IZBrunch – Science meets Science

Prof. Dr. Markus Diefenbacher
LMU Professor of Immuno-Oncology of the Lung and Pleura, Head of Helmholtz Research Group “Experimental Oncology”

Topic: The Ubiquitin System as a targetable entity in Lung Cancer
Prof. Dr. Markus Diefenbacher is a group leader at the Helmholtz Munich Institute of Lung Health and Immunity and the Institute of Experimental Pneumology at LMU. He was awarded the IZKF Research Award in 2017 and is a PI at the DKTK (German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research-Munich).

Markus Diefenbacher’s work focuses on the deregulation of protein turnover as a central driver in tumourigenesis. By utilising in vitro and in vivo models, his lab aims to understand the role of key components of the ubiquitylation machinery in order to find ways to counteract deregulation of protein stability as a therapeutic approach.

Dr. Rüdiger Jankowsky
CEO AATec Medical

Topic: New therapeutics for inflammatory respiratory diseases
Inflammatory airway diseases represent a major global health challenge. Hundreds of millions of patients suffer from COPD, asthma, bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis, and other conditions of the lungs. While treatment options remain limited, recent years have seen significant advances in new approaches. Dr. Rüdiger Jankowsky, CEO of AATec, will provide an overview of emerging treatment modalities and explain how AATec develops new biotherapeutics for the rapidly growing area of inflammatory lung diseases.

Anne Burger
CFO CatalYm

Dominik Schumacher
CEO Tubulis

Thomas Klein
Thomas Klein is Founder & CEO at PIRCHE AG. He is an entrepreneur, who starts and runs companies with a strong technological base. In 2015 Thomas Klein started the digital diagnostic platform Pirche and have since served as its CEO. In 2004 he was the co-founder of Arcway, the first spin-off from the Hasso-Plattner Institute in Potsdam and served as its chairman until it was sold in 2010. From 2006 – 2020 he was the business development advisor and legal representative for all clinical trials in Europe of Pluristem (NASDAQ:PSTI). From 1997 to 2006, he was co-founder and CEO of Noxxon Pharma AG and exited when Pfizer invested in Noxxon.

Olivier Litzka
Olivier Litzka has been a partner at Andera Partners since 2006, helping establish Andera Life Sciences as a leading European fund in biotech and medtech. He began his career at Mercer Management Consulting in 1998 before joining 3i Group in 2000, focusing on biopharma and medtech investments. Litzka serves on the boards of multiple companies, including MMI Microsystems, T-Knife, and HighLife Medical, and previously held board positions at firms acquired or taken public. He holds a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology from the Institut für Genetik und Mikrobiologie in Munich.

Ulrich Kinzel
Ulrich Kinzel Partner and Head of Healthcare Europe at Bryan, Garnier & Co. Bryan Garnier is the leading European Growth Investment Bank and recently announced that it is joining forces with Stifel. Kinzel is an experienced senior corporate finance professional and managed more than 60 successful M&A and ECM transactions, including cross-border European, Asian and US public and private takeovers as well as IPOs and secondary offerings on all major European Stock Exchanges. Kinzel joined Bryan Garnier from goetzpartners, now Fortlane Partners, where he built a pan-European advisory business in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector over a decade and led the corresponding teams in Munich and London.

Elena Lovo 
Elena Lovo is Head of Life Sciences EMEA, Innovation Economy at JP Morgan. In this role, she collaborates with companies across the Biotech, Medtech, LST, Dx, and Health Tech sectors. Before assuming this position in 2023, she spent nearly eight years in investment banking, focusing primarily on biotech. Prior to that, Elena gained experience in strategy consulting and transaction advisory, supporting pharmaceutical and biotech clients in product licensing and M&A transactions. She holds a PhD in Immunology from Imperial College London and a Master of Science in Medical Biotechnologies from San Raffaele University in Milan.

Dr. Laura Figulla gründete im Laufe ihrer Karriere coramaze technologies und war Mitbegründerin von devie medical gmbh. Sie ist Mitbegründerin der mbiomics GmbH, die sie seit 2020 als CEO leitet.

