Keynote speakers

Dr. Femke van Wijk is a Professor in Tissue Immunology at the Center for Translational Immunology at the University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her team aims to elucidate peripheral and local T cell responses in health and inflammation and to translate these insights into tools for disease monitoring and therapeutic targeting in chronic inflammatory diseases. She takes a disease- and age-overarching approach to decipher common and specific pathogenic processes underlying different inflammatory conditions. Recently, dr. van Wijk has also been appointed as scientific division manager pediatrics at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital. She is an advocate for a transition in science towards less ego, more inclusivity, greater diversity, and more impact, as reflected in her inaugural lecture of 2023, titled “The Great Reset.” In 2023 she received the Athena Award for outstanding female researchers that act as role models from the Dutch Research Council.

For more information about Femke van Wijk’s research

Prof. Pavel Tolar acquired an MD and a PhD from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, and trained as a postdoctoral scientist at the National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland, USA. Since 2009, Pavel has been running a research lab focused on B cell immunology in London, UK, first based at the National Institute for Medical Research, then at the Francis Crick Institute and finally at University College London. Pavel’s research contributed to understanding how B cells use their B cell receptors to detect foreign antigens and present them to helper T cells. The lab currently investigates how errors in these mechanisms contribute to immune deficiency, allergic reactions, and the development of B-cell lymphomas. Pavel was awarded the EMBO Young Investigator Award in 2013 and became a full professor at UCL in 2021.

For more information about Pavel Tolar’s research

Jenny Mjösberg is a Professor of tissue immunology at the Center for Infectious Medicine (CIM), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden and head of the Clinical Lung and Allergy Research unit at Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Sweden. 

She earned her PhD in reproductive immunology at Linköping University, Sweden, in 2010. During her postdoc period (2010-2012) in the lab of Hergen Spits at the AMC, Amsterdam, she contributed to the discovery of two novel subsets of human innate lymphoid cells (ILCs); ILC2 and ILC1. Since 2013, research in her own lab at Karolinska Institutet is focused on the importance of human ILCs in mucosal homeostasis and inflammation, mainly in the airways and gastrointestinal tract. Importantly, in 2016 the group provided the first transcriptional characterization of human ILCs on the single-cell level. These studies, along with continued transcriptional and epigenetic dissection of ILCs across several human organs have revealed previously unknown heterogeneity and a plethora of characteristics and regulatory mechanisms that control the function of specific human ILC subsets. 

Her group aims at understanding the role of ILCs and T cells in asthma and gastrointestinal disease, including colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. The goal is to discover means to predict response to current drugs as well as to identify targets for novel therapies.

In 2018 she received the EJI Ita Askonas Prize awarded by EFIS, in 2019 the Nordic Anders Jahre Award to young researchers and in 2022 the Göran Gustafsson award in medicine, awarded by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. Her research is supported by the European Research Council, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Hearth and Lung Foundation.

For more information about Jenny Mjösberg’s research

Ondřej Štěpánek is a leading expert in T cell receptor (TCR) signaling and adaptive immunity, with more than 15 years of experience spanning receptor signaling mechanisms, thymic development, and effector and regulatory T cell responses. After completing his PhD at Charles University and the Institute of Molecular Genetics (IMG) in Prague, he conducted postdoctoral research at University Hospital Basel, where he made key contributions to understanding TCR tolerance.

Since founding the Laboratory of Adaptive Immunity at IMG in 2016, Dr. Štěpánek has built an internationally recognized research program focused on how T cells integrate receptor and co-receptor signals to guide fate decisions. His group has uncovered unique functions of co-receptor–bound LCK, identified a novel IL-17 receptor subunit driving autoimmune pathology, and revealed mechanisms underlying T cell self-tolerance and functional diversity. Using diverse animal models, the lab bridges molecular signaling with tumor immunity, autoimmune disease, and thymic development.

Dr. Štěpánek is a recipient of ERC Starting (2019) and Consolidator (2025) Grants, an EMBO Installation Grant, and other major honors. He is an active mentor, educator, and invited speaker, with publications in leading journals including Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, and EMBO Journal.

For more information about Ondřej Štěpánek’s research