INVITED SPEAKERS

University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium

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Johan Neyts (CV) is full professor of Virology at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium where he teaches virology at the medical school and at the school of dentistry. His laboratory of Virology and Antiviral Research has a long-standing expertise in the development of antiviral strategies and drugs against emerging and neglected viral infections such as dengue and other flaviviruses, Chikungunya and other alphaviruses, enteroviruses, noroviruses, HDV, HEV, rabies and coronaviruses. An ultrapotent pan-serotype dengue inhibitor developed in his laboratory and at the Centre for Drug Design & Development (CD3) is currently in phase II clinical studies at Johnson & Johnson and efficacy has recently been shown in dengue-infected humans. A second focus, together with Prof. Kai Dallmeier, is on the development of the PLLAV (Plasmid Launched Live Attenuated Virus) vaccine technology, which is based on the yellow fever virus vaccine as a vector. It allows to rapidly engineer highly thermostable vaccines against multiple viral pathogens. The KU Leuven spin-off AstriVax of which Johan is co-founder, is further developing this novel vaccine technology (currently in phase 1 studies). Johan is also co-founder of, and responsible for, the Belgian VirusBank platform (Tools for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness). He is past president of the International Society for Antiviral Research. He published ~670 papers, received multiple national and international awards, has given ~360 invited lectures and a large number of interviews to lay-press.

Colorado State University, USA

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Dr. Rushika Perera is a Professor at the Center for Vector-borne Infectious Diseases at Colorado State University, where she leads a research group investigating how host metabolism influences viral pathogenesis. Specifically, her group focuses on understanding the intricate relationships between metabolic processes and mosquito-borne viruses like dengue, Zika, and chikungunya in both the human host and mosquito vector.

Her team employs systems biology approaches such as metabolomics and lipidomics, together with molecular virology, and structural biology to define the biochemical landscape that fuels viral replication and transmission, with the ultimate goal of diverting this landscape to block or limit viral replication success.

The metabolic approach is particularly powerful because metabolites serve as dynamic indicators of the cellular state. These small molecules are intermediates and products of active biochemical pathways and therefore, provide a real-time snapshot of biological processes, offering unprecedented insights into disease progression. As such she is also able to use these methods to identify metabolite biomarker that are early predictors of severe disease. Perera believes that by understanding these metabolic pathways, scientists can potentially develop strategies to make the cellular environment less hospitable to viral invasion.

She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Metabolism of Infectious Diseases (C4MInD) at Colorado State University. C4MInD collaborative research ecosystem that brings together the expertise of over 65 CSU researchers to enable development of new treatments, preventions and diagnostics for infectious diseases by resolving host-vector-pathogen-environment interactions at a metabolic level.