Dr. Fei Tian gehört zum Investment-Team von MIG Capital und ist dort Expertin im Bereich Healthcare. Sie verfügt über einen profunden Hintergrund in Medizin und Biologie sowie in der Venture-Capital-Industrie.

Dr. Gundel Hager ist Entrepreneurin, Managerin und Beraterin in der Biotech-Branche. Im Laufe ihrer Karriere war sie unter anderem erfolgreich als Geschäftsführerin des IZB-Alumni Crelux (a WuXi AppTec) tätig.

Dominik Schumacher
CEO Tubulis

Dr. med. Sophia Stock
… is a medical researcher in the group of Prof. Marion Subklewe and a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Sebastian Kobold at the University Hospital of Munich (LMU).

Topic: Potential of adapter CAR T cells for an optimized Immunotherapy
CAR T cell therapy has achieved encouraging results for treating B and plasma cell diseases but faces challenges like therapy-associated toxicities, antigen heterogeneity and antigen escape. Adapter CAR T cells aim to address these issues by using a CAR-adapter molecule which recognizes the tumor antigen. This indirect tumor binding allows better control of the CAR T cell activation and enables sequential, transient, or simultaneous targeting of multiple antigens. Therefore, adapter CAR T cells have the potential to overcome recent limitations of CAR T cell therapy and can further improve this promising treatment approach.

Dr. Ulf Grawunder
… is CEO and co-founder of IZB-based start-up T-CURX. T-CURX is focusing on the development and commercialization of next-generation CAR-T cell therapies for cancer indications with high medical needs. The proprietary CAR-T technologies involve a non-viral, transposon-based gene transfer of the CAR receptor into the patient’s autologous T cells. The non-viral production of CAR-T cells is a key unique selling point for a fast, cost-efficient, safe, and patient-centered manufacturing method, including the production of CAR-T cells directly at the patient’s bedside.

Topic: Transformative CAR-T Therapies and Promises of going “in vivo”

Dean Farmer
Patent Strategist

Charles Cameron
Investment Specialist

Anne Burger
CFO CatalYm

Dominik Schumacher
CEO Tubulis

Prof. Dr. Matthias Hebrok
Director, Institute for Diabetes and Organoid Technology (IDOT) and Professor and Chair for Applied Stem Cell and Organoid Systems, School of Medicine, Technical University Munich (TUM)

Topic: Organoids in Human Medicine
Rapid developments in human stem cell research have recently made it possible to create organoids, organ-like structures, de novo to analyse the development, function and organ diseases from outside the body. In my talk, I will present the application of organoid technology for diabetes cell therapy.

Prof. Dr. med. Clemens von Schacky
Managing Director Omegametrix

Topic: Omegametrix’ Fatty acid analysis – a significant leap forward

The conventional nutritional research utilises methods such as dietary questionnaires, which yield data with a plausibility of 50% and employ outdated methods. We invented, designed and developed the Omegametrix-method to determine a person‘s status of fatty acids. This is a strictly standardized analysis of the respective percentage of 26 fatty acids in erythrocytes, which approximately 420 publications are based on. In the course of the talk, I will present this analytical method and explain how we have opened a new chapter in fatty acid research.

Prof. Dr. Karsten Borgwardt
Director of the Research Department Machine Learning and Systems Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

Topic: Machine Learning and the Future of Bioinformatics
For decades, bioinformatics has worked to extract new knowledge from the vast databases of the life sciences. In recent years, machine learning, often referred to as artificial intelligence, has enabled previously almost unimaginable breakthroughs in bioinformatics. In my talk, I will outline the contributions to date and the plans of my research group at the interface of machine learning and bioinformatics.

