The new Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), chaired by Prof. Stefano Pluchino, is composed of leading academics and industry executives, bringing a world-class breadth of expertise across the extracellular vesicle (EV) field. Its role is to advise the Company on scientific matters relating to its exosome platform research and development strategy. This includes the future direction of the use of exosomes in therapeutic development , links to academic, regulatory and industrial organisations and relationships with peer companies and government bodies on a global basis. The SAB comprises the following members:
Professor Stefano Pluchino was appointed Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board in September 2022, after having previously been in the role of Chief Scientific Officer from May 2021.
He is Reader in Regenerative Neuroimmunology and Honorary Consultant at the University of Cambridge since 2010. He obtained his MD and PhD at the University of Siena, Italy, and progressed to two consecutive post doctorate appointments at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan.
Stefano has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and is internationally recognised as a leader and pioneer in the field of regenerative neuroimmunology. He was the recipient of the 2003 European Charcot Foundation (ECF) Award, the 2006 Sorono Foundation Multiple Sclerosis Award, the 2007 Rita Levi-Montalcini Award, the 2009 Italian Ministry of Health Young Investigator Award and the 2010 International Royan Award for outstanding research in Stem Cell Biology and Technology.
Beppe (short for Giuseppe) Battaglia is an ICREA Research Professor and group leader at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia, part of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. Beppe is an honorary professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University College London (UCL) and visiting professor at West China Hospital Sichuan University. Beppe holds a Laurea in Chemical Engineering from the Univerisity of Palermo and a PhD in Physical
Chemistry from the University of Sheffield. Before moving to Barcelona, Beppe held positions at UCL (Professor of Molecular Bionics 2013-2022) and the University of Sheffield (Professor of Synthetic Biology (2011-2013), Senior Lecturer (2009-2011) and Lecturer (2006-2009) in Bionanotechnology. Beppe’s research focuses on how molecules, macromolecules, viruses, vesicles, and whole cells traffic across our body barriers. The group combines novel microscopic tools with theoretical and computational physics to study biological transport from single molecules, cell membranes, and whole organisms. The acquired knowledge is thus translated to bioengineer novel nanomedicines, combining soft matter physics with synthetic chemistry. Beppe is the co-founder and CSO of the UCL spin-out Somaserve ltd based in Cambridge, UK.
Edit I Buzás is Professor of Immunology at Semmelweis University, Budapest, where she is the Head of the Department of Genetics, Cell- and Immunobiology and the PI of three research groups focusing on EVs. She is Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Member of the Academia Europaea. Her initial research focused on T cell immunity and autoimmunity. Since 2005, she has directed research into various aspects of extracellular vesicles. She studies extracellular vesicles in cardiovascular diseases, biogenesis of extracellular vesicles, structure and function of the biomolecular corona of extracellular vesicles, unconventional extracellular vesicles, and cell death related extracellular vesicles.
She serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles and she is the current President of ISEV. She is Co-Chair of the 2024 Gordon Research Conference on EVs.
Bernd Giebel studied biology in Cologne and received his PhD in 1996. 1999 he moved to the Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf, to work with human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. In 2008 he switched to the University Hospital Essen, continued his studies on human somatic stem cells and started to work with EVs in 2009. Setting a focus on mesenchymal stem/stromal cell-derived EVs (MSC-EVs), together with collaboration partners his group demonstrated the therapeutic potential of MSC-EVs in a human GvHD-patient and in different animal models. It is his goal to efficiently translate MSC-EVs into the clinics and to set up appropriate quality control platforms. BG is the president of the German Society of Extracellular Vesicles (GSEV), co-chairing the exosome working group of the International Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ISCT) and part of the scientific advisory board of two SME companies, Innovex Therapeutics and Mursla LTD. Furthermore, he is a consultant of FUJIFILM Wako Chemicals Europe GmbH and founding director of Exosla LTD.
Kenneth W. Witwer is an associate professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. President-Elect of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV), Witwer previously served as Secretary General and Executive Chair of Science and Meetings of the society. His laboratory studies extracellular vesicles (EVs), noncoding and extracellular RNA (exRNA), and enveloped viruses, including HIV and SARS-CoV-2. Witwer is a member of the Richman Family Precision Medicine Center of Excellence in Alzheimer’s Disease, has advised the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US National Institutes of Health, and is an associate editor of the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles.
