Dr. Stefaan W Verbruggen conducted his Ph.D. research in bone cell mechanobiology at the Biomechanics Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway, followed by postdoctoral research on how fetal movements affect joint development in the Developmental Biomechanics Lab at Imperial College London. He was then awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellowship at Queen Mary University of London. Now, Dr. Verbruggen is a Lecturer in Medical Technology at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the mechanobiology of bone cells and developing predictive in vitro models of cancer metastasis. As a Visiting Academic at the INSIGNEO Institute of in silico Medicine, he also builds predictive computational models of the biomechanics of metastatic bone lesions. He is also a member of the U.K. Biomedical Engineering Association, the European Society of Biomechanics, the Orthopaedic Research Society, and the European Association for Cancer Research.

Dr. Ciara L Freeman obtained her MD from the National University of Ireland, specialised in haematology at St Bartholomew’s in London, and obtained a master’s degree in Clinical Drug Development from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). She also earned her PhD in immuno-oncology and therapeutics from the Barts Cancer Institute of QMUL. She completed a fellowship in lymphoproliferative disorders and served as Assistant Professor and the Myeloma Lead at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. She is currently affiliated with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. Her clinical interests are focused on the treatment of patients with plasma cell neoplasms using autologous transplant and cellular immunotherapy.

Dr. Fiona E Freeman is an Assistant Professor, Ad Astra Fellow, and Conway Fellow, in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD). She conducted her PhD research on Bone Tissue Engineering at University of Galway. Afterward she was awarded two prestigious postdoctoral fellowships: the Government of Ireland IRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship. These fellowships provided her with opportunities to work as a postdoctoral researcher in renowned labs at MIT, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Johns Hopkins University, and Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Freeman leads a multidisciplinary research group investigating the use of innovative biomedical engineering techniques to better understand and develop novel therapeutics to treat damaged and diseased tissue. She is a European Research Council Starter Grant awardee, a funded investigator in the SFI Research Centres Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research (AMBER) and Curam, and a PI within UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Trinity Centre for Bioengineering.