Invited speakers

Anthony Gitter

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics and Investigator – Morgridge Institute for Research, USA

Anthony Gitter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an Investigator at the Morgridge Institute for Research. His research group develops machine learning tools for biochemistry applications, such as computationally-guiding high-throughput chemical screening and protein design. In addition, they use network modeling to connect genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data and provide a cohesive view of a biological process, with special emphasis on virology and oncology.

    Martina Letizia Contente

    University of Milan, Department of Food Environmental and Nutritional Sciences, Italy

    Martina Letizia Contente is an Assistant Professor at the University of Milan. She graduated in Pharmacy at the same University, where she obtained also her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. During her years as post doc she had the opportunity to work in different international environments increasing her expertise in the development of intensified and sustainable flow-biobased processes for the preparation of bioactive compounds and pharma/food ingredients. Among her research interests enzyme discovery, protein immobilization and stabilization for continuous processing are the most important.

      Martin Grininger

      Institute of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

      Martin studied Technical Chemistry in at the University Linz and the Technical University Graz. For his Diploma thesis in Organic Chemistry, he joined the Department of Alois Fürstner at the Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr. He then moved to Munich/Martinsried to the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry for his PhD studies, to work with Dieter Oesterhelt on flavin sequestration and storage in Archaea and Bacteria. For his PhD thesis, Martin was awarded with the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry Junior Research Award. After graduating from the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich in 2006, he became project group leader at the same institution. With his lab, Martin focused on multidomain fatty acid synthases and contributed to the current structural understanding of these proteins. He also held a visiting professorship at the University Vienna in Biological Chemistry (2010/2011). In 2012, he received a Lichtenberg Professorship of the Volkswagen Foundation hosted by the Goethe University Frankfurt. In 2019, he was appointed permanent Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry at Goethe University. Research in his lab revolves around the development of compartmentalized multistep biosynthesis for the production of platform chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Martin has acquired substantial third-party funding during the past years, and was speaker of the interdisciplinary collaborative MegaSyn focus program funded by the State of Hesse (2017-2021). He published work from his lab in prestigious journals such as Nature Chemistry, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, JACS, Angewandte Chemie and PNAS.