Prof. Dr. Claudia Langenberg | Berlin Institute of Health
Claudia Langenberg is Professor of Computational Medicine at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), Charité–Universitätsmedizin, and programme leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on genetic mechanisms underlying metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and uses data-driven approaches to better understand metabolic regulation in the population.
“Gender equality in science is important because science is life.”
Dr. Daniela Panáková | Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine
Daniela Panakova finished her PhD with Suzanne Eaton at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany in 2005. After a short postdoctoral stay in her lab,she moved to Boston, MA and worked with Calum MacRae at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital until 2011. She established her independent research group at Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in July, 2011 after obtaining Helmholtz Young Investigator Program Grant. She is interested in investigating the interactions between physiology and signaling pathways throughout development and in applying the obtained knowledge to understand the mechanisms underlying common disease states.
https://www.mdc-berlin.de/panakova
Prof. Dr. Marysia Placzek | University of Sheffield, UK
Marysia Placzek is Professor of Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Sheffield. Her research aims to elucidate the cellular and molecular programmes that underpin development of the hypothalamus. She performed post-doctoral studies with Professor Jane Dodd at Columbia University, NY, where she revealed the key role of the axial mesoderm in organizing the ventral CNS, and contributed to the characterization of two key signalling ligands, Shh and Netrin. As an independent investigator, first at the National Institute for Medical Research, then at the University of Sheffield, she began to reveal mechanisms through which signalling molecules orchestrate hypothalamic development, then exploited this knowledge to develop protocols for the directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells towards defined hypothalamic neuronal fates. Her research in the adult mouse provided one of the first indications that tanycytes in the postnatal hypothalamus are stem/progenitor cells. Throughout her tenure at TUoS, she has played an instrumental role in supporting the translation of developmental biology to an understanding of disease mechanisms. She was Acting Director, then Director, of the MRC Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics, then established the Bateson Centre, focused on development and disease research. She stepped down from the directorship in 2015, in order to focus on her current research into defining hypothalamic stem and progenitor populations. She has four children, now all grown!
“Gender equality in science is important because balance is so important to every aspect of life”
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/bms-staff/academic/marysia-placzek
Prof. Dr. Barbara Rivera Polo | IDIBELL, Spain; McGill University, Canada
Bárbara Rivera PhD is a Junior Leader investigator at the Hereditary Cancer Group of the Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Bellvitge - IDIBELL (Barcelona) and an adjunct professor at the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology, McGill University (Montreal). After completing her PhD in 2013, in the study of familial polyposis syndromes (Human Genetics Programme, CNIO, Spain), Bárbara move to McGill to carry out her postdoctoral studies on the genetic predisposition to rare cancers. In February 2018, Bárbara became an assistant professor at the Oncology Department of McGill University to focus her research in the genetics and molecular mechanisms of rare tumors. Early 2020 Bárbara joined the IDIBELL research community to continue her research program in rare tumor syndromes. In particular, she has a great interest in syndromes characterized by the development of low-grade and benign tumors.
“Gender equality and diversity are essential motors for the development of any society. As scientists, we value and promote how multidisciplinary our projects and teams are from a skills point of view. However at the organizational level the number of women that reach a leader position is still quite lower than men so we are missing half of the “candidates” to take part in those teams, highlighting the failure of the system in achieving the desired “multi” descriptor.”