Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Bernhard Nieswandt, Founder and CSO of Emfret, is a key opinion leader in translational platelet research and the development of antibody-based platelet receptor targeting strategies. He has pioneered the field of thrombo-inflammation, a pathomechanism initially identified in acute ischemic stroke that is now recognized as a central driver of a wide range of cardiovascular, infectious and autoimmune diseases. He has led different research consortia in the cardiovascular field and received numerous awards for his work. Since 2008, Bernhard Nieswandt is Director of the Institute of Experimental Biomedicine at the University of Würzburg. He has authored over 350 scientific publications in renowned and field-leading journals and has filed numerous patents, two of which have been licensed to pharma companies and lead to one approved therapy (anti-FXIIa – garadacimab, CSL) and one currently being under (pre-)clinical development (anti-GPVI; Boehringer Ingelheim).