Plenary Speakers
21 - 24 April 2025
Loews Coronado Bay Resort
Coronado, California USA
Sophie Hernot
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Enhancing Fluorescence Guided Surgery with Nanobodies and Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging
This presentation explores enhancing fluorescence-guided surgery with Nanobodies — targeted agents offering rapid pharmacokinetics and tumor specificity — and demonstrates how fluorescence lifetime imaging adds biological insights and reduces non-specific signals compared to conventional fluorescence methods.
About the Speaker
Sophie Hernot, a bioengineer with a PhD in Medical Sciences, is a leading professor in the Molecular Imaging and Therapy research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Her research centers on developing, preclinically validating and clinically translating fluorescent and radiolabeled Nanobody-based tracers for image-guided applications. As the academic director of the In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Core Facility, she also promotes the adoption of innovative imaging techniques across diverse research fields, enhancing in vivo understanding of biological processes.
Elizabeth Hillman
Columbia University, USA
Maximizing the Impact of Biomedical Imaging and Microscopy
Optical methods are uniquely suited to mapping molecular and functional information across scales. From diffuse-imaging to super-resolution microscopy, how can we ensure that our work will lead to scientific breakthroughs and improvements in patient care?
About the Speaker
Dr. Elizabeth M.C. Hillman’s laboratory develops diverse optical imaging and microscopy techniques and applies them to studying the structure and function of the brain and other living tissues. She completed undergraduate and PhD training in Physics and Medical Physics at University College London. After post-doctoral work at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2006, where she is the Herbert and Florence Irving Professor in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, and the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology.
Lene Oddershede
The Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark
International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ)
Talk description coming soon...
About the Speaker
Lene joined the Novo Nordisk Foundation in 2019 to establish and lead activities in the Nat-Tech area covering the natural- and technical sciences, this including activities relating to quantum technologies and artificial intelligence. She has a background as a Professor of physics, Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) at Copenhagen University. Lene is a physicist, trained also in mathematics. She is an experimentalist and at the Niels Bohr Institute she constructed the first optical tweezers manipulation facility in Scandinavia. She is an expert in the interphase between quantum and the life sciences and is main designer of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Quantum Computing Programme, of the Quantum Foundry Copenhagen, as well as of the AI dedicated super-compute facility Gefion. As a researcher, she has been the leader of several interdisciplinary large-scale research projects, including center leader of a Grundforskningsfond Center of Excellence. She has received several research prizes, e.g., the Danish Optical Society prize for young investigators, the Silver Medal of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Elite Research Prize from the Danish Research Councils, the largest Danish public research prize. Lene Oddershede is a member of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters and of the Global Future Council for quantum economy at the World Economic Forum (WEF). Lene holds a PhD in physics from SDU, Odense, Denmark 1998.
