Bart Panis
Bart Panis obtained his PhD in 1995 at the University Leuven, Belgium, where he was involved in cryopreservation and the development of embryogenic cell suspensions, protoplast culture and techniques for genetic engineering of banana. As postdoctoral researcher and lateron as research manager, he co-ordinated different international projects dealing with plant biotechnology and cryopreservation. In 2013, he started working for Bioversity International and developed the world’s largest banana cryobank. A major achievement is the development of a novel plant cryopreservation protocol (i.e. droplet-vitrification), that was lateron applied to meristems, calli, somatic and zygotic embryos of more than 50 plant species.
Bart Panis is currently member of the editorial board of CryoLetters and Associate Editor of Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture and was involved in the organization of about 50 international Symposia and workshops. Since his first SLTB meeting in Leuven (back in 1994) he regularly participates at SLTB meetings was moreover actively involved as Board member and meeting organizer. He trained more than 100 researchers from all parts of the world on plant cryopreservation and is council member for Belgium of the ISHS (International Society for Horticultural Science). His research was written down in more than 400 contributions, resulting in an WoS h-index of 29. Recent research topics concern conservation of coconut genetic resources and wild bananas.
Ramon Risco
He studied his Secondary School at Seville under the teaching in the mathematics of Jose A. Alonso, who would later be Chief of the department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Seville for several decades. He finished the degree on Theoretical Physics at the University of Granada, winning a fellowship from the Junta de Energia Nuclear, Madrid, to work on Nuclear Fusion (Tokamak). He did his PhD on the EPR paradox, proposing different local hidden variables theoretical models for all Bell's experiments based on de Broglie-Bohm theory, as well as on the Zero Point Field of stochastic quantum optics. Later, he would be part of the team, together with Michler and Weinfurter in A. Zeilinger lab (Innsbruck) which experimentally achieved Remote State Preparation of PDC photons, an early version of what later would be known as Quantum Teleportation. Finally, in Special Relativity, in collaboration with Franco Selleri, he would derive a set of transformations factually indistinguishable from Lorentz transformations, based on the homogeneity of absolute space, aimed to join quantum theory and relativity. Back in Spain, he founded the research group ”Quantum Mechanics” of the University of Seville, being this his last contribution to the field.
Afterwards, he then began to work in the field of biotechnology, in particular in cryopreservation, with the goal of cryopreservation of organs. The first step consisted in forming a fusion protein joining a Macrozoarces Americanus AFPIII dimer with a protein transfection domain (PTD), penetratin, with the idea of internalizing this AFP within the organs (unpblished). This was followed by studies on the influence of ultrasound on ice nucleation processes. He continued his training at the Center for Engineering in Medicine under the direction of Prof. M. Toner. There he explored the use of lasers in cryopreservation and the advantages of nitrogen slush and quartz capillaries in vitrification processes. There he also explored the use of magnetorheological fluids in order to increase their viscosity several orders of magnitude with the simple utilization of an external magnetic field. Back in Spain, he found an application of these fluids for the rapid rewarming of frozen samples under the action of microwave radiation. He also explored various ways capable of cryopreserving C. elegans, even in adult stage and in strains that freeze poorly, with an efficiency close to 100%. He also developed mathematical models of freezing in the case of non-ideal electrolyte solutions. All this led him to found the company SafePreservation, dedicated to cryopreserving in excellent conditions, different cell types. Always with the idea of advancing in the cryopreservation of organs, he proved the usefulness of X-ray CT in monitoring the perfusion of cryoprotective solutions based on DMSO, as well as visualizing the eventual growth of ice crystals, also of relevance in Slow Freezing, and the appearance of fractures. This drived him to develop various strategies for ovarian tissue preservation, one of them based on step-by-step vitrification. He is now exploring ways for rewarming vitrified organs and optimizing cryopreservation techniques for human oocytes and embryos.
Barry Fuller
Barry Fuller PhD; DSc; Fellow of Society for Cryobiology; Professor in UNESCO Chair in Cryobiology.
As Head of Cell, Tissue and Organ Preservation Unit within the Department of Surgical Biotechnology, UCL, Barry has a research focus into low temperature preservation of cells, tissues and organs for clinical applications. These include work as scientific director of human liver hypothermic machine perfusion research laboratory; cryopreservation of liver cell organoids for hepatic support; liver stem cells in tissue engineering and cell transplant. His research also covers cryopreservation of oocytes, embryos and ovarian tissue for infertility treatment. He is co-founder and scientific lead for Tissue Access for Patient benefit, TAPb_UCL, providing a Knowledge Transfer base and public engagement forum to debate and record opinions, and deliver a not-for-profit platform for ethically-approved access and research on donated human samples tissues under TAPb (www.ucl.ac.uk/tapb).
