Ascend Advanced Therapies

 

Ahmed Youssef is a senior manager of upstream process development at Ascend. He leads the team responsible for developing safe and effective gene therapies for partners using AAVs. In this role, he draws on more than 12 years of bioprocessing expertise to take AAV gene therapies from the lab to patients by ensuring they can be produced on a large scale with the best possible quality.

Ahmed has a comprehensive background in process development, scale-up, process transfer, and team leadership. He has worked across molecules (mAbs, AAVs, and hormones), including those already in late-stage clinical trials.

 

Sartorius

 

Ivana Petrović Koshmak is head of upstream process development at Sartorius BIA Separations in Slovenia, leading a group that optimizes production of AAV, adenovirus, exosomes, and other vectors. Her team supports internal research and development, as well customer projects, by developing and applying cell-based assays. The team also supports qPCR, dPCR, and ddPCR analytics, while striving to apply orthogonal methodologies whenever possible.

Ivana is a molecular biologist with a background in gene therapy, previously working at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), located in Trieste, Italy. She holds a master’s degree in applied genetics from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and gained her doctoral degree in biomedical science and biotechnology from the University of Ferrara, Italy.