Karim Dabbagh

Biography
Karim Dabbagh joined Second Genome in 2014. Prior, he served as Vice President of R&D at Pfizer where he led the Immunoregulation department, an R&D group focused on innovative approaches to elicit homeostatic immune responses for the treatment of immune related disorders. At Pfizer, he also led External R&D Innovation for Immunology, Neurosciences and Cardiovascular/Metabolic Therapy Areas. Before joining Pfizer, Karim was the founder of Modus BioMedicine, a biotechnology company focused on treatments for transplantation and autoimmune disease. Leading to that, Karim spent nine years at Roche in Inflammation Discovery Research. Karim obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from University College, London and his BSc (Hons) in Biotechnology from Imperial College, London. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco and at Stanford University where he worked on elucidating the role played by the microbiome in the hygiene hypothesis.

Nathan D Price

Biography
Dr. Nathan Price is Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech (NASDAQ: THRN). Previously he was CEO of Onegevity, an AI health intelligence company that merged with Thorne prior to the IPO in 2021. In 2019, he was named as one of the 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He spent much of his earlier career as Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology (now on leave), co-director with biotechnology pioneer Lee Hood of the Hood-Price Lab for Systems Biomedicine, and is Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington in Bioengineering and Computer Science & Engineering. He is a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, received the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith award for his work pioneering ‘scientific wellness’, was a co-founder of Arivale, and received a Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the National Academy of Medicine in 2020. He has co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications and given over 200 talks and keynotes. He also served as Chair of the NIH Study Section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).

Nathan D Price

Biography
Dr. Nathan Price is Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech (NASDAQ: THRN). Previously he was CEO of Onegevity, an AI health intelligence company that merged with Thorne prior to the IPO in 2021. In 2019, he was named as one of the 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He spent much of his earlier career as Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology (now on leave), co-director with biotechnology pioneer Lee Hood of the Hood-Price Lab for Systems Biomedicine, and is Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington in Bioengineering and Computer Science & Engineering. He is a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, received the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith award for his work pioneering ‘scientific wellness’, was a co-founder of Arivale, and received a Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the National Academy of Medicine in 2020. He has co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications and given over 200 talks and keynotes. He also served as Chair of the NIH Study Section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).

Manoj Dadlani

Biography
Prior to CosmosID, Mr. Dadlani served as a partner at Applied Value Group, a management consulting and investment firm, and was co-founder and CEO at Rasa Industries, Ltd., a leading beverage manufacturing company. Mr. Dadlani has substantial experience in strategy, M&A, supply chain management, product development, marketing and business development. Mr. Dadlani received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biological Engineering from Cornell University. Services offered by CosmosID’s CLIA and GLP certified laboratory cover the entire workflow from study design to sample collection, extraction, library preparation, sequencing, data analysis and publication support. CosmosID’s cloud-based metagenomics application offers user-friendly access to the largest curated databases for microbial genomics, antimicrobial resistance and virulence data and has been independently validated to return metagenomic analyses at strain level resolution with industry-leading sensitivity and precision.

Marek Kudla

Biography
Marek has obtained his PhD at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory working in prof. Gregory J. Hannon lab. He was working on custom genomics approaches in the small RNA biology research. He subsequently followed with a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley with prof. Nick Ingolia studying the regulation of translation using bioinformatics and deep learning tools.

Emerging Therapeutics Showcase; Ardigen
Ardigen is harnessing advanced AI methods for novel precision medicine. The company’s in-house datasets, together with advanced AI platforms, empower the development of effective therapies.

AI-aided rational design of cancer cell therapies
Interaction of a TCR with a target antigen and off-target toxicity are predicted with AI-assisted methods.

Kiran Krishnan

Biography
Mr. Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 20 years. Kiran established a Clinical Research Organization where he designed and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition. Most recently, Kiran is acting as a Co-Founder and the Chief Scientific Officer at Microbiome Labs, a leader in microbiome and probiotic research. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences. He is an expert guest on National Radio and Satellite radio and has been a guest speaker on several Health Summits as a microbiome expert. He is currently involved in over 18 novel human clinical trials on probiotics and the human microbiome. Kiran is also on the Scientific Advisory Board for 7 other companies in the industry. Kiran has published clinical trials in peer-reviewed, scientific journals and several global patents in his name.

Nicole Scott

Biography
Nicole is a domain expert in the microbiome and data science with more than 20 years of experience, with the last 6 years in startups doing everything from marketing, business strategy, IP, data analysis, and fundraising. She studied at the University of Michigan and University of Chicago with Dr. Jack Gilbert, and was the first employee at Dr. Rob Knight’s microbiome startup Biota. She is cited more than 3000 times, published in prestigious journals such as Science and Nature, is the author of several book chapters and patents and is an active member of several NSF grant committees. She also serves as an advisor to several other startups in biotech.