Pierre Comizzoli
Veterinary College of Maisons-Alfort, France, D.V.M., 1994
University of Paris VI, France, M.S. Reproduction, 1997
University of Tours, France, Ph.D. Life Science, 2000
Pierre Comizzoli started his career >25 years ago as a research veterinarian in South America and Africa. He then completed a PhD in 2000 on in vitro fertilization in bovine and deer species. In 2002, he joined the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, DC to develop new cryo-banking projects on gametes and gonadal tissues from rare and endangered species. This also includes the coordination of reproductive monitoring and artificial inseminations in different species (including giant pandas, clouded leopards, or Eld’s deer). He is leading since 2007 a Smithsonian-wide initiative to improve the management and use of frozen biomaterial collections within the Institution.
Amir Arav
Dr. Arav is a leading scientist in the field of cryobiology and reproduction. He founded Galcore ltd, IMT Ltd, Core Dynamics Ltd and FertileSafe LTD, A.A. Technology LTD, LyoVita LTD, all of these companies specialized in the fields of Cryiobiology and were based on Dr. Arav's patents.
Dr. Arav has received his Bachelor degree of Animal Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M) degree from the University of Bologna, Italy. His PhD degree in neuroscience physiology and biomedical engineering was a combined project of the University of Bologna and the University of California at Berkeley. Post doctorate was done at the Center for Biostabilization, University of California at Davis.
He has published his research in over 150 scientific papers, in peer-reviewed journals. Filed over 100 patents and is the recipient of many prizes for basic and applied research.
Peter Bols
Peter E.J. Bols was born in Niel, Belgium in 1964. He graduated as a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (magna cum laude) at the University of Antwerp (B) in 1986 and obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree (DVM, cum laude) in 1989 at the University of Ghent (B). After completing his army service, he returned to the University of Ghent as assistant at the Ambulatory Clinic within the Department of Obstetrics, Reproduction and Herd Health. In the meantime, he started his PhD research program in 1993 with Prof. Dr. A. de Kruif as a supervisor. In 1997, he received his PhD degree (summa cum laude) with the thesis entitled ‘Transvaginal Ovum Pick-Up in the Cow: Technical and Biological Modifications’. Soon thereafter, he joined Prof. Dr. J. Yang as a post-doc at the Animal Science Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA, performing oocyte pick-up in prepuberal heifers studying factors that determine oocyte quality. Following a short period in the pharmaceutical industry (Intervet, NL/F and Janssen Animal Health, B), he worked for the Belgian Government (FAGG, Brussels) and was a Belgian delegate at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in London, UK. Dr. Bols kept in close contact with the reproduction group at the University of Ghent and lectured during OPU workshops in the USA and Brazil. In 2001, he was appointed as an Associate Professor of Veterinary Physiology at the University of Antwerp (B), got tenured in 2004, and currently teaches domestic animal physiology, etnography and veterinary pharmaceuticals as a Full Professor (Gewoon Hoogleraar).
Prof. Bols performs research on (bovine) assisted reproduction with a particular interest in fertility preservation strategies using bovine/animal models to tackle problems in human reproduction. Being Head of the Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry Research Unit and the Gamete Research Center, he (co-)authored more than 110 A1-publications in animal and human reproductive journals, around 200 abstracts in conference proceedings and 4 book chapters on bovine/equine assisted reproduction (H-index 33, over 3.000 citations). He gave more than 35 invited lectures worldwide and was a member of 33 PhD evaluation commissions. In addition, he currently runs an international developmental project in collaboration with Cuba (VLIR-UOS). He supervised 10 PhD theses and is currently involved in 3 others. He is ad-hoc reviewer for +10 international peer reviewed journals and Editorial Board member for ‘Reproduction in Domestic Animals’ and the ‘Flemish Veterinary Journal’ and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the new ‘Journal of Fertility Preservation’ together with Prof. Christiani Amorim. Prof. Bols is a Founding Diplomate of the European College of Animal Reproduction (ECAR, 2001), being a member of the ECAR examination committee since 2018. He is currently Department Head of the Department of Veterinary Sciences (UAntwerp). He was awarded the Scientific Prize of the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine - KAGB (2005), became Academy member (2012), joined the Academy Board (2014) and was recently (2019) elected as the Academy Secretary-General. Prof. Bols was additionally trained in veterinary historiography at the University of Utrecht by Prof. Dr. Koolmees and published several papers on the history of the veterinary profession in 18th century France, both in national and international journals. For this contribution, he was awarded the Sarton-Medal by the faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Ghent, Belgium (2018-19). Recently, he became a Fellow of the Descartes Centre at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is currently attributing to a new textbook on Andreas Vesalius, Belgian anatomist.