Guest specialists
Dr. Neil Boonham
Team Leader at FERA (The Food and Environment Research Agency), York, United Kingdom (formerly Central Science Laboratory, CSL)
Dr. Neil Boonham is a molecular plant virologist who has been specialising in recent years on the development of novel methods and approaches for the detection of pathogens and the identification of pests. He has a particular interest in the development and deployment of field tests as well as the development of highly parallel laboratory diagnostic techniques, based on microarrays and next generation sequencing. He is also an editor for The Journal of Virological Methods. In addition he has supervised a total of 13 PhD students 5 of which have successfully completed their studies, the remaining students are at various stages in the program. He has many recent publications in the field of plant diagnostics and one patent entitled Purification methods and Kits.
He has managed a number of large R&D projects funded primarily by Defra and the EU. Currently he is a Coordinator of EU 7th framework project Q-DETECT, Virology Work Package leader of EU 7th framework project Q-BOL, Coordinator of EU 6th framework project PortCheck and Project leader of Defra project PH0305: Novel diagnostic techniques for the detection of pests and diseases of statutory concern.
Dr. István Nagy
CEO of SeqOmics Ltd., Hungary (private biotech company).
Dr. István Nagy has a PhD in Molecular Immunology (Univ. of Szeged, Hungary) and a MSc in Molecular Biology (Univ. of Pécs, Hungary). He spent 3 years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC, Strasbourg, France) studying the epigenetic control of cell fate determination before returning to Hungary (BAYGEN Institute, Szeged). His main research topic is the innate immune system of the skin, focusing on the intimate relationship of commensal microorganisms and the host cells. He utilizes the power of next-generation sequencing in order to identify mutations accounting for pathogeneticity and antibiotic resistance occurring in skin commensals.
Apart of his research group, Dr. Nagy is heading the Next-Generation Sequencing Platform of the BAYGEN Institute, which operates with two next-generation sequencing instruments (SOLiD 4 and 5500xl SOLiD System). He is also a co-founder of the privately owned biotechnology company SeqOmics Ltd. which operates, among others, an Ion Torrent PGM instrument.
Dr. Vida Stegel
researcher at Department of molecular diagnostics at Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, national comprehensive cancer center in Slovenia
Dr. Vida Stegel is actively involved in research and development of molecular based detection methods for identification of hereditary neoplasms (cancers) and other hereditary genetic changes for routine medical diagnostics. She has also vast experiences in routine medical diagnostic analyses of polymorphisms with real-time PCR.
Team Leader at FERA (The Food and Environment Research Agency), York, United Kingdom (formerly Central Science Laboratory, CSL)
Dr. Neil Boonham is a molecular plant virologist who has been specialising in recent years on the development of novel methods and approaches for the detection of pathogens and the identification of pests. He has a particular interest in the development and deployment of field tests as well as the development of highly parallel laboratory diagnostic techniques, based on microarrays and next generation sequencing. He is also an editor for The Journal of Virological Methods. In addition he has supervised a total of 13 PhD students 5 of which have successfully completed their studies, the remaining students are at various stages in the program. He has many recent publications in the field of plant diagnostics and one patent entitled Purification methods and Kits.
He has managed a number of large R&D projects funded primarily by Defra and the EU. Currently he is a Coordinator of EU 7th framework project Q-DETECT, Virology Work Package leader of EU 7th framework project Q-BOL, Coordinator of EU 6th framework project PortCheck and Project leader of Defra project PH0305: Novel diagnostic techniques for the detection of pests and diseases of statutory concern.
Dr. István Nagy
CEO of SeqOmics Ltd., Hungary (private biotech company).
Dr. István Nagy has a PhD in Molecular Immunology (Univ. of Szeged, Hungary) and a MSc in Molecular Biology (Univ. of Pécs, Hungary). He spent 3 years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC, Strasbourg, France) studying the epigenetic control of cell fate determination before returning to Hungary (BAYGEN Institute, Szeged). His main research topic is the innate immune system of the skin, focusing on the intimate relationship of commensal microorganisms and the host cells. He utilizes the power of next-generation sequencing in order to identify mutations accounting for pathogeneticity and antibiotic resistance occurring in skin commensals.
Apart of his research group, Dr. Nagy is heading the Next-Generation Sequencing Platform of the BAYGEN Institute, which operates with two next-generation sequencing instruments (SOLiD 4 and 5500xl SOLiD System). He is also a co-founder of the privately owned biotechnology company SeqOmics Ltd. which operates, among others, an Ion Torrent PGM instrument.
Dr. Vida Stegel
researcher at Department of molecular diagnostics at Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, national comprehensive cancer center in Slovenia
Dr. Vida Stegel is actively involved in research and development of molecular based detection methods for identification of hereditary neoplasms (cancers) and other hereditary genetic changes for routine medical diagnostics. She has also vast experiences in routine medical diagnostic analyses of polymorphisms with real-time PCR.