Women’s Health Network – Endometriosis: common yet poorly understood

Medicon Valley Alliance in Collaboration with BII invites you to join this network meeting on Endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a common yet poorly understood condition. Around 10 % of all women in the reproductive age suffer from endometriosis -and yet it takes on average 7,5 years from the onset of symptoms to diagnosis and treatment. Endometriosis suffers from being branded with three labels: It is a women’s disease (overlooked), it is a disease that doesn’t kill you (unimportant) and it is a menstrual problem (taboo).

In this MVA Women’s Health network meeting we take a look at the current practice within treatment of endometriosis, and how the future is shaping up.

Date: Tuesday, 3rd October, 2023
Time: 14:00 – 18:00
Venue: Medicon Valley Alliance, HUB3, Arne Jacobsens Allé 13, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark – Auditorium

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Program

Speakers

	Linda Griffith was trained in Chemical Engineering and is currently a Professor of Biological Engineering MIT, where she also directs the Center for Gynepathology Research. A current focus is improving the tissue engineering approaches for organs-on-chips, especially for complex epithelial tissues like the endometrium, to study diseases like endometriosis, adenomyosis, and abnormal uterine bleeding. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, A MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and has received numerous other awards. Griffith currently serves on the advisory board of the Society for Women’s Health Research and has served on the advisory committee to the director of the National Institutes of Health.
	Dr. Marcel van Duin is the Chief Scientific Officer and Head of External Innovation and Emerging Science at Organon. Marcel was previously Vice President, Head of R&D Alliances for Reproductive Medicine and Maternal Health (RM&MH) and Therapeutic Area Head for Research in RM&MH at Ferring Pharmaceuticals and member of the global drug discovery leadership team. Key scientific focus was on projects for Endometriosis, Infertility and Obstetrical complications such as preterm labor and preeclampsia as well as a strong outreach to external opportunities. Marcel holds a B.S. in biology from Utrecht university and PhD at Erasmus university, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. At present he holds an honorary professorship in Innovation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. He has (co-)authored over 60 scientific publications.
	Ulrik Bak Kirk has worked in the Danish healthcare Sector for 10+ years, ultimately gaining his experience and expertise in digital public health, facilitating public-private-practitioner-patient partnerships, to improve research and innovation across primary care. Since 2021, he has functioned part-time as FEMaLe’s Coordinator and Project Manager at the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University; the ‘Finding Endometriosis using Machine Learning’ (FEMaLe) project will convert multi-omics datasets into a personalised predictive model to improve intervention along the continuum of care for people with endometriosis. Also, he is a part-time PhD Fellow; the goal with his PhD project is to understand why, how, and when video consultations in general practice work under which circumstances.
	Dr Charlotte Edenius is one of the co-founders of Gesynta Pharma, where she is Vice President Clinical R&D. Charlotte has more than 25 years of experience from positions within the life science industry with experience from all phases of drug development as well as business development including successful partnering and licensing. Her experience spans from AstraZeneca to biotech companies including senior management positions as Executive VP R&D at Medivir, Senior VP Research at Orexo, and Chief Scientific Officer at Biolipox. Charlotte holds a PhD from the Karolinska Institutet with a key scientific focus on inflammatory mediators in the arachidonic acid cascade.
	Sophia Åkerblom is an associate professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Lund university and a clinical psychologist at the Department of Pain Rehabilitation, Skåne University Hospital (SUS). Åkerblom’s research focuses on different patient groups such as patients with chronic pain and psychiatric comorbidity, endometriosis, and children with chronic pain. At the moment, she responsible for a larger data collection on chronic pain and psychological functioning in individuals with endometriosis in an ongoing collaboration between the Department of Pain Rehabilitation, SUS and the Team for Endometriosis, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, SUS. Åkerblom has extensive experience in developing digital and conventional treatment programs based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) . Recently, she has also developed a digital treatment program for individuals with endometriosis, which is going to be tested in an upcoming clinical trial.

Deadline for registration is 28th September

The MVA Women’s Health network
Joining the MVA Women’s Health Network is free of charge but is limited to Medicon Valley Alliance members. Non-member organizations and companies are welcome to attend one network event to evaluate the relevance in joining the network. For more information please contact Katrine Brems Olsen kbo@mva.org

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