Christian Pangratz | CEO Atriva Therapeutics GmbH
Dr. Christian Wallasch | CDO/COO Atriva Therapeutics GmbH

Topic: Host-cell targets in infectious diseases – a innovative and viable alternative to direct acting antivirals
ATRIVA is pursuing a pioneering approach to combat virus-induced respiratory diseases. Our presentation will delve into the observation that the proliferation of many ssRNA-viruses relies on host-cell MEK-inhibition, shedding light on the development of the first orally available MEK-inhibitor for the treatment of severe influenza. Join us for a detailed exploration of our research and development work and its potential implications for future epidemic and pandemic preparedness.

Dr. med. Andrea Schmidts
Emmy Noether Group Leader, TranslaTUM & Medicine III – Hematology/Oncology, Technical University of Munich

Topic: Novel approaches to tackle resistance to CAR-T cell therapy.
My Emmy Noether group focuses on understanding and combating cancer cell resistance to CAR-T cell therapy. We aim to improve this innovative therapeutic approach and extend it to a broader patient population in clinical practice.

Dr. Patrick Großmann
CEO and Co-Founder Invitris GmbH

Topic: The power of cell-free synthesis
Invitris is leveraging the power of cell-free synthesis to develop novel therapeutic drugs. To achieve this, Invitris built a technology platform, Phactory, with cell-free synthesis in its core that includes machine learning and automation components. Using this platform, they have, for the first time, achieved to break the dependence of bacteriophages on their respective bacterial host, leading to unprecedented scale in development & production. This lecture explains how Phactory helps companies develop protein-based drugs more efficiently, more cost-effective, and with novel functions.

Prof. Dr. Karl Duderstadt
Head of the Research Group „Structure and Dynamics of Molecular Machines“, MPI of Biochemistry

Topic: Imaging the machines that reshape and remake chromosomes
High spatial and temporal resolution imaging approaches allow us to watch molecular pathways unfold in real time. We are using these methods to uncover the dynamic events during conflicts on chromosomes that can lead to misregulation and disease. We see a surprising resilience in the machines responsible for chromosome maintenance and the molecular consequences when things go wrong.

Jens Klein
Founder & CEO Insempra GmbH

Topic: How Insempra combines life science and technology to make matter for new, better and more sustainable products on an industrial scale
Companies have relied on chemical production processes and petrochemicals for too long, depleting our planet‘s limited resources. Insempra‘s mission is to drive the regenerative revolution to collaborate with nature to produce new more sustainable ingredients for numerous products on an industrial scale. Insempra aims to drive a new regenerative mindset and collective action. The time to restore balance between people and planet has come.

Dr. Dominik Schumacher
CEO Tubulis

Topic: Our path to pharma partnership: positioning Tubulis in the highly competitive ADC market
Tubulis entered into a strategic partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb in April 2023 to develop next-generation ADCs in oncology. The deal includes an upfront payment of $22.75 million to Tubulis and milestone payments of more than $1 billion.

Prof. Julian Grünewald
TUM

Topic: CRISPR therapies for a new era of genomic medicine
The first approval of a CRISPR therapy is expected in 2023. A large number of new gene editing technologies were developed in recent years. Many of these are mechanistically different from the classic “genetic scissors”. This talk will be about the current state of CRISPR technology development and clinical translation.

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Dr. Alejandra Mørk
CEO KLIFO A/S

Topic: Ready for Phase 1? Closing the gaps in development projects
How do you secure sufficient funding in due time? How do you prevent delays in regulatory approval of your clinical trial? How do you ensure supply of drugs for your development program? By identifying potential challenges and addressing gaps, biotech companies can accelerate their development program and increase the chance of getting investors on-board. Alejandra Mørk, CEO at the integrated drug development consultancy KLIFO, will give examples of how to identify gaps and how to access authorities and investors to be cost-effective and deliver results.