Colleen Cutcliffe

Biography
Colleen Cutcliffe is the co-founder and CEO of Pendulum Therapeutics, a biotech startup in San Francisco. The company’s mission is to create probiotics as effective as prescription drugs, without any side effects. The company’s first offering, Pendulum Glucose Control, is the only probiotic in existence that has lowered blood sugar spikes and A1C levels in a clinical trial – welcome news for the 122 million Americans living with diabetes and prediabetes. Prominent Clinical and Silicon Valley investors have taken notice: Meritech Capital, Sequoia Capital, True Ventures, Khosla Ventures and the Mayo Clinic have led investments totalling $111M in Pendulum Therapeutics. Colleen received a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in biochemistry from Wellesley College. She completed her postdoctoral research at Northwestern Medicine’s Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Colleen lives in Menlo Park, Calif., with her husband, two daughters, and two rambunctious dogs.

Tor Savidge

Biography
Dr. Savidge research interests include studying microbiome-neuroimmune interactions in the gastrointestinal tract. This work has established new microbiome biomarkers of gastrointestinal disease susceptibility, as well as identifying novel innate host defense mechanisms which are being pioneered as “allosteric therapeutics”.

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Pan-Microbiome Profiling Identifies Enterotype-Specific Taxa And Metagenomic Functions For Diarrheal Disease Classification

Nikole Kimes

Biography
Nikole E. Kimes, Ph.D. is CEO and co-founder of Siolta Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company developing targeted microbiome-based therapeutics and diagnostics for the prevention and treatment of a multitude of diseases, starting with atopic diseases. Dr. Kimes leads the executive, clinical and scientific teams, working with a talented team of scientists and clinicians, blending microbiology, immunology, bioinformatics, and clinical operations expertise to leverage microbiome data for the improvement of patient stratification and development of precision microbial therapeutics. An inventor of Siolta's technology, her research in co-founder Dr. Susan Lynch's lab at UCSF provided the foundation from which the translational research program at Siolta Therapeutics has developed. In addition, Dr. Kimes has over a decade of research experience in microbial ecology and host/microbe interactions, previously supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship, a European Commission FP7 cooperative project (MaCuMBA), and a postdoctoral scholar position at UCSF.

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Disrupting the Atopic March: Utilizing the Gut Microbiome to Prevent Allergic Disease Development

Mary Conrad

Biography
Mary leads microbiology and a drug discovery project team at Axial Therapeutics, a clinical stage company advancing a pipeline of gut-targeted small molecule therapies in areas of significant unmet patient need including Autism Spectrum Disorder and Parkinson’s disease, with a recent expansion into oncology. Prior to joining Axial in 2017, Mary spent two years at Kaleido Biosciences and nine years at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Mary’s experience includes leading cross-functional teams in projects from exploratory through candidate selection stages to discover microbiome-inspired therapeutics and antibiotics, and building teams and drug discovery capabilities in microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology and the microbiome. Mary studied at Princeton University and in the department of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Intervening at the Level of Microbial Metabolites in Autism
Certain microbial metabolites have been associated with autism-like behaviors pre-clinically and found to be elevated in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of AB-2004, a gut-restricted molecule targeting microbial metabolites, were assessed in an adolescent population with ASD.

Christopher Reyes

Biography
Dr. Reyes is a biophysicist and entrepreneur with a passion for creating solutions to improve our health, environment and economic sustainability. Dr. Reyes has founded two companies focused on developing therapeutics to address serious medical needs as well as a tech company focused on connecting people to socially conscious commerce solutions. His first company Eclipse Therapeutics, a cancer stem cell focused start-up, resulted in a successful acquisition in 18 months. Dr. Reyes has a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco and B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, Biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Reyes was a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Reyes has received honors from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and was a McNair Scholar.

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Developing The Next Generation Of Living Medicines
Bloom Science is developing genetically optimized living medicines that target diseases in neurology, immunology and oncology. Our unique approach elucidates connections between clinical outcomes, the microbiome, and critical disease pathways. We then use genetic tools to engineer superior biopharmaceutical properties in our microbiota therapeutics.

Rita R Colwell

Biography
Dr. Rita Colwell is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland at College Park and Founder of CosmosID, Inc. Her interests are focused on global infectious diseases, water, and health. She has authored or co-authored 20 books and more than 800 scientific publications. Dr. Colwell served on the National Science Board and as the 11th Director of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Colwell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Royal Irish Academy, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society. She has been awarded 63 honorary degrees and is the recipient of the US National Medal of Science, Japan Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Stockholm Water Prize, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, and Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize of Singapore.

Heloise Breton

Biography
Ms. Breton joined DNA Genotek in 2015, starting in the customer facing team and later moving into product management. Using her years of experience working with researchers in human genomics and microbiome, she currently leads product management for microbiome and metabolomics devices. During her PhD, Ms. Breton studied chemical and microbial signatures of forensically relevant samples in collaboration with Dr. Rob Knight's laboratory. She has previous experience as an environmental microbiologist and is a member of the Canadian College of Microbiologists.

Microbial Profiling Showcase:
DNA Genotek Inc
DNA Genotek Inc., Novosanis and Diversigen are subsidiaries of OraSure Technologies, Inc. working to provide high-quality sample collection products and comprehensive services for sample processing, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis. Our solutions enable microbiome discovery for academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural and environmental applications.

