Keynote Speakers 2024

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Dr. Sarah Spiegel is a Professor and Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. She received her BS in Chemistry and Biology in 1974 from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, her PhD in Biochemistry in 1983 from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. She did postdoctoral work at NIH. Her early research focused on the role of ganglioside GM1 in cell signaling. After joining the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical School, her focus shifted to the roles of the bioactive sphingolipid metabolite, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), whose functions as a pleiotropic signaling lipid were discovered in her lab and opened a new area of research focused on this bioactive sphingolipid metabolite. As a result of her work, it is now recognized that S1P regulates numerous biological processes and is critical for health and diseases. Her work paved the way for the discovery of FTY720/fingolimod, used for treatment of multiple sclerosis. In 2002, she became Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the Virginia Commonwealth School of Medicine. In 2007, she assumed the Mann T. and Sara D. Lowry Chair in Oncology at the Massey Cancer Center, where she co-directed the Cancer Cell Signaling Program. She has received many awards for her work, including VCU Distinguished Scholarship Award, the Women in Science, Dentistry, and Medicine (WISDM) Professional Achievement Award (2007), the Virginia Outstanding Scientist of the Year (2008), the Ernst and Berta Scharrer Medal from Goethe University (2008), the ASBMB Avanti Award in Lipids (2009), NIH Merit Award (2003), election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), Sackler Lectureship at Tel Aviv University, Israel (2014), Journal of Lipid Research Special Lectureship (2015), Distinguished Mentor Award (2018), Eicosanoid Research Foundation’s Outstanding Achievement Award (2019), Selected as a Fellow of the ASBMB (2021), Ranked No. 148 in the global ranking of women scientists (2022) and has been a keynote speaker at numerous national and international meetings.

For more information: https://medschool.vcu.edu/about/portfolio/details/sspiegel/

Fred Maxfield is the Vladimir Horowitz and Wanda Toscanini Horowitz Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine. He received a PhD in Chemistry from Cornell University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. Before coming to Weill Cornell, he was a Professor at NYU School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center. Fred has developed and used quantitative fluorescence microscopy methods to elucidate cellular processes. Key early contributions include discovery of endosome acidification; characterization of the endocytic recycling compartment; and providing a morphological and kinetic map of endocytic trafficking. More recently his laboratory has focused on various aspects of lipid trafficking in cells. They have described a novel mechanism, called digestive exophagy, that phagocytes use to digest particles that are too large to be phagocytosed. His laboratory has described digestive exophagy of large aggregates of lipoproteins by macrophages in the vessel wall that leads to macrophage foam cell formation – a key component of atherosclerosis. They have also shown that macrophages use digestive exophagy to remove dead adipocytes, which are much larger than the macrophages. His laboratory has also explored mechanisms of intracellular transport of cholesterol.

For more information: https://www.maxfieldlab.org