Speakers

George D. Yancopoulos is a co-Founder, President, co-Chairman of the board, and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. As one of the co-founders of the company, serving as lead inventor and developer of Regeneron’s medicines, Yancopoulos has contributed to making Regeneron one of the leaders in biotechnology, developing numerous Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs and research products, almost all developed in the company’s laboratories. During his career, Yancopoulos has been among the most highly cited scientists in the world, with significant publications in the fields of cloning, the biology of various growth factors, and other discoveries that have contributed to the development of Regeneron’s medicines and technologies. He earned his M.D. from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Mirek Dušek is the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum responsible for global programming and the Head of Europe and Eurasia, plays a pivotal role in shaping the Forum’s strategic vision and organizing its major events, including the prestigious Annual Meeting in Davos. He previously gained significant experience in public diplomacy, working at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and as the Director of the American Center at the U.S. Embassy in Prague. His academic qualifications include an MA in International Studies from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and a BA in Political Science from Charles University in Prague.

Ivana Živković is the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (RBEC) since 2022. Previously, she served as the Director-General for Economic Affairs and Development Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia. She was engaged in various positions related to development, regional cooperation, trade, and economic diplomacy, and had a leading role in setting up the framework for international development cooperation in Croatia. She holds a master’s degree in International Economics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Zagreb.

Christopher A. Voigt is the Head of the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also holds the title of Daniel I.C. Wang Professor. Voigt is a leading figure in the emerging field of synthetic biology, serving as co-director of the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT and co-founder of the MIT-Broad Foundry. Prof. Voigt obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the California Institute of Technology. He continued his postdoctoral research in Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His academic career commenced at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California-San Francisco. Voigt joined the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT as Associate Professor in 2011.

Dr Jelena Begović is the Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia. Minister Begović, as the Director of the Institute for Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering in Belgrade and Scientific Advisor at the Institute since 1998, has made significant contributions to molecular genetics and biotechnology with over 60 scientific publications. She has represented Serbia on the Board of Governors of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology since 2011, securing substantial resources for scientific projects. She also played a key role in establishing Serbia’s national genomic data bank and advancing biomedicine and biotechnology development through the BIO4 campus project. She graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Belgrade, where she also completed her master’s degree and defended her doctoral dissertation in the field of molecular genetics.