OMNIgene.SKIN - A Validated Skin Microbiome Collection System
Low biomass samples like those obtained from human skin are a challenge to collect and analyze. OMNIgene®•SKIN is the first skin sampling device validated for microbiome applications with demonstrated ambient temperature stability and reliable profiling.

Paul Garofolo

Biography
Paul is the CEO & Co-founder of Locus Biosciences. With a career that spans manufacturing, research & development, information technology and corporate transformations, Paul brings a broad range of experience and capability to deliver on the Locus vision. Prior to Locus, Paul was Chief Technology Officer at Patheon Pharmaceuticals and also held the role of Global Head of Operations for Patheon’s Pharmaceuticals Development Services business unit. Paul previously served as Global Head of Manufacturing and Chief Information Officer at Valeant Pharmaceuticals, amount other roles. Paul earned a BSBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Jennifer Wortman

Biography
With over 20 years of research experience in genomics and computational biology, Jennifer oversees multi-omic microbiome data generation, algorithm development, and integrative data analysis, as well as the computational infrastructure supporting R&D. Jennifer also is responsible for R&D support of clinical trials and execution of microbiome endpoints. Prior to joining Seres, Jennifer was the Director of Microbial Informatics at the Broad Institute, responsible for the software development and analytical strategies supporting the NIAID-funded Genome Center for Infectious Diseases (GCID). That followed three years as Associate Director of Bioinformatics at the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she was the co-Principal Investigator of the Human Microbiome Project’s Data Analysis and Coordination Center (HMP DACC). She has over 70 peer-reviewed publications and has made significant contributions to the published genome analyses of humans, mice, fruit fly and mosquito as well as diverse pathogenic fungi, parasites and bacteria.

Susan Lynch

Biography
Dr. Lynch’s research focuses primarily on the gut and airway microbiome and chronic inflammatory disease. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Microbiology from University College Dublin, Ireland, before postdoctoral training as a Dean’s Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. She has served on a National Academy of Science and Engineering committee and as an American Society of Microbiology, Distinguished Lecturer (2017-2019). She was awarded the Rebecca Buckley Lectureship from the AAAAI in 2015, the Odell lectureship from University of Wisconsin in 2022 and named as one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s "Global Thinkers" in 2016. She co-founded Siolta Therapeutics Inc. a biotech company whose lead live biotherapeutic for the prevention of childhood atopy and asthma is in human trials.

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Infant Gut Microbiomes as Predictors of Childhood Disease
Gut microbiomes develop like most new ecosystems, via a process of primary succession. Thus understanding early life events and microbial seeding patterns that shape immune maturation offers the opportunity to predict and perhaps prevent childhood diseases.

Noosheen Hashemi

Biography
Noosheen Hashemi is a tech veteran, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Noosheen started January AI to harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to predict, prevent, postpone and manage chronic disease. Noosheen also guides a family office that includes diverse investments in over 100 companies and venture capital funds. She is the founder of the HAND Foundation, focused on supporting scholars and organizations that promote discourse and socioeconomic growth among the disenfranchised. She lives in Silicon Valley.

Mo Langhi

Biography
Formerly the Co-Founder & Director of the Microbiome Movement Series at Hanson Wade, Mo has led the global pharmaceutical market segment at CosmosID since 2018. His role involves the support of R&D scientists and biotech executives in deploying microbial genomics throughout the drug development pipeline, including pre-clinical, clinical and CMC applications. Mo has led a number of partnerships and collaborations with big pharma, biotech and CRO’s in the incorporation of metagenomics in phase I, II and III clinical trials for the purpose of developing novel therapeutics and diagnostics.

Microbial Profiling Showcase:
CosmosID
CosmosID® is a global leader in supporting the pharmaceutical sector with CLIA-certified, ICH-GCP compliant microbiome and microbial isolate solutions for applications such as pre-clinical, clinical, CMC and regulatory support.

Supporting Drug Development with Microbiome Solutions
Robust, standardised, and validated workflows are crucial for controlling the introduction of bias. Deriving clinically actionable and informative results from shotgun metagenomic sequencing data requires modern bioinformatics and database solutions to accurately delineate microbial communities down to strain-level.

Larry Weiss

Biography
Larry Weiss heads up a multi-disciplinary research and product development team at Weiss Bioscience, Inc. Based on a unique collaboration with an isolated tribe of Yanomami hunter-gatherers living a traditional lifestyle deep in the Amazon, Weiss Bioscience has sponsored three research expeditions and is translating the multi-omic findings into novel cosmetic and therapeutic interventions. The first of these, Symbiome branded skincare, launched in 2021, is formulated with proprietary rainforest-derived postbiotics that restore lost metabolic function. Prior to that, Weiss was Chief Medical Officer at AOBiome and Founder of CleanWell Company. He has 26 issued patents and 12 scientific publications. He is also the Founding Chair of The Global Microbiome Council.

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Evolutionary Biology of the Skin Microbiome
• Metagenomics and metabolomics of the Yanomami skin microbiome • Functional anatomy of the ancestral human skin microbiome • Translating the ancestral skin microbiome into cosmetics and therapeutics