Prof. Dr. Thorben Cordes
Physical and Synthetic Biology”, LMU Biozentrum

Topic: Proteins in a shoebox: observing structural dynamics of individual proteins with miniaturized microscopes
Fluorescence imaging techniques allow real-time observation of the structural dynamics of biomacromolecules with high spatial and temporal resolution. We use these methods to elucidate the mechanisms of active membrane transport. Since these are relevant to a wide variety of cellular processes, they represent attractive drug targets. In this talk, I will present the basics of such methods and how they can be used in the future for a wide variety of drug screening applications through a new microscopy building block system.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. M. Subklewe
Senior physician, Head of Immunotherapy in Hematology, LMU – University Hospital Munich

Topic: Evolution in Cancer Therapy: BiTE, CART and Beyond
Bispecific antibodies and CART cells have revolutionized the therapy of various cancers. Numerous T cell recruiting antibodies (n=4) and CART cell products (n=6) are now approved for various lymphoid neoplasms. Current research activities are aimed at improving therapeutic outcomes with a better side effect profile. A review of the last 3 years.

Dr. Garwin Pichler
CEPO Preomics GmbH

Topic: PreOmics – Setting the Standard for Protein Analysis
PreOmics was founded in 2016 by Dr. Garwin Pichler and Dr. Nils A. Kulak as a spin-out company from the laboratory of leading proteomics researcher Prof. Matthias Mann at the MPI of Biochemistry. PreOmics develops and commercializes innovative automation and sample preparation tools and consumables for unbiased, deep proteomics analysis by mass spectrometry globally to leading pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions.

Christine Schuberth-Wagner
CSO Catalym GmbH

Topic: An introduction of Catalym
Catalym has identified GDF-15 as a central regulator of the immune system in the tumor microenvironment. We are pioneering the reversal of GDF-15-mediated immunosuppression to induce a potent antitumoral immune reaction in non-responsive tumors. CatalYm’s lead program CTL-002 is poised to demonstrate clinical proof-of-concept in multiple solid tumor indications which will expand the treatment horizon for current and future immunotherapies.

Dr. Kikuë Tachibana
Director at the MPI for Biochemistry

Topic: How does life start?
Life begins with a transcriptionally silent embryo that is “awakened” to enable development. Despite the importance of this process, the reprogramming factors that activate embryonic transcription are largely unknown. We recently identified Nr5a2 as a key pioneer factor that awakens the mammalian genome.

Prof. Elena Conti
Director Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry

Topic: Should it stay or should go: RNA recognition by cellular RNA-degradation machineries
The regulation of gene expression is of fundamental importance to all living organisms and relies on the ability of cells to control the quality and quantity of their RNA repertoire. Eukaryotic cells have an extraordinarily large number of RNA molecules that have different functions. The group of Elena Conti uses biochemical and structural biology approaches to unravel the cellular control mechanisms that monitor and eliminate RNA molecules that are either no longer needed or are aberrant because of deleterious genomic mutations or errors in their production.

Dr. Moritz Völker-Albert
Managing Director EpiQMax

Topic: Epigenetics as a molecular barometer for a healthy lifestyle
EpiQMAx creates a unique and personalized health index based on epigenetic profiling. Based on this index, together with renowned partners, we develop individualized nutrition and exercise recommendations to motivate people for a healthy lifestyle and prevent chronic diseases.

Prof. Andreas Ladurner
Head of Physiological Chemistry, Biomedical Center of the LMU as well as Managing Director, Founder and CSO Eisbach Bio GmbH

Topic: Hitting molecular machines where they are unique and vulnerable. Enabling allostery for precision oncology
Tumor genomics identifies cancers that are addicted to the activity of specific molecular machines. Also in the clinic, PARP inhibitors exploit the vulnerability of tumors that lack specific DNA repair pathways. This area of “synthetic lethality” holds great promise for targeted medicine, but developing selective drugs is challenging. Eisbach established an allosteric discovery engine that promises to disrupt cancer therapeutics.

Prof. Dr. Ali Ertürk
Director Helmholtz Institute Munich and Prof. LMU Munch

Topic: New start-up 1×1 Biotech: Delivering treatments to right targets
In Ali Ertürk’s group, scientists are developing innovative technologies through medical research. Their goal is to treat complicated diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, and diabetes in the next few years, not a few decades. The main goal is to bring together technologies like artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and even robotics to see how they can accelerate the understanding of complicated diseases. In this way, individual diseases can be researched and a treatment for Alzheimer’s or cancer can be found.

