Thermo Fisher Scientific's events at ESCMID Global 2025

Five sessions available:

Sunday, April 13, 10:00-10:20am, Innovation & Pipeline Theater

Speaker: Agnė Alminaitė, PhD, Product Manager, Molecular Biology, Custom Commercial Supply, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Agne Alminaite has studied Molecular Biology in Vilnius University (Lithuania) and earned her Ph.D. in Virology from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki (Finland). She moved to work as a scientific consultant for the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru. In 2011 Agne joined Thermo Fisher Scientific in Vilnius, Lithuania and after several years in R&D advanced to the role in product management. She is currently the Senior Product Manager for Custom Molecular Biology Products, taking care of the portfolio that includes all the isothermal amplification (Bst, EquiPhi29, RPA) reagents and high-fidelity DNA polymerases (Phusion, Platinum SuperFi). She is also leading a broad spectrum of product customization projects for molecular diagnostic customers worldwide.

Description: The RPA method requires minimal technical expertise and equipment, making it accessible for use in various settings. The robustness and efficiency of the RPA reaction is advantageous not only in the molecular diagnostics market, addressing the growing demand for rapid, reliable, and cost-effective DNA amplification methods, but also as an alternative to PCR in NGS library preparation steps.

Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (RPA) is a novel isothermal DNA amplification technique that operates at a constant low temperature (37-45 °C) with only two specific primers, offering a rapid and sensitive alternative to traditional temperature cycling requiring methods like PCR. High reaction temperatures not only require complex equipment but can damage fragile, scarce, fragmented samples. Therefore, RPA is a cost, energy, and sample saving option for nucleic acid amplification. It can be adapted in resource-limited settings and decentralized diagnostics applications.

We developed RPA reagents compatible with lyophilization. Additionally, the RPA reaction conditions were optimized and the composition of the RPA reaction buffer adapted to ensure consistent and reliable results across diverse sample types. Moreover, we demonstrated the use of RPA reaction as a low temperature NGS library preamplification option.

Sunday, April 13, 11:30-11:50am, Innovation & Pipeline Theater

Speaker: Dr. Arne Materna, Co-CEO and member of Board of Directors, Bio-Me AS

Dr. Arne Materna joined Bio-Me as Chief Technology Officer in 2023 and was appointed Co-CEO on July 1, 2024. In addition to his leadership role, Dr. Materna serves as a member of Bio-Me’s Board of Directors. A recognized expert in the development and commercialization of market-leading assay and BioIT technologies for microbiome and infectious disease applications, Dr. Materna brings a proven track record of impactful contributions. He has held senior management and executive roles at leading life sciences companies, including CLC bio, QIAGEN, CosmosID, and Ares Genetics. Dr. Materna earned his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, and further specialized in microbial genomics and microbiome research as a postdoctoral fellow and leader of an experimental research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Description: Infertility affects one in six couples, with fertility treatments facing daunting 2:1 odds of failure versus success. Emerging research highlights the critical role of vaginal microbiome health in reproductive outcomes. Dysbiosis and other microbiological conditions of the female genitourinary system have been strongly linked to poor fertility outcomes. However, routine infertility care is hindered by the lack of standardized tools for microbiome characterization. Current standard of care tests are not suitable for microbiome profiling, and common approaches for microbiome analysis, such as sequencing, face significant technical limitations when applied to vaginal specimens.

This presentation reviews key studies connecting vaginal microbiome health to fertility outcomes and examines the technical barriers to vaginal microbiome analysis. It introduces PMP™, a precision microbiome profiling method utilizing highly parallelized single-plex quantitative PCR, and discusses its potential for routine use in infertility care, including applications in blended care models.

Monday, April 14, 12:15pm, Booth #B54

Speaker: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Daniela Schmid, MSc, Head of the Department of Infection Diagnostics and Infection Epidemiology at the Medical University of Vienna

Dr. Schmid has been the Head of the Department of Infection Diagnostics and Infection Epidemiology, formerly the Department of Infection Immunology, since October 2022. Prior to her current position, she was head of the Institute for Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Agency for Health and Food Safety, Austria. In her current position, she is responsible for strengthening the Reference Centre for Lyme Disease/other tick-borne diseases and the Reference Centre for Chlamydial Infections in the area of laboratory diagnostics and epidemiological surveillance, in addition to expanding the existing clinical, serological and molecular bacterial infectious disease diagnostics. Her research focus is on infectious epidemiological questions related to tick-borne bacterial infectious diseases (Lyme disease, tularemia, etc.), chlamydial infections and bacterial vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, especially Bordetella pertussis. She holds an MSc in Infectious Disease Control from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London). In 2015, she was awarded a Habilitation (Priv. Doz.) from the MUW.

Monday, April 14, 12:35pm, Booth #B54

Speaker: Donna Simeoni, MSc, Head of Molecular Infection Diagnostics at the Department of Infection Diagnostics and Infection Epidemiology at the Medical University of Vienna

Donna has always been extremely interested in infectiology research and the impact it has on human and animal health. With a strong background in microbiology and molecular biology, she focuses on analyzing bacterial strains to understand their transmission, evolution, and resistance patterns. She is currently working as a specialist in the molecular typing of bacterial pathogens at the Department for Infection Diagnostics and Infection Epidemiology with a focus on Chlamydia trachomatis and Bordetella pertussis species. Her expertise contributes to the detection and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks, which aids in improving public health responses.

Monday, April 14 at 13:00pm, Booth #B54

Speaker: Univ.-Ass. Gabriela Eder, MSc, TU Wien

Gabriela Eder studied biomedicine and biotechnology for her bachelor's degree before completing her master's degree in molecular biology, again specializing in biomedicine. After completing her studies, she wanted to deepen her knowledge in the field of environmental science and started her doctorate at TU Wien in 2022. Since then, she has been conducting research in the “Molecular microbiology in sanitary engineering” group led by Julia Vierheilig. The group is investigating microbial communities and processes in wastewater (treatment) and surface water bodies using innovative molecular biological methods. One main focus is on health-relevant topics, such as wastewater surveillance of diverse pathogens and antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment. As part of her doctorate, Gabriela is primarily working on wastewater surveillance of respiratory viruses

Description: Wastewater serves as a mirror of society, offering valuable insights into a wide range of parameters. Molecular biology leverages this potential by regular analysis of wastewater samples to monitor the infection dynamics of various pathogens. In Vienna, respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and RSV have been an integral part of wastewater monitoring for several seasons. Beyond viruses, antibiotic resistance genes of bacteria are of particular interest, as their spread is associated with a major public health threat. In this presentation, the above-mentioned possibilities of molecular biological wastewater monitoring, which are carried out at TU Wien, will be highlighted, and it will be discussed how quantitative analysis of different targets using dPCR can support public health efforts by providing precise and reliable data for infection surveillance and antimicrobial resistance tracking.

For more information on our scientific posters and featured solutions at ESCMID 2025, visit thermofisher.com/escmid2025

Host or Publisher Thermo Fisher Scientific