The Team
Robert Jenkins
Dr. Robert Jenkins holds a PhD in Molecular Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from IESE Business School. He has a solid track record in leading multidisciplinary teams, driving scientific innovation, and managing high-impact international projects. He is the current CEO of Linkcare Health Services, where he contributes his expertise in product development, technology transfer, and regulatory approval. Dr. Jenkins holds key positions at Ferrer InCode and Werfen, leading market access strategies, international agreements, and M&A processes in the in vitro diagnostics field. He also has extensive experience in global consulting and manages collaborative R&D projects involving clinical validation and market deployment across Europe, the United States, Latin America, and Asia.
Elda Judica
Elda Judica, MD, is Neurologist, Neurophysiologist and Senior Researcher at Casa di Cura Igea, Milan. She is also Director of Igea Biobank, responsible of the Centers for Cognitive Disorders and Dementia and for the Rare Diseases. From 2018 she has been responsible for the clinical coordination of national and international European-funded projects such as Virtual Coaching activities for rehabilitation in elderly (vCare), pain in stroke (PainRelife), integrated care in Parkinson’s Disease (ProCare4Life), and more recently for the Horizon Europe project VaMPiRE on validation of biological biomarkers in Parkinson’s Disease. She is also actively involved in several clinical pharmacological trials as Sub investigator on Alzheimer’s Disease and Principal Investigator on CIDP.
Mayca Marín
Mayca Marín is General Health Psychologist and Social Worker specialized in gerontology and innovation. She is the European and National Project Coordinator at APM, leading initiatives to improve life quality for people with Parkinson’s disease. These include projects on health and social care, therapeutic support, volunteering, leisure, community engagement, and tech integration. She plays a key role in coordinating European projects promoting personalized, integrated care for older adults. Her expertise includes project management, cross-sector collaboration, and implementing innovative strategies. This is possible thanks to the work of APM’s team of 60+ professionals and 100+ volunteers supporting over 1,800 people and families in Madrid.)
Tiago Outeiro
Tiago Outeiro graduated in Biochemistry at the University of Porto and did his PhD thesis at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical research – MIT. Tiago was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Neurology of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and is currently Full Professor and the Director of the Department of Experimental Neurodegeneration at the University Medical Center Goettingen, in Germany.
Tiago holds a joint Professor position at Newcastle University in the UK. Tiago has authored >360 research articles and participates in various international boards and in collaborative projects with the aim of identifying the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Marco Feligioni
Marco Feligioni, PhD, is a pharmacologist and leads the Post-Translational Protein Modifications and Neurotransmitter Release Mechanisms lab at the European Brain Research Institute (EBRI) in Rome. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. He studies the impact of post-translational modifications—especially SUMOylation—on neurodegeneration-related proteins to determine their protective or harmful roles. He also explores SUMOylation as a peripheral biomarker. Dr. Feligioni has authored numerous publications and is the initiator and scientific coordinator of the VαMPiRE project and of EBRI’s role in the consortium.
Raniero Romagnoli
Raniero Romagnoli is the CTO at Almawave. Within Almawave Group he is also CEO at OBDA Systems. He is an expert in AI and NLP and he drives the company technology strategy while managing technical teams of R&D and Innovation and the product group. Raniero actively participates in various national and international initiatives in the field of AI, also in collaboration with market associations, research centers and academies, and is member of the quality assurance committee of different universities and member of a European language technology industry association. He is currently a contract professor at two universities and a business school, teaching AI and ML both to Executive and MBA students and to university students.
Mariarosaria Incoronato
Mariarosaria Incoronato, Ph.D., is a molecular biologist with over 20 years of experience in clinical research. She earned her Ph.D. in Genetics of Microorganisms from the University of Naples “Federico II” in 2004. From 2005 to 2022, she worked as a biologist and researcher at SDN/IRCCS-SDN S.p.A., and also held teaching roles at the University of Naples “Federico II”. She has coordinated several research projects funded by the Italian Ministry of Health, focusing on biomarkers in oncology, fatty liver, and heart failure. She is the author of 46 international publications (h-index: 24). Since 2022, she has been Scientific Assistant at Synlab Italia, supporting scientific research and health innovation.