Prof. Hanna Taipaleenmäki
Institute of Musculoskeletal Medicine (IMM), Musculoskeletal University Center Munich (MUM), University Hospital, LMU Munich

Topic: Novel targets to treat musculoskeletal disorders
Musculoskeletal diseases affect people from children to elderly. At IMM we investigate bone and muscle physiology and pathology combining molecular- and cell biology, pre-clinical models and patient care. Our approach to better understand the disease mechanisms and to identify novel targets to treat musculoskeletal disorders will be discussed during this IZBrunch

Dr. Jonas Helma-Smets
CSO Tubulis GmbH

Topic: Tubulis – Developing the next generation of Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) for targeted cancer therapies
Tubulis has developed a suite of complementary technology platforms for the discovery and development of a new generation of versatile and customizable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for targeted cancer therapy. At the heart of our proprietary platforms are completely new conjugation technologies, that allow us to overcome the main limitations of ADC technologies to date.

Dr. MD PhD Alexander Gebauer
CEO Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

Topic: LNAplus™ antisense oligonucleotides are effective and safe therapeutic modalities for a variety of diseases

The third generation of antisense molecules provides drug developers with a powerful intervention option. Secarna operates a development platform that allows lead candidates against mRNA targets to be rationally identified in a semi-industrial process. This includes in-house bioinformatics analysis, high-throughput screening, and efficacy and safety assays. Secarna has six ongoing partnerships with companies and over ten academic collaborations.

Prof. Magdalena Götz
Director of the Institute of Stem Cell Research at Helmholtz Zentrum München and Chair of Physiological Genomics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich

Topic: A new approach to neuronal replacement therapy

Direct reprogramming of local glial cells into new neurons is a new promising approach to replace dead neurons. This approach was discovered several years ago by Prof. Goetz. She will present the current status of this innovative approach to neuronal replacement therapy at the IZBrunch.

Prof. Nadia Harbeck
Head of the Breast Center of the University of Munich (Comprehensive Cancer Center CCC LMU), Head of interdisciplinary tumor board for breast cancer, Professor for Conservative Oncology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU)

Topic: Opportunities and risks of integrating eHealth into oncology therapy management
Oral therapies are becoming increasingly common in oncology and require interprofessional patient management, with close communication with the care team critical to treatment success. eHealth Support improves treatment adherence, patient satisfaction, and prognosis. New legislation now enables the prescription of digital health applications (DIGAs) in Germany. The interactive eHealth application CANAKDO is being used and further developed in the care of breast cancer patients in everyday clinical practice and in studies.

Dr. Jens Ruhe
CEO SciRhom GmbH

Topic: Targeting iRhom2 – a new paradigm for the treatment of autoimmune diseases
SciRhom develops first-in-class therapeutic antibodies against iRhom2, As a key regulator of TACE, iRhom2 activates several pro-inflammatory pathways, including TNF-alpha signaling. Our antibodies allow to simultaneously block these disease-causing pathways, promising significant improvement over current autoimmune therapies.

Prof. Dr. Olivia Merkel
Department of Pharmacy, LMU Munich

Theme: Inhalation therapy and prevention of respiratory virus infections with siRNA
The COVID19 pandemic has highlighted that we need better antiviral therapies, especially for respiratory viral diseases. We have developed inhalation therapies consisting of siRNA nanoparticles which inhibit
the viral genome of coronaviruses. The advantage over vaccination is the therapeutic index for virus variants and new coronaviruses.

Ulrich Scherbel
Managing Director AMSilk GmbH

Theme: Shaping the future with silk proteins for products in various industries
AMSilk GmbH is the leading company in the world to produce silk biopolymers using biotechnological processes on an industrial scale, which have all the functional properties of natural silk. The silk biopolymers are sold in the form of suspensions, hydrogel,powder or as fibers. In addition to its use in the coating of medical technology products and in the apparel industry, exciting new markets are being developed.