Invited Speakers
Assoc. Professor Van Thi Thu Hao
Biography
Associate Professor Van Thi Thu Hao holds a PhD in Molecular Microbiology and works in the School of Science at RMIT University, Australia. She has led research recognised both nationally and internationally, with a focus on identifying pathogenic and beneficial bacteria, characterising and manipulating gut microbiota, and developing intervention strategies—including vaccines for poultry, probiotics, postbiotics, and bacterial antimicrobial compounds—to promote gut and overall health in animals and humans. Her recent research includes significant work on Campylobacter species and strategies to reduce their impact on animal and human health.
Over the past five years, she has secured more than $4 million AUD in research funding and has been a keynote or invited speaker at 15 national and international conferences. She has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications and supervised 27 PhD students.
Professor Yoshio Yamaoka
Biography
Yoshio Yamaoka is Vice President of Oita University and Professor of Environmental and Preventive Medicine at Oita University Faculty of Medicine, Japan. He also holds a professorship in the Department of Medicine (Gastroenterology and Hepatology), Baylor College of Medicine, USA. Dr. Yamaoka received his MD and PhD from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine.
He has served in academic leadership roles including Dean of the Faculty of Medicine (2019–2021) and currently oversees international strategy at Oita University. His research focuses on the mechanisms of gastric carcinogenesis in Helicobacter pylori infection, including the discovery of the virulence factors OipA and DupA, and the use of H. pylori genomes to trace human migration history. He also leads large-scale genomic and epidemiological studies across Asia, Africa, and South America.
Dr. Yamaoka has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers (h-index 81, Scopus), including work in Lancet, Nature, Science, Gastroenterology, and Gut. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Marshall–Warren Award (2023) and four Uehara Awards from the Japanese Society for Helicobacter Research.
Professor Igor Jouline
Biography
Igor Jouline, Ph.D., is the Rod Sharp Endowed Professor in the Department of Microbiology at The Ohio State University. His research centers on the evolution and mechanisms of signal transduction in bacteria. Trained in classical microbial physiology and biochemistry, he later transitioned to computational biology, giving him a unique perspective that integrates both “wet” and “dry” approaches to microbiology.
Jouline received his Ph.D. in microbiology from St. Petersburg State University (Russia) and was a Wellcome Trust Fellow at the University of Oxford (U.K.) and a Distinguished Scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2017 and became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019. He currently serves on the Board of Editors of mBio.
Professor Ichizo Kobayashi
Biography
Ichizo Kobayashi conducts research in Microbial Genomics/Epigenomics emphasising restriction-modification systems and methylomes. He has worked in the molecular biology of DNA homologous recombination.
Current Positions: Visiting Professor, Research Center for Micro-Nano Technology, Hosei University;
Research Fellow, National Institute for Basic Biology
Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences
Career Summary
Nationality: Japan
1950: July 17th. Born in Japan.
1974: Bachelor of Science, Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Japan
1979: Ph.D. from University of Tokyo
1979: Research Associate, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Oregon, USA
1984: Assistant Professor, Medical School, University of Tokyo
1988: Associate Professor, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo
2004-2016: Professor, Department of Medical Genome Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo
Research Achievements Summary
Started scientific career in molecular biology of homologous recombination. Used cell-free virus assembly to detect genetic recombination in vivo and demonstrated that RecA is a recombinase. Revealed roles of DNA double-strand breaks in homologous recombination through genetic analysis of bacteriophage genome maturation site. Proposed and demonstrated the double-strand break repair model for genetic recombination.
Found attack by restriction-modification systems on host bacterial cells (autoimmune phenomenon) and started their study as selfish epigenetic elements. Demonstrated their mobility, involvement in genome rearrangements, multiplication, virus-like life cycle, mutual competition for recognition sequences, mutual incompatibility, and regulation by a small RNA. Found base excision restriction enzymes to extend the concept of restriction-modification systems.
From comparison of H. pylori genomes and methylomes, revealed novel mechanisms of genome evolution, “DNA duplication associated with inversion” and “Movement of sequences between two target recognition domain sites within a gene (Domain Movement)”. Demonstrated that frequent changes in sequence-specificity in restriction-modification systems by these and other processes remodel methylome and hence transcriptome and host-adaptive phenotype. Proposed that epigenomes, rather than genome sequences, are the units of adaptive evolution (epigenetics-driven adaptive evolution model).
