Partners

University of Copenhagen ,

Denmark

Anne-Marie Heegaard

MD, PhD, Professor, Group Leader

Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology

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Anne-Marie Heegaard, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor at the Department of Drug Design & Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen. Anne-Marie Heegaard’s laboratory focuses on molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying malignant and non-malignant bone pain. Her research is translational and ranges from in vitro studies to animal models and clinical investigations. Previously Dr. Heegaard was Head of in vivo pharmacology at a biotech company. Dr. Heegaard was the coordinator of the European Training Networks: BonePain (2015-2018) and BonePainII (2019-2022).

Karolinska Institute ,

Sweden

Camilla Svensson

MSc, PhD, Professor, Group Leader

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology

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Camilla Svensson received her Ph.D in Molecular Pathology from University of California, San Diego in 2005 and then undertook post-doctoral work centered on inhibitory regulation of intracellular signaling in rheumatoid arthritis at the same university. Camilla Svensson started her laboratory at the Karolinska Institutet, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, in 2008, where she today is a Professor in Cellular and Molecular Pain physiology and Wallenberg Academy Scholar. Camilla Svensson leads a team exploring pain mechanisms in rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, utilizing both established and new models of these diseases as well as patient samples. Current projects have a specific focus the role of autoantibodies and peripheral immune and glial cells in pain chronicity.

University Medical Center Utrrecht ,

Netherlands

Niels Eijkelkamp

PhD, Associate Professor

Laboratory of Translational Immunology

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Dr. Niels Eijkelkamp received his PhD in 2009 on mechanism of inflammatory pain. His first postdoctoral positions he had a joint-appointment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA and University Medical Center Utrecht centering his work on neuro-immune regulation of pain. Starting from 2010 he performed postdoctoral research funded by fellowship for 2 years at the University College London where his worked focused the molecular basis of mechanotransduction, touch and allodynia. In 2012 he started his group at the University Medical Center Utrecht that is geared at unravelling mechanism of inflammatory and bone pain with a focus on the involvement of the peripheral immune system in the regulation of pain to identify novel chronic pain targets. The pioneering work has led to the identification of new pain genes, novel immune mediated pain regulatory mechanisms and to several patents that are being commercially exploited.

i3s Institute for Research and Innovation in Health ,

Portugal

Meriem Lamghari

PhD, Affiliated Professor, Uni. of Porto, Group Leader

Neuro-Skeletal Circuits

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Meriem Lamghari is the Leader of neuroskeletal circuits research group at INEB/i3S and Professor at Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar of University of Porto. Her group focus on the peripheral signalling molecules and their receptors involved in the neuro-skeletal crosstalk, to provide therapeutic targets for the treatment of bone loss and joint degenerative diseases. In the framework of her research, she established 3D models of skeletal-neuronal cells co-cultures in microfluidic devices. To this date, she was successful in obtaining funding for 19 externally funded projects, 6 of which as coordinator. She is an active member of European networks and established national and international collaborations that resulted in 45 papers (Scopus May 2018) and several awards. She is also involved in Doctoral and Post-doctoral supervision, educational activities, animal ethics, lab management and organisation of scientific meetings. ORCID: 0000-0002-2500-4548.

Nordic Bioscience ,

Denmark

Kim Henriksen

MSc, PhD, Group Leader

Endocrinology

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Kim Henriksen, M.Sc., PhD has during the last ten years focused his research on drug discovery and development of novel biomarkers within the fields of diabetes, obesity and osteoarthritis. The pharmacological work has resulted in the development of the Dual Amylin and Calcitonin Receptor Agonist (DACRA) platform, a pharmacological program focused on the development of treatments for Obesity and Osteoarthritis. This work has resulted in the licensing of three DACRAs to Eli Lilly, and the continued development of the novel once weekly DACRA called KBP-336 in the clinic. The efforts have resulted in more than 180 publications in peer-reviewed publications.

