Miami Engineering Career Development Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Miami, USA

Dr. Tomei is the Miami Engineering Career Development Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami. She obtained her M.S. in Materials Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) in 2004, and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Biotechnology from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) in 2008. Dr. Tomei currently directs the Islet Immunoengineering Lab at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) where she is applying her unique background in bioengineering and immunology to develop novel immunoengineering platforms to prevent rejection after islet transplantation and to promote antigen-specific tolerance for a cure of type-1 diabetes.

Head of the Laboratory of Tissue Engineering and Organ Regeneration
University of Geneva Technical Director of the Cell Isolation and Transplantation Center
University of Geneva Hospitals, Switzerland

Dr. Ekaterine Berishvili is the Technical Director at the Cell Isolation and Transplantation Center, Department of Surgery, University of Geneva Hospitals. She also leads the Laboratory of Tissue Engineering and Organ Regeneration at the University of Geneva. Her expertise is focused on cell-based therapies for type 1 diabetes, immune tolerance induction, and the bioengineering of the endocrine pancreas. She holds positions on the board of the ESOT and CTRMS. Dr. Berishvili is an active member of several scientific committees, including Breakthrough T1D beta cell replacement consortium, and serves on the editorial board of Transplant International as an associate editor. At the national level, Dr. Berishvili is a member of the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study’s scientific committee. She represents Geneva in the Swisstransplant working group specializing in pancreas, islet, and small bowel transplantation.

Research Group Leader, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
Honorary lecturer, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town
Department of Human Genetics, University of Witwatersrand
Pretoria, South Africa

After completing her PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Janine Scholefield spent three years as a Nufield Medical Fellow at the University of Oxford. Since returning to South Africa, she has specialized in cellular modelling of disease by establishing induced pluripotent stem cell research in the country. Her research focuses on developing physiologically relevant cellular models of disease using advanced technologies, including stem cells and genome engineering, especially within the unique context of the diverse sub-Saharan African genetic background.

She is a Research Group Leader at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and holds honorary lectureship positions in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town and in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Witwatersrand. In addition, she is the Editor-in-Chief for the Springer Nature journal Gene Therapy.

Boya Chair Professor, Peking University
Director, Peking University Stem Cell Research Center
Beijing, China

Hongkui Deng is a Boya Chair Professor at Peking University, and the director of the Peking University Stem Cell Research Center. In 2013, his lab developed a chemical reprogramming strategy to induce pluripotent stem cells from somatic cell types using only small molecules. This breakthrough has opened new avenues for manipulating cellular identities via chemical reprogramming. He has also developed a state-of-the-art stem cell differentiation technology to generate insulin-producing cells. Coupled with a novel transplantation strategy, these technologies yield remarkable therapeutic efficacy in clinical studies.