LECTURE

FRANCISCO JAVIER DIEZ VEGA, PhD

Francisco Javier Díez Vegas is Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNED, in Madrid. He holds a Master’s degree in Theoretical Physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. In his doctoral thesis he built an expert system for echocardiography, the first application of AI to cardiology in Spain; this work was awarded the Fundesco Prize for Doctoral Theses in 1994, publicly presented by the Minister of Education and Science. The research group he coordinates has participated in several national and international projects aimed at building diagnostic and decision-support systems in various fields: oncology, liver diseases, gynaecology, ophthalmology, audiology… It has also developed an open-source software, OpenMarkov, which has been used in more than 30 countries. Their cost-effectiveness analysis of bilateral cochlear implantation in Spain helped convince the Ministry of Health that children with severe hearing loss—like his son—should receive two implants instead of just one. Currently the main focus of their research is to build AI applications for countries lacking cardiologists and radiologists, one of them for the detection of rheumatic heart disease with echocardiography.

ROUNDTABLE

VICTOR MAOJO, PhD

Prof. Victor Maojo, MD, PhD is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the director of the Biomedical Informatics Group (GIB) at UPM. He holds a doctorate in computer science and medicine, has been a visiting professor and consultant at Georgia Tech, and a Research Fellow in the Medical Informatics Program at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology. He has authored over 220 publications, primarily in the field of Biomedical Informatics (mainly Artificial Intelligence in Medicine). He has served on the Scientific Committee of more than 30 national and international conferences and on the boards of several international journals. Currently, he serves on the Scientific Committees of the Spanish Society of Health Informatics (SEIS), Gadea Foundation, Bamberg Foundation, and the Research Institute of the Hospital Clínico San Carlos. In 2019, he received the National Award from the Spanish Society of Health Informatics. In 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), the Academy of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). In 2017, he became a Founding Member of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), the Academy of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), and in 2022, he became a Corresponding Academician of the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain (RANME). He has directed more than 30 national and international projects, with both public and private funding.

FÁTIMA SANCHEZ COBO, PhD

Dr. Fátima Sánchez Cabo graduated in Mathematics from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2000. From there she moved to the University of Manchester where she obtained a BBSRC scholarship to develop her doctoral work in statistical analysis and mathematical modeling of microarray data. In 2005 she joined the Institute of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Graz University of Technology, Austria, where she developed her work first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as an associate professor. Since 2008 she has been working at CNIC, leading the Bioinformatics Unit since 2017. Dr. Sánchez-Cabo has published more than 75 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is particularly interested in the development of methods and tools that allow a better understanding of biological systems in the context of cardiovascular diseases. She also has a strong commitment to training researchers in areas related to bioinformatics. Since 2021 she is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

ULISES CORTÉS, PhD

Dr. Ulises Cortés obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1984 and is recognised worldwide in the field of environmental decision support systems (EDSS). In this field, in addition to developing theoretical concepts, he has designed and implemented a tool with real application that seeks social benefit in fields such as the environment or assistive technologies. He currently carries out his research activity at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center as head of a group focused on artificial intelligence. Throughout his career, Ulises Cortés has participated in more than fifty projects, half of them with international funding, and has published seventy articles in scientific journals, as well as five books, with a total of 150 communications at conferences.

WORKSHOPS

Biocomunicación: Si tu cuerpo dice ¡VAMOS! tu mente dice ¡Voy!

RAFA CORDÓN

Rafa Cordón is currently an executive consultant and an accomplished leader with extensive experience managing Business Units and multidisciplinary teams in specialized Top BioPharma. Building innovative business models in executive cross collaboration. Member of local and international boards in Top BioPharma. For 25 years he has developed his professional career managing the areas of neurology, endocrinology and cardiovascular risk in biopharmaceutical companies such as Bayer or Merck. Expert with strong strategic vision and teamwork skills, looking for improving patient lives and human relations.

Machine learning in fetal medicine

FÀTIMA CRISPI

Fàtima Crispi is scientific coordinator of BCNatal-FMRC and coordinator of the fetal programming line. With a degree (2000) in Medicine and Surgery from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a PhD (2009) in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona, she also has a specialisation (2005) in Gynaecology/Obstetrics and a postgraduate degree (2010) in Research Methodology, both from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During the years 2007-2010 she completed a sub-specialisation in fetal cardiology including two rotations in prestigious foreign centres (Harris Birthright Center for Fetal Medicine and St George’s Hospital, London). She is currently a senior specialist in the Fetal Cardiology Unit at BCNatal. She is an IDIBAPS accredited researcher, associate professor at the University of Barcelona and a member of the Centre for Biomedical Research Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER). Academic editor of the journals PlOsONE and Scientific Reports. Author of more than 150 scientific articles in leading international journals (h-index 36), she is currently an international reference researcher in the field of cardiology and foetal programming.

IA en imagen cardíaca

AMPARO MARTINEZ

Ilustración y diseño para comunicar ciencia

MIKEL RODRIGUEZ

Scientist and Information Designer. He graduated in Marine and Environmental Sciences and specializes in marine resources. On the creative side, he obtained a postgraduate degree in scientific illustration and a master’s degree in infographics and data visualization. Currently, he works as a freelancer on his project, Mikel Graphicscience, creating everything from infographics to innovative interactive web pages. He has worked for science communication agencies (Scienseed), popular science magazines, international institutions (UNESCO), research centers (ICM-CSIC), universities, museums, and even commercial brands.

