34th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases

Pascal Bittel, a Basel, Switzerland native, currently serves as the Principal Investigator in the group "Molecular Analytics and Innovation" at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, University of Bern, and as the Co-Head of the Molecular Analytics Department at the same institute within the University Hospital Bern. His primary interest and research focus lie in respiratory viruses and their transmission. He earned his PhD in Biology from the University of Basel, specializing in receptor ligand interaction. Pascal Bittel's career includes roles as a Senior Scientist (Biosafety) at the State Laboratory of Basel-City, a Laboratory Specialist in Immunology at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, and a Scientific Manager at Enzo Life Sciences, Inc.

Dr. Van Der Pol is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Director of the UAB STD Diagnostics Laboratory. She has been active in the field of the biology, epidemiology and diagnostics of sexually transmitted infections (STI) for more than 40 years.  Her behavioral research focuses on delivery, utilization and implementation of new diagnostic technologies. Dr. Van Der Pol currently serves as the President of the International Society for STD Research.

Dr. Federico García, Ph.D., has worked for the past 10 years in the Microbiology Department of the University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada, Spain, where he serves, since October 2009, as Head of Department. He has served as an Associate Professor in Microbiology for the University of Granada. He is the former Vice President of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases & Clinical Microbiology Dr. Garcia is on hospital and medical school committees, and national and European committees related to HIV resistance. He coordinates the Spanish HIV Research Network Work Package on subtypes and resistance and contributes with several European organizations on HIV resistance (ESAR, Eurocord-CHAIN) and hepatitis resistance (HEPVIR). He has been actively involved in recent research on Transmitted Drug Resistance in Spain and Europe, on genotypic investigation on HIV viral Tropism, and on clinical significance of HIV low and very low-level viraemia. He is now actively involved in hepatitis C virus and hepatitis B virus research activities. He is a past president of GEHEP (Spanish Viral Hepatitis Study Group of the Clinical Microbiology & Infectious diseases Spanish Society), and the coordinator of HEPCRESP, the Spanish national cohort on HCV resistance to new DAAs. He is the former Vice President of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases & Clinical Microbiology. He is a former member of the Forum for HCV Collaborative Research, and the International Collaborative HCV Resistance database. Dr. Garcia received his Ph.D. from the University of Granada and is a member of professional and scientific societies, including the European Society for Antiviral Resistance, the Spanish Group for AIDS study, and the Spanish Group for Hepatitis Study.  He is reviewer of HIV & HCV papers for national and international journals.

Tiziana Lazzarotto is Full professor of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology at the Department of Specialized, Experimental and Diagnostic Medicine at the University of Bologna in Italy, School of Medicine. In addition, Tiziana is Head of the Laboratory of Virology at the Operative Unit of Clinical Microbiology at St. Orsola Polyclinic, Bologna and Director of the Postgraduate school of Microbiology and Virology at the University of Bologna School of Medicine.Tiziana has made significant contributions in the study of viral infections, specifically on the pre and postnatal diagnosis of congenital CMV and Rubella infections and the management of CMV and EBV infections in solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. Professor Lazzarotto is a member of the managing committee for the Italian Society for Clinical Microbiology (AMCLI) and a founding member of the European Congenital CMV Initiative (ECCI).

Ngee Keong is a clinical scientist in medical virology/microbiology at South West London Pathology. He completed his biomedical and clinical science training in the UK following his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. He was awarded a Diplomateship of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK) and is completing his Higher Specialist Scientist Training in clinical virology. His professional and research interests are infections in pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and implementation of rapid, accurate, and efficient laboratory diagnostics to detect and monitor infections. Ngee Keong also has a special interest in the regulation, certification and performance monitoring of in vitro diagnostic devices.

Marc Lütgehetmann is a Senior Physician and Specialist in microbiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Germany. He holds a master’s degree from the UKE and has been a researcher at the university since 2004. Dr Lütgehetmann's research focuses on hepatitis viruses and the molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases. His studies include the use of animal models to investigate the biology of hepatitis delta (HDV), in vivo interactions between HDV and hepatitis B virus, mechanisms of HDV-associated liver injury, and different antiviral strategies. Dr Lütgehetmann’s research aims to inform the development of new and improved treatments and diagnostics. He has authored or co- authored more than 200 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, and Nature Medicine. Dr Lütgehetmann is also a regular invited speaker at numerous national and international scientific congresses.