Gesine Paul-Visse

Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Gesine Paul-Visse is a consultant neurologist and professor of Neurology at Lund University (LU) and Skåne University Hospital, Sweden.  She trained at the Charité in Berlin, UMDS in London and St Andrews University, Scotland. Attracted by Lund as a worldwide pioneering center for neurotransplantation, she joined the lab of Prof. Patrik Brundin supported by an EU Marie Curie postdoc fellowship. Since 2011, she leads a preclinical research group “Translational Neurology” at LU with a focus to understand mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders, in particular how neurovascular changes contribute to neurodegeneration.

Bridging the lab and the clinic, Gesine Paul-Visse is a clinical research fellow in at the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine and also investigator in several clinical trials addressing the neurorestorative effect of growth factors and cell transplantation in Parkinson’s disease. Her vision is to contribute to the development of therapies not only leading to therapeutic improvement but structural regeneration.

Malin Parmar

Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Malin Parmar is a professor in cellular neuroscience at Lund University in Sweden and a New York Stem Cell Foundation – Robertson investigator. Together with her lab she has shown in a series of high-profile publications how human fibroblasts can be converted into neurons, how glial cells can be reprogrammed into neurons in vivo, and how functional dopamine neurons can be generated from human embryonic stem cells.

Professor Parmar is the recipient of an ERC starting grant and an ERC Consolidator grant. Her research has a strong translational focus, she leads the European effort STEM-PD, designed to bring stem cell-derived dopamine neurons to clinical trials, and she collaborates within European and International networks as well as Industry partners to develop new, cell-based therapies for Brain Repair with focus on Parkinson’s Disease.