ADA 2025

Burcak Yesildag obtained her master’s degree in Biochemistry and her PhD degree in Translational Biomedicine from ETH Zurich, where she specialized in pancreatic islet biology. In 2015, Dr. Yesildag joined the InSphero team to establish the company as a strong contender in the field of diabetes research. Her team is facilitating the adoption of InSphero’s innovative platforms, based on primary or stem-cell derived human cells, by a broad scientific community around the world, aiming to support translation of new discoveries into much needed therapeutic interventions.

Sayro Jawurek earned his master’s degree in Immunology at ETH Zurich and is currently pursuing his PhD at InSphero. His research is part of a Breakthrough T1D-funded project, conducted under the joint supervision of Dr. Burcak Yesildag (InSphero) and Prof. Decio L. Eizirik, MD (Université Libre de Bruxelles). His work focuses on elucidating the interplay between HLA-ABC and PD-L1 in Type 1 diabetes, aiming to uncover novel therapeutic strategies and contribute valuable insights to the broader scientific community.

Arumugham (Ragoo) Raghunathan earned his Ph.D. in Animal Sciences from the University of Hyderabad, with research on DNA-binding proteins in the rat brain. He pursued postdoctoral work at Wesleyan and Yale, later co-inventing Whole Genome Amplification (WGA) technology at Molecular Staging Inc., a key innovation in Next-Generation Sequencing, now commercialized by Qiagen. Ragoo transitioned smoothly from academia to industry, holding leadership roles in business development and technology at Sigma Aldrich, Horizon Discovery, and Metabolon Inc. He is currently Senior Director at InSphero, driving revenue growth across the Eastern U.S.

Sue is an experienced scientist with over 20 years of in vitro research experience. Sue holds a PhD in Pharmacology/Toxicology from the University of Arizona. She has dedicated the majority of her career to helping scientists achieve their research goals with human cell-based models.