Combining experiments and ecological modeling/simulation, demonstrated that “defense against infection through altruistic suicide” can evolve in the presence of spatial structure. Through evolutionary game analysis, found conditions for evolution of the toxin-antitoxin (post-segregational killing, genetic addiction) genes and for persistence of selfish genes.
Kihara Medal from Genetics Society of Japan, 2022
Academic Prize (Basic Research) from Japanese Society for Helicobacter Research, 2017
Professor Thomas Borén
Biography
Prof. Thomas Borén is professor and PI at the Umeå University, Dept. Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics. Thomas started up his research interest and activities in parallel with his studies in dentistry and completed his DDS and PhD in 1985 and 1990, respectively, at the Göteborg University, Sweden. Thomas then spent two years as postdoc at the School of Dentistry in Göteborg, where he got interested in glycobiology, and then went to Washington University in St. Louis for another two-year postdoc period. At WashU, he discovered that H. pylori attach to the stomach mucosa by binding to the ABO/Leb antigens. In 1994, Thomas returned to Sweden and started up as PI, his lab in Umeå at the Dept. Microbiology. There he identified the cognate H. pylori attachment protein, the BabA. and later also the SabA adhesin and its ligand the sialyl-Lewis x/a-antigens. In 2004, Thomas was recruited to his current professorship position at the Dept. Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics. Thomas research interest is focused on the Helicobacter attachment proteins, their role for successful establishment of chronic infection and inflammation, with the goal to apply them as vaccine candidates against H. pylori caused gastric disease and cancer. His research project has published a series of papers in Science, and Cell Host Microbe, in addition to the more specialist journals. He is a member of the Executive Committee of “The International Workshop on Pathogenesis in Helicobacter infections”.
Assoc. Prof. Duc Trong Quach MD, PhD
Biography
Dr. Duc Trong Quach is an associate professor of Gastroenterology and vice chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City (UMCH). He currently serves as a Vice-President of the Vietnam Association of Gastroenterology (VNAGE) and Secretary General of the Vietnam Federation for Digestive Endoscopy (VFDE). He was a research fellow of the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology in 2005 and then obtained the advanced fellowship of the Asia-Pacific Society for Digestive Endoscopy in 2009. He received the Ph.D. degree in Gastroenterology in 2011 at UMCH. He has published more than 150 reviews and original papers in local and international journals. His interests include GERD, functional gastrointestinal disorders, Helicobacter pylori, screening strategies for early gastrointestinal cancers and advance therapeutics endoscopy. He has received several awards including the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 14th Biannual Scientific Congress of Vietnamese Nation-wide Medical and Pharmaceutical Schools in 2008, the Medal of Creativeness from the Vietnamese Central Youth League in 2008, the Young Clinicians Program Award of the World Congress on Gastroenterology in 2009 and the Outstanding Teacher Award, Faculty of Medicine, UMCH in 2020.
Assoc. Professor Li Zhang
Biography
Dr Li Zhang is an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Dr Zhang received her MBBS degree from Fudan University in China and PhD degree from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked as a clinician at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing.
Dr Zhang’s research has been focused on investigating bacterial species that are associated with gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases. Dr Zhang has conducted pioneering research on exploration of the role of Campylobacter species typically found in the human oral cavity in causing inflammation when they colonize the other parts of the human gastrointestinal tract. One such example is Campylobacter concisus, which has been linked to the development of human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her research has led to the discovery of novel bacterial plasmids and their roles in modulating the human mucosal immune system. The second area of focus in Dr Zhang’s research group is on Aeromonas species. Aeromonas species are emerging enteric bacterial pathogens, causing gastrointestinal infections with varied severity from mild self-limiting diseases to dysentery. Dr Zhang’s team recently made a significant discovery, revealing that Aeromonas species are the second most common enteric bacterial pathogens in Australia, with a unique three-peak infection pattern associated with patient age. Her team is currently investigating the sources of infection and examine the Aeromonas pathogenic mechanisms at the species level.
