Speakers Schedule

Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge

Sarah completed her PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and was a Beit Memorial Fellow at University College London. She established her research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 2001, where her main discoveries included the finding that protein assembly pathways are stereotypical and conserved. In 2013, she transitioned to the Wellcome Genome Campus, where she became the first and, to date, the only faculty member appointed across both the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. In 2016, she was appointed as the Head of the Cellular Genetics programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and co-founded the Human Cell Atlas initiative. From April 2024, she was appointed chair in Stem Cell Medicine at the University of Cambridge, within the Department of Medicine and the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Additionally, Sarah dedicates part of her time to GlaxoSmithKline, is a non-executive director of 10x Genomics, and has co-founded two startup companies. The Teichmann lab focuses on developing and applying cell atlas technologies to understand human tissue architecture, particularly examining how cellular diversity is generated in the immune system and during development.

Department of Medical Genetics, Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge; NIHR Research Professor & Honorary Consultant.

Serena is an NIHR Research Professor in Genomic Medicine and Bioinformatics at University of Cambridge. She is also an NHS Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics. Serena has pioneering expertise in cancer whole genome sequencing and big data analytics, with a particular interest in using the totality of cancer multi-omic data to fully understand cancer biology. She was central to the development of the field of mutational signatures in cancer, uses experimental systems to validate her analytical work, and also explores other age-related progressive diseases such as neurodegeneration. Serena uses machine-learning methods to develop clinical computational tools to accelerate the translation of genomic innovations towards patients. She is the recipient of the Royal Society Sir Francis Crick Medal, Foulkes Foundation Medal and Dr Josef Steiner Cancer Research award in recent years.

Departments of Genetics, Pathology & Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge.

Alex Cagan did his PhD on comparative genomics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. During his postdoc at the Wellcome Sanger Institute he worked with Inigo Martincorena, developing methods to study somatic evolution across species. He now leads a group at the University of Cambridge studying how mutations accumulate and spread across ageing tissues in diverse species. Alex is also passionate about scientific illustration and science communication.

Group Leader at EMBL-EBI

Jess is a research Group Leader at EMBL-EBI, where she investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which environmental chemical exposures contribute to human disease. She earned a PhD in Bioinformatics at McGill University with Nil Basu and Jeff Xia, where she developed statistical methods and software for analysing toxicogenomics data. She then completed postdoctoral training with Anne Carpenter and Shantanu Singh at the Broad Institute where she used high-content imaging and machine learning to investigate chemical and genetic perturbations in cells. She also holds a BSc in Environmental Engineering and Applied Math from Harvard University.

Radcliffe Department of Medicine, Investigative Medicine Division, University of Oxford.

Dr. Sumana Sharma is a Group Leader and RDM Principal Investigator at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms that govern immune receptor signalling and T-cell regulation. Using quantitative cell-based assays, synthetic receptor engineering, and systems-level approaches, she investigates both activating and inhibitory signalling pathways in the context of cancer and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Sharma completed her PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and undertook postdoctoral training at EMBL-EBI. She subsequently moved to the University of Oxford with Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow to further train in immunology. In 2025, she was awarded a Wellcome Career Development Award to launch her own research group, which integrates functional genomics, immune engineering, and computational approaches to better understand immune regulation and identify novel therapeutic opportunities.

Director of EMBL-EBI