MxW Connect - London 2026

Dr Madeline Lancaster is a Group Leader in the Cell Biology Division of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, part of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. Madeline studied biochemistry at Occidental College, Los Angeles, USA, before completing a PhD in 2010 in biomedical sciences at the University of California, San Diego, USA. She then joined the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) in Vienna, Austria as a postdoctoral researcher in the Knoblich lab where she developed the first brain organoids, or cerebral organoids, before joining the LMB in 2015.

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Professor Selina Wray is a Professor of Molecular Neuroscience in the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her work focussing on understanding the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia using patient-derived stem cell models. Selina received her degree in Biochemistry and Biological Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in 2004 and was awarded her PhD in 2008 from Kings College London. She joined UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in 2009 as a postdoc with Professor John Hardy, supported by Alzheimer’s Research UK Junior and Senior fellowships, before establishing her own group.

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I studied Medicine at the University of Birmingham (1991-97) and continued my general medical training in Oxford. I then spent three years working on the genetic linkage and association of neurological disorders at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. After obtaining my DPhil in 2003, I completed my training in Clinical Neurology at Oxford. I joined the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics in 2007 after being awarded an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship to establish my own research group. I then led IMI StemBANCC - an large public-private partnerhsip funded by the EU to establish iPSC resources for academia and industry across europe.

I now lead IMI IM2PACT which is an amibitious research programme to investigate disease mechanism involving the brain neurovascular unit and find transport mechanisms to get therapeutics into the brain.

My research group aims to develop resources and tools to improve drug discovery by leveraging human data and human iPSC brain models. We work on pain/migraine, Alzheimer's disease and autism/epilepsy.

I am also active clinically and work as a Consultant Neurologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital with an interest in Headache Disorders. I am Director of the Oxford Headache Centre and developed the Oxford Community Headache Service.

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Stefano Pluchino received his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Siena, Italy, and additional training at Cambridge University, UK. ​He is currently university reader in Regenerative Neuroimmunology (2016) and honorary consultant in neurology, within the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge University. Stefano Pluchino has a strong interest in Regenerative Neuroimmunology, and his research over the last 20 years has recalibrated the classical view that cellular grafts only function through structural cell replacement and opened up a new therapeutic avenue by which to use exogenously delivered stem cells, or even stem cell-derived acellular therapies that include extracellular vesicles and exosomes.

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Zoltán Molnár is Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He is known for key contributions to our understanding of how the birth of cortical neurons is regulated, how they migrate, differentiate, generate axons and assemble into circuits, and how those circuits change over time, partly as a result of activity passing through them.

Molnár earned his M.D. at the Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical University, Szeged, Hungary and D.Phil. at the University of Oxford, UK. He also investigated thalamocortical development working at the Institut de Biologie Cellulaire et de Morphologie, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, and learned optical recording techniques to understand early functional thalamocortical interactions at Kyoto Prefectural School of Medicine, Japan.

He was appointed to a University Lecturer position at the Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford associated with an Official Fellowship and Tutorship at St John's College from 2000. He was awarded the title Professor of Developmental Neuroscience in 2007. Molnar has been Elected Member of Academia Europaea (Physiology and Neuroscience); European Neonatal Brain Club; Fellow of the Anatomical Society, Awarded New Fellow of the Year Award for 2018.

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I graduated from medical school at the Georg-August-University Göttingen in Germany with both a medical degree and a research MD (summa cum laude and prize for the best thesis of the year). My MD project with Paul Lingor investigated the role of the autophagic protein ULK1 in axonal degeneration and regeneration. I subsequently completed an MSc in Neuroscience and a DPhil in Clinical Neurosciences at the Oxford Motor Neuron Disease Centre with Kevin Talbot and Martin Turner, focusing on the role of microglia in ALS. During my DPhil I was Clarendon Scholar and held additional scholarships from St John’s College, the MRC, and NIHR. After three years as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Talbot Lab, I am now an independent Research Fellow, funded by an MNDA Lady Edith Wolfson Fellowship. I am also Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, having previously served as Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College.

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