Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Charles O´Neill, MD

Dr. O’Neill has had an active basic and clinical research program in vascular calcification for the past 20 years and has published over 45 articles on this subject. As a practicing nephrologist, he has a particular interest in vascular calcification in patients with chronic kidney disease. His research has focused on the role of endogenous inhibitors, particularly pyrophosphate and matrix gla-protein, as well as novel methods to measure progression of medial calcification in humans and to examine early events in its pathophysiology. Current research is aimed at approaches to assess reversibility of calcification in animal models and to slow progression of calcification by altering hemodialysis prescription in clinical trials.

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Prof. Elena Aikawa, MD, PhD

Dr. Elena Aikawa is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Naoki Miwa Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine and the Director of Heart Valve Translational Research Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her Research Program focuses on the development of new therapies to prevent and treat calcific aortic valve stenosis. She was at the forefront in the discovery of inflammation-dependent mechanisms of cardiovascular calcification. Her studies contributed to the discovery of calcifying extracellular vesicles as a precursor of microcalcification. Dr. Aikawa holds editorial positions at the Cardiovascular Research, Circulation Research, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles and Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB). Dr. Aikawa has authored more than 250 articles on cardiovascular pathobiology.

Prof. Frank Rutsch, MD

Frank Rutsch is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics at Münster University Children’s Hospital, Münster, Germany. Dr. Rutsch graduated from Münster University Medical School in 1992 and took part in the pediatric residency program in Dresden University and Dortmund Municipal Hospital, Germany. After spending a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology at the University of California, San Diego, he became the leader of an independent research group at Münster University Children’s Hospital in 2004. Dr. Rutsch’s main research interests are focused on the discovery of the underlying genetic defects and translational aspects in rare pediatric metabolic and autoimmune disorders.

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Dr. Klaus-Dieter Langner

Klaus-D. Langner has an extensive background in life sciences including Biotech, Small Molecules and MedTech. He held various management positions at Behring/Hoechst and Grünenthal GmbH, where he spend eight years in executive positions, three years as Chief Operating Officer of Grünenthal Innovation and five years as Chief Scientific Officer of Grünenthal GmbH, Member of the Executive Board. He started his career at Behringwerke AG in Marburg as a Research Scientist followed by various management positions with increasing responsibility. He studied Molecular Biology and received his PhD from the University of Cologne in 1986.

Prof. Linda Hands, MD

Linda Hands was appointed to current post in 1992 after training in London, Oxford and Chicago. Fellow of Green Templeton College. Served on Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority and on NICE. Director of Oxford Vascular Laboratory for more than 10 years. She currently acts as Clinical Director of Cardiothoracic and Vascular surgery at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. Director of Oxford Telemedicine Institute. She was appointed as a Senior Registrar in General Surgery in Oxford and was awarded a Vascular Fellowship at the University of Chicago. She returned to the NDS as Associate Professor in Surgery and a Fellow of Green College.

Dr. Yuri Martina, MD, MBA

Yuri has more than 20 years of experience and a strong track record in the strategic and operational leadership of all phases of clinical research and development at companies across Europe and the US. Currently, Yuri is SVP and Head of Development at Grünenthal Pharma in Germany. Prior to Grünenthal, Yuri was VP Clinical Operations and Development at Shionogi Europe, Managing Project Director at Parexel, Senior Manager Clinical Operations at Baxter and Director Clinical Development at Adaltis (Merck-Serono). During his career, Yuri has worked actively in different therapeutic areas and he has led teams bringing multiple compounds from pre-clinical phase into clinical studies in both Europe and US, and achieved multiple successful NDA and MAA submissions and approvals.