to inflammatory diseases. His work on the mycobiome has revealed the functional importance of strain-dependent mechanisms of interactions with the host, emphasizing the distinct nature of fungal strains. His laboratory has elucidated essential immune response pathways, identified gastrointestinal tumor mucosa-associated fungal species, and uncovered a role of fungi in neuroimmunity. Dr. Iliev is a Burroughs Wellcome Fund PATH Investigator, Irma T. Hirschl Scholar, Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovator, CIFAR Fungal Kingdom: Threats and Opportunities Fellow and Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR Fellow.

Rotem Sorek

Education

2002-2006 Ph.D., Human Genetics, awarded with distinction, Tel Aviv University Thesis title: “Birth of new exons in the human genome”.

2000-2002 M.Sc. summa cum laude in Molecular Evolution, Tel Aviv University Thesis title: “Evolution and regulation of human alternative splicing”.

1998 - 2000                  B.Sc. summa cum laude in Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University.

Employment Positions

2018-present                 Full Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

2014- 2018                   Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

2008- 2014                   Senior Scientist, Department of Molecular Genetics
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

2006- 2008                              Post Doctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, USA

2000- 2005 Compugen Ltd. Group Leader, Genomic Basic Research. Tel Aviv, Israel

Honors

Memberships in Editorial Boards

2020 – present Member of the Editorial Board of Cell

2009 – 2018      Member of the Editorial Board of BioEssays 2014 – 2017      Associate Editor, Genome Biology and Evolution 2011                        Guest Editor, Current Opinion in Microbiology

Patents

Inventor and co-inventor on granted U.S. patents #7368548 (2008), #7528243 (2009), #7553948

(2009), #7569662 (2009), #7667001 (2010), #7842459 (2010), #7906635 (2011), #8513489

(2013) and #9353369 (2016). Inventor and co-inventor on 35 additional international and US patent applications (patent pending).

Review boards and services

• Reviewer for scientific journals including Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Biotech, PNAS, and more.
• Reviewer for funding agencies including EMBO Fellowships, European Science Foundation (ESF), DFG, NWO, ISF and more.

Conference Organization

Contribution to the Biotech industry

2015 – present Scientific founder and advisor of BiomX Ltd.
Candidate drugs are currently in phases I and II clinical trials.

2019 – present Scientific founder and advisor of Ecophage Ltd.

Teaching

2009 - present  Lecturer at the "RNA world" course, Weizmann Institute of Science

2014 - present  Lecturer at the "Systems Biology 101" course, Weizmann Institute of Science

Other activities

2009 – 2017 Mentor for gifted high school students, as part of the Israeli Ministry of Education Mentor-Peer Program