Speakers

Andrea is an Associate Professor at Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), HiLIFE and a research associate at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Andrea's research vision is to integrate genetic data and electronic health records to enhance the early detection of common diseases and improve public health interventions. He is a winner of an ERC starting grant and the Leena Peltonen Prize for Excellence in Human Genetics. He is co-leading two major international consortia: the COVID-19 host genetic initiative, the largest human genetic study of COVID-19, and the INTERVENE consortium, which aims to integrate AI and human genetics tools for disease prevention and diagnosis across biobanks in Europe. He has also initiated the FinRegistry project, one of the most comprehensive registry-based health studies in the world. 

Deborah Lawlor is Professor of epidemiology at the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol. She has a clinical and public health background. Her research is largely in the fields of reproductive, perinatal and cardiovascular health and in developing and applying methods to improve causal understanding.

Eduardo Villamor is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  He received his medical degree from the National University of Colombia, a Master of Public Health from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a doctorate from Harvard University, where he served as Assistant Professor from 2005 until 2009.  His research has focused broadly on the study of perinatal and pediatric health with use of epidemiologic methods in diverse settings including Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. 

Janine Felix is Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her team’s research aims to understand biological mechanisms underlying the associations of early-life exposures and later health, especially cardiometabolic health. She is Deputy Head of the Generation R Study, a population-based birth cohort of almost 10,000 participants. As Principal Investigator (PI) for Epigenetics in this study, she uses (epi-)genome-wide data in combination with other ‘omics and detailed phenotypic data to gain insight into these processes and has been involved with multiple large-scale international consortias.

Born and educated in Italy, Olga Basso has worked at the Danish Epidemiology Science Centre at the University of Aarhus (Denmark), the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH (Durham, NC, USA), and at McGill University (Montreal, QC, Canada). Before leaving the field,  her primary interests were in infertility, pregnancy, neonatal health, and the many methodological challenges related to these areas.

Olof Stephansson is professor in Clinical Epidemiology at Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet and Consultant in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Karolinska University Hospital. His research is within perinatal epidemiology including studies of labor duration and interventions, obesity and bariatric surgery, chronic maternal disease and medical drug use, infections and vaccination during pregnancy associated with adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Professor Stephansson was the founder of the Swedish Pregnancy Register and has served as medical advisor for the Swedish Medical Birth Register.

Rebecca is a rare condition patient, an experienced advocate and a founding member of the Participant Panel at Genomics England where she will sit as its Vice-Chair for Rare conditions until June. Rebecca is also involved in the NHS and Genomics England’s ‘Generation Study’ - a groundbreaking research study which will sequence the genomes of 100,000 newborn babies. As part of her involvement, Rebecca sits on NHS Strategic Implementation Group and chairs a key working group of the study.  She is also the founder and CEO of Hereditary Brain Aneurysm Support, a UK first patient centred organisation supporting families and individuals living with familial brain aneurysm syndrome. Rebecca is also an experienced PR and Communications Director with over twenty years in the industry.

Robert Platt is Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, and of Pediatrics, at McGill University. He holds the Albert Boehringer I endowed chair in Pharmacoepidemiology. Dr. Platt is Principal Investigator of the Canadian Network for Observational Drug Effect Studies (CNODES). His research focuses on improving methods for the study of medications using administrative data, with a substantive focus on medications in pregnancy. 

Tine Brink Henriksen is an MD, pediatrician, and perinatal epidemiologist. She is the head of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, Aarhus University Hospital, DK. Her research focus is exposures during pregnancy and around the time of birth and implications for child health.