Professor Jennifer Martin is a physician and clinical pharmacologist with a 30 year research track record in optimising drug choice and dose for specific population groups. Much of her research is focused on using phenotype markers to refine and individualise drug dosage to reduce adverse events and maximise efficacy. She was the inaugural member and then Chair of the IATDMCT Oncology group, previous sub-Editor for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Internal Medicine Journal (clinical pharmacology), current editor of Pharmacology Research and Perspectives, and President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

Dr. Umberto Villani earned his MSc in Bioengineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 2018. He then worked on the biophysical modelling of magnetic resonance imaging techniques, obtaining a PhD in biomedical imaging applied to Neuroscience in 2022. Until 2024, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Translational Pharmacology at the National Research Council in Rome, where he contributed to the development of quantitative methods to evaluate the efficacy of novel drugs and drug combinations against tuberculosis. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in Clinical Pharmacology at UCL’s School of Pharmacy, within the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Group, where his work centres on applying Modelling & Simulation techniques to accelerate the approval of new medicines for paediatric rare diseases.

Prof Della Pasqua has more than twenty-year experience in clinical drug development. He acts as Chair Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University College London, UK. His research focuses primarily on dose optimisation and identification of markers of treatment response, an activity which is undertaken in close collaboration with the Division of Medicine and the Translational Research Office. In addition, Prof Della Pasqua is an Executive Director at GSK R&D, where he provides clinical pharmacology expertise across therapeutic areas in life-cycle management. Since 2020, he holds a position as Associate Fellow at the National Research Council, where he coordinates the integration of in silico models describing antibacterial activity of antibiotic drugs with the underlying immune response. Recently, he was appointed as a Senior Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Director of EPTRI, the European Paediatric Translational Research Infrastructure Network. His academic records in clinical drug development are highlighted by his contribution to more than 200 publications in international journals.

Geert Jan Groeneveld (1971) is the Chief Executive Officer of CHDR. In addition to serving on CHDR’s board, he is a professor of Clinical Neuropharmacology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), and also works as a neurologist in the pain outpatient clinic of the Department of Anaesthesiology at the LUMC, where he sees patients with neurological causes of chronic pain. Groeneveld trained as a neurologist at the University Medical Center Utrecht, where he also obtained his PhD on the subject of new pharmacotherapeutic treatment strategies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. From 2007 to 2009 he worked at the biotechnology company Genzyme. From 2009 to 2017, he served as Research Director at CHDR and was responsible for research in the areas of neurology and pain. While working as a Research Director at CHDR, Groeneveld also held a position as staff member in the Department of Neurology at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. Groeneveld’s primary scientific interest lies in early-phase drug development for the treatment of neurological diseases and pain. He has published over 150 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and is actively involved in the training of PhD students at CHDR. In addition, he is a board-certified clinical pharmacologist and serves on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Clinical and Translational Science and Frontiers in Pain Research.

Dr Kaye Robertson is a Senior Medical Officer at the Therapeutic Goods Administration with over 15 years’ experience in the regulation of therapeutic goods.

Dr. Persidis is President and co-founder of Biovista. He has also served as Senior Vice President at Upstate/Serologicals, Managing Director and President of RHeoGene, and Assistant Director-Medical School Technology Transfer Program – and Assistant Professor (Adjunct) at the Entrepreneurial Center of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (1993-1997). Dr. Persidis is also a co-founder of Cellzome, in Heidelberg, Germany, and participated in the founding of Anadys, San Diego, CA. Dr. Persidis is a recipient of the Honeywell European Futurist Award (1986) and has published extensively on bio-business subjects. In 1997-2000 he authored the monthly “Industry Trends” column for the journal Nature Biotechnology. He has published more than 80 papers and book chapters, has lectured at Wharton, the Columbia Business School, George Washington University and the University of Auckland Business School, and is a frequent speaker at major international meetings. He also serves as an expert evaluator for the European Union and has served on the Business Development Committee of BIO. Dr. Persidis holds a First Class B.Sc. Degree in biological chemistry from Essex University, U.K. (1983-1986), and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, U.K. (1986-1989), where he was also U.K. varsity ballroom dancing champion.