Invited Speakers

David Beech, University of Leeds, UK
Vito Conte, Edihoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Alba Diz-Muñoz, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany
Sylvain Gabriele, University of Mons, Belgium
Johanna Ivaska, University of Turky (UTU), Finland
Elizabeth Jones, KU Leuven, Belgium
Boris Martinac, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Centre, Sydney, Australia
Laoise McNamara, University of Galway, Ireland
Emad Moeendarbary, University College London, UK
Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez, University of Glasgow, UK
Giorgio Scita, International Foundation of Medicine (IFOM), Italy
Joe Swift, The University of Manchester, UK
Xavier Trepat, Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia, Spain
Ellie Tzima, University of Oxford, UK
Julien Vermot, Imperial College London, UK

Title: PIEZO1 force sensor in cardiovascular health, disease and physical exercise

David Beech, School of Medicine, University of Leeds, UK

After a BSc at Manchester and PhD at St George’s London, I did postdoctoral research at the University of Washington in Seattle before returning to the UK as a Wellcome Career Development Fellow. I then established a research group at Leeds, where I am now Professor of Cardiovascular Science and the NIHR BRC Theme Lead for Cardiometabolic Disease Research. My research interest is cellular calcium homeostasis in the cardiovascular system and particularly the idea that mechanisms of calcium ion entry extend beyond voltage-gated calcium channels to other calcium-permeable channels that mediate responses to chemical and mechanical stimuli. My group revealed roles of TRPC, PIEZO and other ion channels in cardiovascular health and disease. Particularly notably, we discovered that the PIEZO1 channel senses fluid shear stress, thereby linking blood flow to endothelial cell functions, cardiovascular health and physical exercise capability. We identified small-molecule modulators of some of these new channels, enabling the foundations of a new company for the discovery of new cardiovascular disease therapies.

Title: The Border Zone in Myocardial Infarction: a mechanobiological analysis at the cellular and supracellular scales

Vito Conte, Edihoven University of Technology, Netherlands

I am a scientist in the engineering and physics of multicellular systems. I received a PhD in Biomechanical Engineering from King's College London (UK), following a degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Naples “Federico II”. As a postdoc, I trained in biomechanics (Prof. Mark Miodownik, UK), computational methods (Prof. José Muñoz, ES) and mechanobiology (Prof. Xavier Trepat, ES). I am currently developing a program in the mechanobiology of cardiac disease and regeneration at the supracellular scale in collaboration with Prof. Carlijn Bouten at the Eindhoven University of Technology (NL).

Title: The missing mechanical link: how composite interfaces govern cell morphogenesis, immune migration, and stem cell fate

Alba Diz-Muñoz, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany

Alba Diz-Muñoz received her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden - Germany. She then worked for her postdoctoral research between UC Berkeley and UCSF, USA. Since 2016, Alba leads a laboratory at the EMBL in Heidelberg focusing on how composite interfaces govern cell morphogenesis, immune migration, and stem cell fate.

Title: Integrating Mechanical Microenvironments; the Interplay of Shear Stress, Tissue Stiffness and Gene Expression

Elizabeth Jones, KU Leuven, Belgium

Dr. Elizabeth Jones’ expertise lies in the study of vascular remodelling. She began her career as an engineer studying embryonic blood fluid dynamics, leading to an interest in the biological process of mechanotransduction. She has published on the role of mechanotransduction in the development of arterial-venous identity. She also studies microvascular maladaptation in disease. More specifically, she investigates the microvascular involvement in diastolic heart failure as well as in cognitive impairment, investigating why pathological remodelling is activated in these diseases. The overall goal of her research is to understand how angiogenesis, pruning, and vessel enlargement are intertwined in order to adapt to the changing needs of a tissue, and how this process goes wrong in disease conditions.

Title: Mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells

Sylvain Gabriele, University of Mons, Belgium

After earning a Master’s degree in physical chemistry from Pierre and Marie Curie University (France), Sylvain Gabriele completed his PhD in polymer physics at the University of Mons (Belgium). He then pursued postdoctoral research in the labs of Dr. Olivier Théodoly at Aix-Marseille University (France) and Prof. Kevin Kit Parker at Harvard University (USA). In 2011, he established the Mechanobiology & Biomaterials Lab at the University of Mons (https://www.cellmechanobiology.com), focused on detecting and transducing mechanical signals at cellular and tissue levels. Currently, he serves as a tenured Associate Professor and President of the Research Institute for Biosciences. He has also held positions as Invited Professor at Stanford University (USA) in 2017 and at the Mechanobiology Institute (Singapore) in 2023.