For more information about Dr Li Zhang, please visit https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/associate-professor-li-zhang
Professor Christine Szymanski
Biography
Christine Szymanski first began working with Campylobacter jejuni during her PhD in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She then joined the Enteric Disease Vaccine Program at the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, Maryland for her postdoctoral studies prior to starting her own independent research career first at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada and then back at the University of Alberta. It was in Edmonton where she formed the company, VaxAlta Inc. with a focus on carbohydrate-based vaccines. Christine joined the University of Georgia in 2016 where she continues to: 1) characterize bacterial glycoconjugate pathways, 2) exploit bacteriophage recognition proteins that bind these structures, and 3) understand the protective benefits of host milk oligosaccharides to develop novel therapeutics and vaccines for the prevention of diarrheal diseases and post-infectious neuropathies such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors, recipient of the Peter Gallagher Memorial Glycomics Award from Griffith University, and UGA Distinguished Research Professor.
Dr. Liang Wang
Biography
Dr. Liang Wang is currently a full professor and distinguished medical researcher. He serves as chief scientist and assistant director at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, affiliated with South China University of Technology and Southern Medical University, China. Prof. Wang holds adjunct research fellow positions at the University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia. Holding a PhD in microbiology and bioinformatics, his research centers on advancing the fight against clinically significant microbial pathogens, with a particular emphasis on Helicobacter pylori. Prof. Wang has edited seven books and published over 130 peer-reviewed articles in esteemed journals such as The Lancet Microbe, npj Digital Medicine, and ISME J. Prof. Wang frequently presents at prestigious conferences like EuroCarb (Poland, 2025), ICID (South Africa, 2024), and VAAM (Germany, 2023). He also serves as an editorial board member for multiple international journals, including Frontiers in Microbiology (Outstanding Associate Editor, 2022) and BMC Microbiology (Editor of Distinction Awards, 2025). He is the recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Rising Star Award in measurement science (2025).
Daniel Falush
Biography
Daniel Falush is a statistical geneticist based at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. He develops methods for analyzing bacterial and human diversity and has applied both to Helicobacter pylori, identifying modern and ancestral populations and recently the Hardy ecospecies. This work has shown that H. pylori spread around the world along with humans but also has its own history involving adaptation to diet and the immune system as well as likely occasional super-spreader events.
Professor Jaap Wagenaar
Biography
Jaap Wagenaar was trained as a veterinarian and completed his PhD study at Utrecht University and the USDA-National Animal Diseases Center, Ames, IA, US. He worked at the reference institute of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture in Lelystad, with WHO (Geneva, Switzerland), CDC (Atlanta, US) and USDA (Albany, Ca, US). In 2006 he was appointed as chair of Clinical Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. The main topics of his research are on antimicrobial resistance and on Campylobacter. He is the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Campylobacter and Antimicrobial Resistance from a One Health perspective, and the WOAH-reference laboratory for Campylobacteriosis. He is acting frequently as an expert for WHO, FAO and WOAH and member of several international advisory boards including Fleming Fund, ICARS and the European Partnership on OH-AMR. Jaap is a Diplomate and Founding Member of the European College of Veterinary Microbiology. In March 2023 Jaap received an Honorary Doctorate from Ghent University (Belgium). Jaap was Chair of CHRO2007 (Rotterdam, the Netherlands).
Professor Victoria Korolik
Biography
Prof Korolik is a senior molecular microbiologist at the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University, Australia, and a leader a multidisciplinary group with internationally recognised expertise in campylobacter (and related organisms) biology, pathogenicity, molecular biology, bacterial genetics, prokaryotic signal transduction, two-component regulatory systems and host-bacterial interactions.
Prof Korolik’s 30-year research carrier began when she was awarded a PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Monash University in 1990 and began her first campylobacter project as a Research Fellow at RMIT, Melbourne. After 3 years, she was appointed as a Research Fellow/Lecturer on a 50/50 basis for the following 5 years. In 1998 she joined the School of Griffith University as an academic and then in 2003 as a Research Leader at the Institute for Glycomics as a joint appointment.
Prof Korolik’s group is currently focused on studying the role of bacterial chemotaxis in pathogenicity and bacteria-host interactions, specifically, on deciphering ligand binding specificities of transmembrane chemosensory proteins of Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter fetus and Helicobacter pylori. Recent breakthroughs of the Korolik group are highlighted by the discovery of a novel class of bacterial chemosensors with broad ligand specificities that may be related to sensing of the host molecules, and thus, may play a role in host-bacterial interactions. Her globally recognised reputation in bacterial chemotaxis and chemosensors is evidenced by publications in PNAS, Nature Communications, mBio and Science Signaling. The group is currently developing two new research areas, one focused on biofilm formation and its role in disease transmission for campylobacters and the other involving glycan-binding proteins of Vibrio cholerae.
