Design Your Own Online Scientific Seminar

Dr. Burcak Yesildag is the Head of Islet Solutions Group at InSphero AG. With over 10 years of experience in pancreatic islet biology and diabetes research, she focuses on generating advanced and high-throughput compatible assays and disease models for diabetes drug discovery. Burcak holds a Dr. Sc. degree in Translation Biomedicine from ETHZ (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich). She is available to speak to your team about:

• Novel methods for studying static and dynamic hormone secretion from islet microtissues (30 min)
• Modeling type 1 diabetes cytokine- and immune-cell-induced injury in islet microtissues (40 min)
• Modeling type 2 diabetes with gluicolipotoxicity-mediated alpha and beta cell dysfunction and dedifferentiation in islet microtissues (40 min)
• Analysis of beta cell proliferation with 3D high content screening and tissue microarrays (30 min)
• Methods for viral transduction of islets (30 min)
• Drug-induced pancreatic islet injury (30 min)

Dr. Eva Thoma is the Head of Liver Solutions at InSphero AG.  A biomedical scientist with extensive experience in cell biology and development of advanced 3D-cell models for drug discovery and development, Eva has held research management positions in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. She earned her PhD in Biology from the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.  Eva is available to speak to your team about:

• Assessment of progressive disease hallmarks of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in multicellular 3D human liver microtissues (30 min)
• NASH model systems and assays for induction of the fatty liver phenotype (lipid-loading), and assessment of bile acid metabolism and inflammation (30 min)
• Advanced endpoints for liver disease modeling, with a focus on staining and confocal imaging or RNASeq data analysis (30 min)

Dr. Irina Agarkova is a senior researcher and team leader in the Oncology Solutions Group at InSphero AG.
Irina has been perfecting 3D tumor models for preclinical drug discovery for more than a decade, and has extensive experience establishing and validating translational and tumor models that enable high-throughput screening of molecular-targeted therapies, and developing complex tumor models that incorporate immune components. She earned her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the ETH Zürich. Irina is available to speak to your team about:

• 3D immuno-oncology models, with a focus on how InSphero develops 3D immuno-competent tumor models, immuno-oncology applications, methods for investigating mechanisms of immunotherapeutics, and considerations for optimizing efficacy of immunotheraputics (30 min)

Dr. Monika Kijanska is a Senior Scientist and Team Leader at InSphero AG. She and her team develop and deliver in vitro assay services and custom R&D solutions for drug safety and efficacy testing using InSphero 3D platforms and technology. In her role, Monika works closely with a variety of pharma and biotech organizations, with a focus on drug induced liver injury (DILI) hazard and risk assessment as well as human liver disease modeling. Monika is available to speak to your team about:

• Fast, efficient DILI screening with hazard identification, multiplexed readouts for cytotoxicity (necrosis, metabolic stress, bile acid secretion, hepatocyte functionality), and assay optimization to ensure robustness and reproducibilty of data) (30 min)

Prof. Armin Wolf is the Chief Scientific Officer at InSphero AG. An accomplished pharma R&D executive and board-certified toxicologist with more than 30 years of cumulative experience at Janssen and Novartis, Armin earned his PhD at the DKFZ German Cancer Research Center. He maintains a dual appointment as Professor of Toxicology at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Together with Eva Thoma and Monika Kijanska, Armin is available to present on:

• A novel causality assay framework for teasing out mechanisms of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) using a tiered experimental design and decision tree, with readouts based on advanced technologies (40 min)

Dr. Olivier Frey is Head of Technologies & Platforms and Product Manager for Microphysiological Systems at InSphero AG.  Olivier is a former group leader of the Bio Engineering Laboratory of ETHZ (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich). He holds a Dr.Sc in Microtechnology from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and an MSc in Microtechnology, Mechanics from ETH Zürich.  Olivier is available to speak to your team about:

• Overview of the scalable Akura™ technology that underlies all InSphero discovery and safety platforms, ensuring reliable solutions and continuity across all experimental programs in your drug development pipeline (30 min)
• Towards Modeling Metabolic Syndrome. Studying systemic effects of type 2 diabetes, NAFLD, and NASH in the Akura™ Flow organ-on-a-chip system by combining liver and islet microtissues into one multi-organ network (30 min)
• Understanding Paracrine Signaling. Using Akura™ Flow technology to study tissue-tissue interactions in a robust scalable format (20 min)
• DMPK & Low Clearance Applications. Applying Akura™ Flow technology to increase cell-to-liquid ratio for more precise and physiological evaluation of low-clearance compounds in a system that capitalizes metabolically functional and long-lived 3D human liver models for DMPK (30 min)