Cellectricon AB ,

Sweden

Paul Karila

PhD, Head of Drug Discovery

Discovery Services

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Paul joined Cellectricon in 2012 as head of the company’s Discovery Services. He previously held leadership positions at the Departments of Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience at AstraZeneca, Sweden. At the R&D facilities, Paul led teams responsible for ion channel and GPCR profiling in LI-LO phase, mainly on analgesia targets, and a target identification/target validation team focusing on native (human) tissue and pain mechanisms. Prior to joining AZ, Paul earned his PhD in animal physiology from University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, USA, studying neurobiology using electrophysiological methods.

AstraZeneca ,

United Kingdom

Eleni Chouri

PhD, Senior Scientist

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Eleni joined AstraZeneca in 2023, and she is part of the Bioscience Immunology team within Respiratory and Immunology (R&I) therapy areas in Cambridge. She is a translational immunologist who completed her PhD at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), where she investigated the molecular signatures of innate immune cells in patients with autoimmune diseases. She pursued two postdoctoral appointments: the first focused on single-cell analysis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and the second focused on identifying key molecular mechanisms at the pathogen–host interface to enable the development of therapeutics targeting chronic inflammatory diseases. Over the past decade, Eleni has developed deep scientific expertise in rheumatology and gastroenterology and has led projects that identify novel targets and define key biological disease drivers.

University of Aarhus ,

Denmark

Thomas Levin Geiser Andersen

Professor

Department of Pathology

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Dr. Andersen is a Professor at the Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, the Department of Pathology, Odense University Hospital, and the Department of Forensic Medicine, Aarhus University in Denmark. He received his M.Sc. in 2001 from Copenhagen University in Biochemistry and molecular Biology and his Ph.D. in 2013 from Aarhus University in Health. He teaches in bone physiology and pathophysiology, as well as in molecular histology and morphometry. Dr. Andersen has served as president of the International Society of Bone Morphometry (ISBM), and is founding president of the Danish Bone Research Workshop, which every year joins all Danish bone basic and clinical scientists. Dr. Andersen is head of the Molecular Bone Histology (MBH) lab and the Danish Spatial Imaging Consortium (DanSIC) that include an extended team of technicians, students and postdocs, two junior PIs (Dr. Andreasen and dr. Diaz-delCastillo) forming sub-teams within his MBH lab and an extended network of clinical, interdisciplinary and international collaborators. His main focus is human bone remodelling under physiological and pathophysiological conditions, including aging, osteoporosis, diabetes, myeloma, bone metastasis and rare genetic bone disease. Here, his leading-edge histomorphometry, molecular histology and 3D-histology has reshaped our basic understanding of the trabecular and cortical bone remodeling process, it cellular organization (including innervation) and contribution to bone loss, gain and pain.

Netris Pharma ,

France

Christophe Guichard

Chief Financial Officer

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Christophe is the Chief Financial Officer of NETRIS Pharma since 2013, bringing his large experience in managing finance, legal, fundraising and business development activities, for private and listed life science companies such as GenKyoTex or Scientis. Christophe is also a General Partner of the Eclosion Life Science Venture Fund, Board member and Chairman of the Audit Committee of GeNeuro (a company listed on Euronext), and Board member or advisor of other life science startups and SMEs. Prior to joining Eclosion, Christophe started his career within KPMG-Salustro and held various corporate finance positions, including CFO of a European listed company, building finance organizations and performing multiple M&A transactions and two IPOs (Euronext / Nasdaq). Christophe is a graduate from EDHEC Business School and from Harvard Business School. He also holds a postgraduate degree in Finance and Accounting (DESCF).

Synerkine Pharma ,

Netherlands

Theo Dinklo

PhD, VP Research and Development

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Dr. Theo Dinklo serves as VP Research and Development of Synerkine Pharma, a spin-off company from the University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands) developing cytokine therapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain and arthritis. In his current role, he is leading company’s research focusing on neuro-immune interactions and the role of cytokines in chronic pain. Prior to Synerkine, he held various roles in neuroscience drug discovery and early development within the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Dinklo received his PhD in 2005 from the University of Groningen on mechano-sensitive cells of the hearing system.