Salvador Ventura
Salvador Ventura is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UAB, ICREA Acadèmia researcher, and since 2024, Scientific Director of I3PT-CERCA. He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences in 1998 and trained at EMBL-Heidelberg, Harvard Medical School, and Karolinska Institutet. He leads the “Protein Folding and Conformational Disorders” group at IBB-UAB, which he directed from 2017 to 2020. His lab integrates computational and experimental approaches to develop therapies targeting protein aggregation. He has led 47 competitive projects, 11 industry collaborations, authored over 310 papers, supervised 20 PhD theses, co-invented 19 patent families, and co-founded Eureka NanoBioEngineering. He ranks among the top 2% most influential scientists globally and has received major national awards for his research excellence.
Dimitrios Kazis
Dr. Dimitrios Kazis is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Head of the 3rd Department of Neurology at “G. Papanikolaou” Hospital. He earned his MD and PhD from Aristotle University and completed advanced training in Neurology, Psychiatry, and Clinical Neurophysiology in the UK, and the USA. His clinical and research focus includes Parkinson’s disease, MS, and Alzheimer’s disease. He has participated in numerous national and international studies and published 76 research articles indexed in PubMed. He is actively involved in several international boards and collaborative projects for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Chiara Guerrera
Chiara Guerrera, PhD, HDR
Director, Translational Proteomics Lab, INSERM, Paris. Expert in mass spectrometry-based proteomics for precision medicine. Leads platform development at Necker Hospital with over 100 collaborations. PhD (UCL), postdoc at WIBR. Technologies: DIA-MS, ion mobility, SILAC, ITRAQ. Co-organizer of national proteomics schools/events, jury member for HCERES, PhD & HDR. 103 publications (H-index 26). Grants: Horizon EU, RHU, ANR, etc. Multilingual: IT, EN, FR, ES.
Tomasz Stępień
Tomasz Stępień is an Associate Professor of Medical Sciences at the Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw. He heads the Polish Brain Bank, one of the largest worldwide, and serves as Secretary of the Polish Association of Neuropathologists. He initiated the “Digital Brain” project and develops digital tools for neuropathology. He is the author and co-author of numerous publications in neuropathology, psychiatry, and neurology. His research focuses on neurodegenerative diseases and the interface between psychiatry and neurology. He holds a patent, teaches, promotes science, and coordinates the Polish part of the Horizon Europe project VaMPiRE.
Maria Teresa Fernàndez
M. Teresa Fernández is Full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo and director of the Institute of Biotechnology of Asturias (IUBA). Graduated in Chemistry and post-graduated in Biochemistry, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute (NIH, USA). Together with Dr. A. Novelli she co-leads a group in Neuroscience at the University of Oviedo since 1990. Her research activity focuses on the mechanisms underlying neurotoxicity and neuroprotection using primary cultures of central nervous system neurons and glial cells and the study of neuronal electrical activity using the microelectrode arrays (MEA) methodology for the analysis of extracellular recordings generated by in vitro neuronal networks growth on microelectrodes.
Murray Cairns
Professor Murray Cairns is head of the Centre for Complex Trait Genetics and Precision Medicine at the University of Newcastle, and the Chair of the Hunter Medical Research Institute Precision Medicine Research Program. Cairns has over 200 career publications, in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Reviews Genetics, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Circulation.
Collectively, these have attracted more than 31,000 citations and highlight a significant international reputation in complex trait genetics and functional genomics. Cairns is an editorial board member of Epigenomics, American Journal of Medical Genetics, MicroRNA, Frontiers in Non-Coding RNA, Journal of RNA and Genomics, BioMedInformatics, International Journal of Molecular Science, Open Journal of Genomics.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON-HLTH-2024-DISEASE-03-two-stage program under grant agreement No 101156370.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HORIZON-RIA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.