Professor Markus Gerhard
Biography
Professor Markus Gerhard studied medicine in Heidelberg and Hamburg and earned his MD in 1996. He completed his training in internal medicine at the Klinikum rechts der Isar, where he also obtained board certification. After leading a research group in Internal Medicine at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), he qualified as a postdoctoral lecturer (habilitation) in 2009. In 2010, he was appointed Associate Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at TUM.
He also serves as academic director of the TUM Venture Lab Healthcare, TUM`s biotech incubator.
The research work of Professor Gerhard explores how pathogens interact with the host in gastrointestinal infections. Professor Gerhard’s research group investigates the mechanisms that suppress the immune response of the host to allow the establishment of chronic infection as well as inflammatory factors involved in the development of cancer, in order to leverage this know-how for the development of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies.
Alongside his academic contributions, Prof. Gerhard has co-founded several biotech companies, which have secured multi-million-euro investments and international partnerships to translate discoveries into therapies. As Academic Director of the TUM Venture Lab Healthcare, he has built one of Europe’s most dynamic life science innovation platforms, mentoring over 80 start-up teams across biopharma, medtech, and digital health.
Through his combined roles as scientist, entrepreneur, and innovation ecosystem builder, Prof. Gerhard exemplifies how cutting-edge research can be transformed into impactful solutions for global health challenges.
Prof. Gerhard has published > 120 papers, many in prestigious journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Microbiology, Gastroenterology, GUT etc.
Dr. Beile Gao
Biography
Beile Gao is a principal investigator at South China Sea institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Science. After her undergraduate training in Biological Science from Shandong University in China, she pursued PhD degree in Biochemistry and Biomedical Science from McMaster University, Canada. Then she completed postdoctoral training in Dr. Jorge Galan’s laboratory at Yale University. She joined South China Sea institute of Oceanology in 2014 as a leader of the functional genomics research group. Dr. Gao’s research interests focus on Campylobacter jejuni pathogenesis, flagellar motility, signal transduction and genome evolution. Her group has identified novel regulators ChePQ that specifically regulate chemotaxis gene expression and also a chemotaxis protein CheO that respond to environmental oxygen level in C. jejuni (MM, 2019; PLOS Pathogens, 2022). Recently, she extended her research to the phylum Campylobacterota that include important pathogens/commensals, free-living generalists and deep-sea hydrothermal vent specialists. Based on the “eco-evo” framework of the phylum, her group studied how C. jejuni and related species evolved into important human pathogens from a free-living common ancestor (mBio, 2022, PLOS Genetics, 2022), and how the complex motors evolved in this phylum (PNAS, 2025). Dr. Gao serves as an Editor of the ASM Journal mBio (2025-2028) and Microbiology Spectrum (2021-2027) and FEMS journal Pathogens and Disease (2024-2027).
Assoc Prof. Dao Viet Hang M.D, PhD
Biography
Vice General Secretariat, Vietnam Association of Gastroenterology
Director, Endoscopic Centre, Hanoi Medical University hospital
Lecturer, Internal Medicine Faculty, Hanoi Medical University
Senior Clinical Researcher, Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
President, Global Vietnamese Young Scholars Association
Tel: +84.987.988.075 | Email: hangdao.fsh@gmail.com, daoviethang@hmu.edu.vn
Dr. Dao Viet Hang graduated from Hanoi Medical University in 2011 and got her PhD degree in 2016. She is an experienced gastroenterologist and hepatologist, a clinical researcher and a lecturer at Hanoi Medical University. Her research interests include viral hepatitis, liver cancer treatment, gastrointestinal motility disorders and application of new technologies in medicine. She currently serves as Vice General Secretary of Vietnam Association of Gastroenterology (VNAGE), Committee member of APAGE council, Editor-in-Chief of APDWNews and co-Editor of e-WGN. As an active and enthusiastic scientist, she would like to expand her research network and contribute to the improvement of medical training in gastroenterology and hepatology in Vietnam. She has published more than 150 papers in international and domestic journals and has participated in numerous international and domestic projects. Her ongoing research focuses on digitalization in gastroenterology, Helicobacter pylori-related diseases, and motility disorders.
