Meet some of our invited speakers

Andreas Laner, PhD

Head of Genomics Program

Areas of Specialization

• Genetics of hereditary cancer syndromes
• Next-generation sequencing applications
• Interpretation and classification of sequence variants

Education & Experience

• Diploma in Biology, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich
• PhD, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich

Professional affiliations

• MGZ Munich, Head of Genomics Applications
• Member, European Society of Human Genetics
• Curator, Leiden Open Variation Database
• Organizational Committee, Variant Effect Prediction Training Course, Crete 2016
• Scientific Program Committee, 14th International Symposium on Variants in the Genome, Santiago de Compostela 2017 

Anna is head of Bioinformatics at the Medical Genetics Centre Munich and a research coordinator for the German Human Genome Archive (GHGA) at the Helmholtz Munich. Since 2019 she is also a scientific collaborator at UCSC Genome Browser.

She has a PhD in human genetics and is a specialist in the field of genome sequencing and data analysis with a strong background in the clinical genetics of Rare Diseases. She has many years of experience in interdisciplinary management of laboratory technology, bioinformatics, and scientific development in academic, clinical and private practice environments.

Anna is an advocate for the use of best practices in FAIR data management and sharing strategies to maximize the use of OMICS data and improve the diagnosis of genetic disorders. She has contributed to publications on guidelines for utilization of next-generation sequencing approaches in clinical genetics testing and she is assessor of the External Quality Assessment scheme for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease within the European Genetics Quality Network (EMQN) framework. She strongly believes in the power of education and is therefore an active member of the HUGO Education Committee and an instructor at the Variant Effect Prediction Training Course (VEPTC).

C. Oliveira is recognised internationally for her work in E-cadherin/CDH1-related diseases and hereditary cancer. She disclosed novel germline causes of Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer and defined somatic events in tumours with impact for patient management and therapy.

Her main scientific aim is to disclose the missing heritability in Hereditary Gastric Cancer. For this, her team is exploring the whole genome, with particular emphasis in its noncoding portion. She also aims at finding biomarkers with clinical utility for earlier detection of sporadic and hereditary gastric cancer and to disclose actionable genotype-phenotype relationships in these diseases. The social and economic impact of hereditary cancer is a transversal aspect in her research and she privileges the interaction with Patient’s associations, such as EVITA. 

C. Oliveira has been a PI of projects funded with >3.8M€ and team member in projects with equivalent total budget. She independently raised additional 2.5M€ for human resources. She was invited speaker in >120 National and International conferences; she is the Executive Committee Secretary General of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), member of its Scientific Program Committee and vice-coordinator of the Scientific Program Committee of the Portuguese Society of Human Genetics (SPGH); National Coordinators and Representative of the Porto.Comprehensive Cancer Centre (P.CCC) in the European Reference Network ERN-GENTURIS on genetic tumour risk syndromes, and; the head the Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer branch of the SolveRD (Solving Rare diseases) EU-Project. She is a member of the Portuguese Group of Hereditary Tumours (PROGO) promoted by The Portuguese Society of Oncology. She is regular reviewer of National and International fellowship and grant applications. She successfully supervised 15 Masters and 14 PhD students to completion, 11 post-docs and recruited 4 junior project leaders (iFCT) for her team.

C. Oliveira’s group has also gained expertise and visibility in genomics and bioinformatics, due to active participation in international consortia and large European Projects including the European-wide research project SOLVE-RD – Solve Rare diseases; the Consortium GEUVADIS and GTEx; Several COST actions, as well as the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks ITN TRAIN-EV. The group has relevant roles in management and executive functions in the GenomePT National Infrastructure for genome sequencing and the 1 Million European Genomes project. Her team is multidisciplinary with strong background in oncobiology and genetics, and supported by technical expertise in molecular and cellular biology, NGS, bioinformatics and a strong link with hospitals and clinical professionals. Her team was recently awarded with the Prize Alfredo da Silva on “Sustentabilidade de sistemas de saúde” for the work on optimized pathways of care in Hereditary cancer syndromes.

Highlights

The “EXPRESSION REGULATION IN CANCER” group aims, in the next three years, to identification cancer-associated expression regulatory mechanisms that impact early diagnosis, prognosis and chemotherapy-induced resistance in cancer.

Specific aims:
1. Identify the molecular basis of familial gastric cancer (HDGC and Familial Intestinal Gastric Cancer - FIGC);
2. Uncover somatic regulation in gastric cancer and its relationship with patients’ prognosis;
3. Optimize tools for early diagnosis of gastric cancer;
4. Uncover mechanisms involved in metastasis and chemotherapy-induced resistance using Epithelial-Mesenchymal-Epithelial transitions (EMT/MET) experimental models;
5. Unravel the role of mRNA mistranslation in human cancer.

Johan den Dunnen studied biology at the Catholic University Nijmegen (Nederland). In the same university he received his PhD in Molecular Biology for his work on the "Evolution of eye-lens crystallin genes". After his PhD he moved to the department of Human Genetics (Leiden University) and became involved in the search for the gene causing Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy. He is currently employed at the Center for Human and Clinical Genetics (Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Nederland), studying genetic disease in general and neuromuscular disorders (DMD/BMD, LGMD) in particular. As professor in "Medical Genomics" he focuses on the use of new high-throughput technology in research and diagnosis of genetic disease, in particular the development of methods to detect DNA variants and the application of next generation sequencing. To spread the laboratories knowledge on hereditary muscle disease he initiated the "Leiden Muscular Dystrophy pages" (http://www.DMD.nl). As part of these efforts he currently curates over 50 gene sequence variant databases. His group developed the freely available LSDB-in-a-Box software package LOVD, the Mutalyzer tool (HGVS sequence variant description) and he participates in the EU FP7 Gen2Phen project (WP leader for gene variant databases [LSDBs]).