Speakers

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Dr. Ratna Mukherjea is the Technology & Innovation leader for the Human Milk Oligosaccharide (HMO) program at DuPont Nutrition & Health. She has been with DuPont for 9 years leading Nutrition Science and Translation. Prior to joining the organization, she held faculty positions at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute and University of California, Medical Center, in the Department of Endocrinology, Clinical Nutrition and Vascular Medicine with adjunct appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.   She is active in several professional organizations and is on the Board of American Society of Nutrition, International Life Sciences Institute (North America), External Advisory Committee for Department of Nutritional Sciences at University of Illinois, Member-at-large, ILSI North America Food, Nutrition and Safety Program (FNSP), and Past President, Soy Nutrition Institute. Ratna received her Doctoral degree in Nutrition at University of Maryland, College Park and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center, UC Davis.

Arjan is currently the translational microbiome group leader at the Institute where his research is focused on understanding the role of gut bacteria in health and disease of humans and animals. Arjan’s group has developed probiotic bacteria for reducing the levels of foodborne pathogens such as Campylobacter from the food chain. Arjan has worked on the relationship between gut microbiota and specific gastrointestinal disorders; IBS and Ulcerative Colitis. In collaboration with clinicians at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, his group is actively involved in setting up a bacteriotherapy service for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infections, and are exploring how the exploitation of new technologies could be used to improve the diagnosis of gastrointestinal infections. Arjan has published more than 100 research papers and have filed 9 international patents. Arjan has been appointed a Visiting Professor at Jiangnan University in China and has also recently established a BBSRC funded UK-China joint centre for research on probiotics.

Dr. Damman is a board certified gastroenterologist with joint appointments at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and University of Washington Medical Center. His education and training include a B.A./M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1998/1999, an M.D from Columbia University in 2006, residency in internal medicine from the University of Washington in 2009, and fellowship in gastroenterology from the University of Washington in 2014.

Ben has been an entrepreneur and product developer in the health and wellness field for over a decade. In this capacity, he's mpowered other companies to realize their natural product visions and launched my own ventures which have generated substantial traction. Ben's primary passion is to bridge the gap between niche and cutting-edge health trends and mainstream consumer needs. He is extremely motivated to increase the impact and accessibility of products and companies in the health and wellness space. Ben has built three different formulation and fermentation labs, worked closely with dozens of scientists and researchers and built three production facilities from scratch. He's formulated over 30 products from concept to commercialization and beyond, both independently and with a team.

Aubrey was the founder of Body + Eden, which has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Elle, Well & Good and Japan Vogue and partnered with brands such as One & Only Resorts, Wallpaper Handmade, and The Tracy Anderson Method. Aubrey is a certified health coach and created a gut health course for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She holds a BA from Boston University in Advertising and won an award for best women’s health resource while at Grey Healthcare. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School in NYC where she has been a guest lecturer on product adoption.

Dr. Christopher Reyes is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder at Bloom Science (www.bloomscience.co), a biotechnology company focused on dramatically improving the lives of patients. Connecting the gut microbiota to diet, metabolism, neural activity and behavior, we are developing effective microbe-based therapeutics to make measurable improvements to outcomes that matter to patients.

Dr. Reyes is a biophysicist and entrepreneur with a passion for creating solutions to improve our health, environment and economic sustainability. He 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.

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.

Lihi Segal co-founded DayTwo in 2015 to bring personalized health solutions based on the gut microbiome into the consumer mainstream. She is experienced in leading business and financial operations having been COO and CFO of Sisense, a provider of business intelligence and analytics software, before starting DayTwo. For more than fifteen years prior to that she has held senior roles in a number of businesses, from startups to large public enterprises. She is a certified Lawyer, has an LLB from the Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from Northwestern University, USA.

Dr. Eric McLaughlin is the Medical Director at Elite Care, a 24-hour, full-service emergency room. Dr. McLaughlin completed his Bachelors in Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University, Utah. He attended medical school at the New York Medical College followed by Emergency Medicine residency in Toledo, Ohio at the St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center. He was awarded the Humanitarian Award for his leadership and compassion in medical care. Dr. McLaughlin is board certified in Emergency Medicine (ABEM). In 2004, he joined the Greater Houston Emergency Physicians (GHEP); and since then, he has become a partner and serves on the Board of Managers.

David is a 30-year veteran of biotech, having co-founded a range of successful biotech companies in the fields of nutrition and health, including Martek Biosciences, which was acquired in 2011 for $1.1 Billion. David combines a strong scientific background with significant commercial acumen, has published over 70 scientific articles, edited two books, and is the named inventor on over 80 patents.

Jonathan is a research fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, at Harvard University, where he has worked on transformative sequencing technologies and programmable cellular engineering. Along with George Church he has co-founded FitBiomics, a sports biotechnology startup that is sequencing the microbiome of elite athletes to identify and isolate novel probiotics for applications in performance, recovery, and general health. Having played Division 1 college basketball at St. John’s University and coached inner city public high school basketball, one of Jonathan’s long-term goals is to use sport to inspire the next generation of scientists.

Noah has been personally and professionally involved in the microbiome, genomic and personalized health space for the past five years.  Recently, leading strategic, product development, regulatory and R&D engagements with Fortune 100 to emerging growth start-ups. In the microbiome space, projects have ranged from advising Fortune-level biotechs on microbiome investment/pipeline/industry trends in support of recent acquisitions, developing R&D strategy for emerging a microbiome CPG beverage to collaborating with one of the leading global probiotic brands on disease indication expansion options. Previously, Noah was Business Development Manager at Ritter Pharmaceuticals, a late-stage microbiome Rx/GI company developing potentially the first FDA approved treatment for moderate-to-severe lactose intolerance. Noah's microbiome expertise reaches beyond therapeutics and nutraceuticals to diagnostics and sample collection technology in a business development role with Metabiomics. Metabiomics is an early-stage microbiome Dx company with multiple patents in IBD and CRC diagnostic development.

Dr. Stefan Jennewein studied Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Organic Chemistry at the Universities of Sussex (Brighton, UK), Zurich (CH), Tübingen (D) and Cambridge (UK), and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich, D). Dr. Stefan Jennewein also gained practical experience through his work at Washington State University (Pullman, USA), the company DSM N.V. (Delft, NL), the Technical University of Darmstadt (D), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (Aachen, D). Dr. Stefan Jennewein is the Managing Director for research and development, regulatory issues, and quality management at Jennewein Biotechnologie.

Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 16 years. He comes from a strict research background having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa. Mr. Krishnan earned his Bachelor of Science degrees in Microbiology at the University of Iowa; his undergraduate education was followed up with post graduate research and advanced course work in Molecular Biology and Virology. He left University research to establish a Clinical Research Organization where he designed and conducted clinical trials in human nutrition.

CEO Alan Murray, has been involved with NextFoods from its inception, joining the company from a 30 year career with TetraPak, latterly as CEO of its North American business, and Unilever. He champions Nextfood’s retailer, supplier and investor engagement program.

Susan is responsible for ensuring the scientific integrity of the company’s brands and products, she has a keen appreciation for all that probiotics have to offer. She has a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Stony Brook University, NY, USA. She contributes regularly to peer-reviewed, trade, and consumer publications on various aspects of nutrition in adult and pediatric populations.

Massimo has a master degree in Environmental and Alimentary Biotechnology and is an expert in microbial ecology and analysis of mixed microbial communities. He obtained a PhD on "Microbial ecology of complex environments" awarded by the Italian Society of Microbiology and Biotechnology as the best italian thesis in year 2007. He also gained expertise on gastrointestinal microbiology.