Gastronomía científica, una nueva disciplina

PERE CASTELLS

Pere Castells is a graduated in Chemical Sciences, specialising in Organics, from the Central University of Barcelona. In 1980 he began his career as a teacher at the Molí de la Vila de Capellades Institute, where he held the post of director from 1991 to 2000. During the years he has been teaching, he has directed research projects, many of which have been recognised with CIRIT awards. He has participated in and given training courses in the field of science and has also been a member of research groups in European educational projects. He is the coordinator and author of high school chemistry textbooks. In 2003 he began to collaborate with the Bullitaller research team. In 2004 he became the head of the Gastronomic and Scientific Research Department of the Alicia Foundation. In 2006 he published the book “Léxico científico-gastronómico” (already translated into five languages), in which he has actively collaborated in the writing. His research has focused on the theme of textures, the introduction of technology in the kitchen and the dissemination of science related to cooking. In recent years, his actions in the field of science and cooking have been aimed at creating a new work stream between scientists and chefs to jointly advance gastronomic and scientific research.

How to become an editor?

FRANCESCA LA ROSA, PhD

Dra. Francesca La Rosa is an associate Editor at Nature Communications- Freelance Medical Writer at HPS. After concluding my Bachelor studies in Biology And Master studies in Molecular biology and Genetics. I performed over two years of internship in the Molecular Cardiology laboratory at ICS Maugery hospital. Upon graduating magna cum laude I enrolled into the PhD course of Genetics, Molecular and Cellular biology. I am currently concluding my PhD investigation at the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Centre. Since the April 2022 I have been working as a freelance medical writer for an Italian publishing company and since May 2023 I have been working as an Associate Editor at Nature Communications in the Metabolism and Medicine field.

Cómo hacer una tesis y no morir en el intento

JUAN CARLOS RUÍZ, PhD

Juan Carlos Ruiz is graduated in Psychology from the University of Seville (2009-2013), Master in Advanced Studies in Brain and Behavior (2014-2016), Doctor in Psychology from the University of Seville (2019). He has worked at the Psychiatry and Neuroscience Center of the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center in Paris, under the direction of the prestigious psychiatrist Marie-Odile Krebs, in collaboration with Descartes University and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) of Paris. He is currently a professor at the University of Huelva and at UNIR, a researcher on the project ‘Associative Modulation of Dopaminergic Activity’ at the Animal Behavior and Neuroscience Laboratory of the Faculty of Psychology (US), in collaboration with the Biomedicine Institute of Seville (IBiS) and the Psychiatry area of ​​the Virgen del Rocío Hospital. He is founder and co-director of the Psicopar clinic.

MARÍA AUXILIADORA MENA PEINADO, PhD

Improving your scientific writing

DAVID DEL ALAMO, PhD

David del Álamo received his Ph.D. in developmental biology at the Severo Ochoa Center for Molecular Biology in Madrid and postdoctoral training at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He was a scientific editor for The EMBO Journal and EMBO reports, managing editor of Review Commons, and the head of the EMBO Fellowship Programme. David obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in 2017. More recently, he has also collaborated with the Journal of Cell Biology and Life Science Alliance as a freelance editor.

LECTURE

GUGLIELMO FOFFAMI, PhD

Guglielmo Foffani, Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Drexel University (USA 2004), Scientific Coordinator of the Comprehensive Center for Neuroscience HM CINAC, and researcher at the National Hospital for Paraplegics in Toledo. He has published over 100 scientific articles, holds several patents in exploitation, and is a co-founder of two companies in the field of brain stimulation. In 2009, he received the 1st Olympus Young Investigator Award from the Spanish Society of Neuroscience (SENC), of which he was a board member from 2017 to 2021. He is also a pianist for the Ayahuasca Tango group (ayahuascatango.bandcamp.com) and the La Casa del Pianista project (www.facebook.com/lacasadelpianista).

CLOSING LECTURE

ÓSCAR CÁMARA, PhD

Óscar Cámara obtained his Degree in Telecommunications Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, in Barcelona, in 1999. He completed his Master and PhD in Image Processing in the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. From 2004 to 2007, he was a postdoctoral researcher, first at King’s College London and then at University College London. In July 2007, he joined the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) as Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral researcher. In October 2011, he founded a new research group at UPF, Physense, currently composed of 25 members. From 2012, he was associate professor at UPF, becoming full professor in 2020. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) during the 2018-19 academic year. PhySense is one of the co-founder groups of the research unit BCN-MedTech. PhySense research is focused on data processing and modelling methods in a wide variety of medical fields, with emphasis on the clinical translation of the developed techniques. This research work has led to > 80 publications in journals, 2 patents and > 180 contributions to national and international conferences in both methodological and clinical fields. He has been PI of consecutive national projects from 2012 and participating in European ones from 2009. He has also obtained significant funding from technology transfer projects on microwave technologies, leading to the creation of the spin-off Miwendo Solutions. He has been actively contributing to the development of Open-Source tools, and promoting science for children and women in engineering. He was the coordinator of the Biomedical Engineering degree at UPF from its start in 2011 to 2017 and creator of the Computational BME MsC in 2016. He has also supervised > 120 undergraduate and MSc thesis and obtained teaching innovation awards. Since December 2021, he is director of the Engineering School at Universitat Pompeu Fabra.