Title: 3.5 Billion Years of Mechanotransduction: In the Beginning was the Touch

Boris Martinac, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Centre, Sydney, Australia

Boris Martinac is an experimental biophysicist, who majored in physics and received his PhD degree in biophysics from the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He is internationally known for his pioneering studies of microbial ion channels, including the discovery, cloning and structural and functional characterization of mechanosensitive channels in bacteria. His studies of bacterial mechanosensitive channels have been highlighted by the Nobel Prize Assembly as the ground-breaking work proving the existence of mechanosensitive channels, which ultimately led the way to the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (https://lnkd.in/gRUQjPBb. At the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute his studies focus on the role mechanosensitive ion channels play in cardiac diseases.

Title: Mechanobiology and Bone Disease: Uncovering Novel Mechanisms in Osteoporosis and Cancer Bone Metastasis

Laoise McNamara, University of Galway, Ireland

Prof. Laoise McNamara is an Established Professor of Engineering (Biomedical) and Head of School of Engineering in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Galway. She leads the Mechanobiology and Medical Device Research group, who use advanced experimental and computational approaches to study the role of mechanobiology in osteoporosis and cancer-bone metastasis. She was awarded two ERC Awards, an Irish Research Council Laureate Award and named as the Irish Research Council “Researcher of the Year” award. She has published more than 100 research articles and is a reviewer for international institutes and centres, peer-reviewed journals and international funding panels.

Title: Mechanobiology of Cancer Metastasis and Ageing: Insights from Microfluidic and Biophysical Models

Emag Moeendarbary, University College London

Emad Moeendarbary, a Full Professor of Mechanobiology at University College London, has been a pioneer in the intersection of mechanical engineering and biology. Emad research has contributed to groundbreaking discoveries, including identifying mammalian cells’ poroelastic nature and the soft mechanical signature of glial scars. His lab at UCL focuses on the mechanics of cancer metastasis and nervous system diseases, utilising advanced microfluidic platforms, computational modelling and mechanical measurement techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy and Traction Force Microscopy. Emad has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, secured significant internationally competitive funding and actively collaborates with global institutions. He supervises a dynamic, diverse team of multidisciplinary researchers, furthering the understanding of cellular biomechanics in health, ageing and disease.

Title: Engineered viscoelasticity in cell microenvironments

Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez, University of Glasgow, UK

Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow and ICREA Research Professor at Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC). Manuel develops advanced biomaterials for cell engineering and mechanobiology. His research includes materials that trigger the organisation of extracellular matrix proteins (Science Advances 2016); the use viscosity to control cell behaviour (PNAS 2018 & Nature Communications 2024) and interfaces that trigger the mechanical activation of growth factors (Advanced Materials 2024). Manuel holds an ERC Advanced Grant to develop the next generation of viscoelastic materials in cell engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy for Arts and Sciences.

Title: Mechanobiology of cellular senescence

Joe Swift, The University of Manchester, UK

Joe received an MSci degree in chemistry with first-class honours from Imperial College. He continued his studies in the USA and was an awarded a PhD in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Joe then stayed in Philadelphia to work with Prof. Dennis Discher, developing proteomic methods to study the nucleoskeletal lamin proteins and their roles in mechanotransduction. In 2014, Joe was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, enabling him to establish an independent programme of research at the Wellcome Centre for Cell-Matrix Research (University of Manchester). His laboratory examines how the mechanical properties of tissues are matched to their functions, how these properties are maintained by regulation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and intracellular signalling, and how tissue maintenance is affected by ageing.

Title: Epithelial mechanics from the bottom up

Xavier Trepat, Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia, Spain

Xavier Trepat was trained in Physics and Engineering at the University of Barcelona. In 2004 he obtained his PhD from the Medical School at the University of Barcelona. He then joined the Program in Molecular and Integrative Physiological Sciences at Harvard University as a postdoctoral researcher. In January 2011 he became an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). Trepat’s research aims to understand how cells and tissues grow, move, invade and regenerate in a variety of processes in health and disease. To achieve this, he has developed technologies to measure cellular properties at the micro- and nanoscales. He has then applied these technologies to identify fundamental mechanisms in cell biology and biophysics.

Title: Cell mechanics and mechanotransduction in cardiovascular morphogenesis

Julien Vermont, Imperial College London, UK

Julien Vermot leads the biomechanics and signaling lab focusing on the understanding on the impact of mechanical stresses during morphogenetic and regenerative processes. Julien Vermot obtained his PhD in developmental biology from the University of Strasbourg in 2003, where he worked on the role of retinoic acid during embryonic development. He then worked as a visiting scientist the Stowers Institute for Biomedical Research in Kansas City, USA, followed by a post-doctoral position at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena where he developed new tools to study the role of mechanical forces during development. He was Research Director at the French INSERM before joining the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London in 2019. For his research, he has won numerous prizes, including the Career Development Award from the HFSP and the ERC Consolidator Grant. He became EMBO member in 2023.