PHASAGE
PhasAGE – Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders
scientific advisory board

Julie Greenfield
Head of Research
Dr Julie Greenfield is the Head of Research for Ataxia UK, a medical research charity and patient support organisation. She has been working for Ataxia UK since 2001 and in this time has gained substantial knowledge of research in the ataxia field as well as the issues being faced by people with ataxia. At Ataxia UK Julie is responsible for managing the research programme, funding grants, promoting and facilitating research on ataxia and organising International Ataxia Conferences in partnership with other ataxia Advocacy Groups. Julie is one of the patient group representatives on the Steering Committee of Ataxia Global Initiative which aims to facilitate trial readiness in the ataxias and on a partner in a number of European research networks.
Julie has a background in scientific research in the biological sciences, having completed a PhD at the University of Bristol and a three-year postdoctoral research position at the University of Manchester.

Sheena Radford
Astbury Professor of Biophysics and Royal Society Professor
Professor Sheena Radford, OBE, FRS, FMedSci, MAE, of the University of Leeds, leads a laboratory with 30 members, working on fundamental structural molecular biology, mainly on the folding and assembly of amyloid proteins and bacterial outer membrane proteins. She has published over 300 papers and given over 400 invited lectures across the world, and supervised more than 80 PhD students and 60 postdoctoral research fellows in her career to date. She is currently Astbury Professor of Biophysics, and Royal Society Research Professor. She has recently completed nine years as the Director of the highly successful interdisciplinary Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at Leeds.

Anke Caßing
Principal
Anke is Principal in the life sciences team of one of Europe’s most active early stage investment firms, the HTGF. She has many years of experience in business development, strategic marketing in medical technology, biotechnology and in pharmaceutics. She holds a doctorate in biology and studied economics. Before joining the investment team at the HTGF, she developed the product portfolios of international companies ensuring their future growth.
Ethics advisory committee

Susana Magalhães
Head of the Unit for Responsible Conduct in Research
Susana Teixeira Magalhães is the Head of the Unit for responsible Conduct in Research at Institute of Research and Innovation in Health – i3S, University of Porto; PhD in Bioethics by Portuguese Catholic University and a researcher in the areas of Narrative Medicine and Research Ethics/Integrity. Her previous research activity at the Institute of Bioethics -- Portuguese Catholic University (IB-UCP) included writing scripts for a series of documentaries on Science, Ethics and Society. She has written several articles on Bioethics and Narrative Medicine and she has been coordinating a Group of Study and Reflection on Narrative Medicine (Grupo de Estudos e Reflexão em Medicina Narrativa -- GERMEN): https://www.facebook.com/GermenMedicinaNarrativa/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3440-4244

Josep Santaló Pedro
Full Professor
Reproductive Specialist and Full Professor of Cell Biology, having developed his
teaching task at the Faculty of Biosciences since 1985. He is involved in the PhD
program in Cell Biology, in the Official Master's Degree in Cytogenetics and Biology of
Reproduction, in the Master Laboratory Animal Science and Animal Welfare both of the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in the Master of Bioethics of the Universitat de
Barcelona, and is Coordinator of the Master of Biology of Reproduction and Human
Assisted Reproduction Techniques jointly organized by the Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona and the Institut Universitari Dexeus.
He has developed the task of Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Sciences (1995-1999) and
Vice-Rector of Research of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2002-2005).
He has been responsible for different research projects on the genetic characterization
and freezing of preimplantation embryos and induction of oocyte maturation in vitro. He
has participated in several projects on the influence of in vitro fertilization on the genetic
characteristics of embryos and on programs to obtain transgenic animals. He is a
member of the GIEPH (Research Group on Human Preimplantation Embryos), a
research group that obtained the first case of sex selection by pre-implantation diagnosis
in the Spanish state (the third reported worldwide). He is currently working on the study
of genetic reprogramming after nuclear transfer and on new embryonic stem cell (ESC)
derivation strategies. He is the author of 121 articles in scientific journals, 70 of them
indexed, 27 chapters of books and 13 documents in Bioethics. He has participated in 27
research projects, 12 of which as Principal Investigator.
He has been Chairman of the Ethics Committee on Animal and Human Research (2007-
2016) being still an ordinary member and of the Biosafety Committee (2007-2016) of the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, member of the Executive Commitee of the
Observatory of Bioethics and Law the Universitat de Barcelona (from 2017), of the
Working Group for the study and ethical reflection on biomedical research of the
Bioethics Committee of Catalonia of the Department of Health of the Generalitat de
Catalunya, the Hinxton Group: An International Consortium on Stem Cells, Ethics and
Law and of ARRIGE (Association for Responsible Research and Innovation of Genome
Editing) (from 2018).
He has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the ESHRE (European Society of
Human Reproduction and Embryology) (1992-1994 and 2000-2002) and of the
Steering Committee of the PGD Consortium of ESHRE's Special Interest Group on
Reproductive Genetics. He is a founding member of ASEBIR (Association for the Study
of the Biology of Reproduction), of which he was Vice-President (1993-1995) and of
which he is been Treasurer (2013-2017). He has been or currently is member of other
scientific societies such as the International Society for Stem Cell Research, Catalan
Society of Biology, the Spanish Society of Fertility and the British Society for the Study
of Fertility.

René Custers
Regulatory & Responsible Research manager
René Custers is the regulatory & responsible research manager at VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology). He has more than 25 years of experience in regulatory affairs, biosafety, and the societal and ethical aspects of modern biotechnology. He is an expert in the legislation and safety of GMOs and genome edited organisms and has been very active in the European debate on the regulatory status of genome edited organisms. At VIB he coordinates the institutes’ policies on regulatory compliance, (bio)safety, ethics and integrity. He is also involved in science communication activities to a wider audience. He is a member of the Belgian Biosafety Advisory Council, and member of the board of EU-SAGE (European Sustainable Agriculture through Genome Editing).