The following presentations were delivered as part of a BioMed21 workshop held in Brussels, Belgium on December 8-9, 2015.
A human pathway paradigm in health research
Troy Seidle
Vice President of Research & Toxicology, Humane Society International, United States
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Troy Seidle is Vice President of Research & Toxicology for Humane Society International. He leads a global team of scientists and policy experts working to expand the use of human biology-based predictive tools in toxicology and bioscience research to reduce reliance on animal use while continuing to advance human health and safety. Seidle established and co-managed the European research coordination project “AXLR8”, which hosted a series of international workshops aimed at bridging the concepts of “alternative testing strategies” and “21st century toxicology/Tox21” across key innovation economies. Building on this experience Seidle recognized the opportunity to extend the pathway paradigm from toxicology to the wider field of bioscience research, giving rise to the Biomed21 initiative at Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States. Troy holds an honours health sciences degree from the University of Waterloo.
Considering a new paradigm for Alzheimer’s disease research
Gill Langley
Senior Science Advisor, Humane Society International, United States
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Dr. Langley gained her PhD in neurochemistry from the University of Cambridge and her post-doctoral resrach focused on signalling pathways in human neural cells. She led science programmes at the Dr. Hadwen Trust, a medical research charity developing non-animal disease models and techniques. She was a member of the British government’s advisory committee on animal experiments and has served on OECD validation management groups and European Commission expert sub-groups on non-animal testing. She was an advisor on non-animal safety tests during development of the European Chemical legislation (REACH).
Human induced pluripotent stem cells as in vitro models for studying the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease
James Adjaye
Chair and Director, Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine, Heinrich Heine University, Germany
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Prof. Adjaye was awarded his PhD from King’s College London and completed post-doctoral research fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. After a year as Professorof Stem Cell Biology at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, he was group leader of the Molecular Embryology and Ageing Group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. He directs the Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine and is involved in systems biology-based projects at national and international levels. His FP7-funded research combines integrative systems biology with comparative genomics for studying human ageing and age-related diseases.
Computational models in dementia research
Martin Hoffman-Apitius
Professor for Applied Life Science Informatics, University of Bonn, Germany
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In addition to his role at the University of Bonn, Prof. Hofmann-Apitius also holds a position as Head of the Department of Bioinformatics at Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) in St Augustin, Germany. He studied Biology and holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Tübingen. During his career he worked in academic as well as in industrial research groups and has been involved in different functional genomics projects. Driven by the need to analyze large amounts of gene expression data, for example, he migrated more and more from experimental laboratory work into applied bioinformatics. Research in his department is focusing on semantic text analysis and information extraction, applied chemoinformatics and GRID computing.
The human model: changing focus on autism research
Alysson Muotri
Associate Professor, University of California, United States
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Professor Muotri received a PhD in genetics from the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil, where his post-doctoral research was in neuroscience and stem cell biology. His research at the University of California, San Diego, focuses on human brain development and evolution, exploring mobile elements as generators of neuronal diversity during neuronal differentiation. His lab uses a range of models and molecular tools to study autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and his team have developed methods, using human induced pluripotent stem cells, to generate neurons and glial cells for basic research and drug screening
Pathways from gene to bedside in autism spectrum disorders research
Anthony Bailey, Professor and Chair, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Canada
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Prior to his post at the University of British Columbia, Prof Bailey was the Cheryl and Reece Scott Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford; the first medical chair devoted to the study of autism. Here, he built the first Magnetoencephalographic Centre designed for the study of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. His research focuses on the neurobiology of language abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and his clinical work focuses on teenagers and adults with ASD.
The use of induced pluripotent stem cells to model neurodevelopmental disorders: The MECP2 duplication syndrome as an example
Hilde van Esch
Center for Human Genetics, Leuven University, Belgium
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Professor van Esch is a medical doctor and PhD, with post-doctoral experience at the Institute Cochin in Paris. She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Head of the Laboratory for the Genetics of Cognition at Leuven University. Her main research interests are intellectual disability syndromes, congenital brain malformations and the identification of gene involved in cognition and congenital abnormalities.
A shift in paradigm towards human biology-based systems for cholestatic-liver diseases
Fozia Noor
Group Leader, Biochemical Engineering group Saarland University, Germany
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Dr. Noor received her PhD from the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology at Heidelberg University, Germany. She joined the Biochemical Engineering group, where she is group leader for systems biology of mammalian cells and systems toxicology, with a focus on development and applications of in vitro models and methods. She is the sub co-ordinator of the NOTOX project, within SEURAT-2 and has worked on other EU projects applying human embryonic stem cell derived hepatocytes and cardiomyocytes in preclinical safety assessments
Bridge the gap
Brigitte Landesmann
Systems Toxicology Unit, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
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Dr. Landesmann has worked for many years in clinical medicine, after receiving an MD from the University of Vienna and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She became involved in the generation, dissemination and application of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP) after she joined the Systems Toxicology Unit of the Institute of Health and Consumer Protection of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. In her role in the FP7-funded SEURAT-1 initiative, she has participated in the development of AOP related to repeat dose liver toxicity and designing mechanism-based hepatotoxicity experiments with human-derived cells
Harnessing opportunities in non-animal asthma research for a 21st-century science
Ian Adcock
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Presentation not available
Prof. Ian Adcock received his degree in Biochemistry & Physiology from the University of London and PhD in Pharmacology from St Thomas’ Hospital London. Following postdoctoral training at the Medical Research Council Brain Metabolism Unit and in the Protein Science Laboratory at St Georges’ Hospital, he joined the National Heart & Lung Institute to undertake research on the effects of corticosteroids on inflammatory mediators in asthma and COPD. He is co-leader of the IMI-funded UBIOPRED project (Unbiased biomarkers in prediction of respiratory disease outcomes). He is Principal Investigator in the MRC/Asthma UK Asthma Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, holds an honorary research position at the Royal Brompton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit and heads the European Respiratory Society Assembly on Airways Disease
In sickness and in health: Modeling human airways
Lindsay Marshall
Science Communications Officer, Humane Society International/The Humane Society of the United States, United States
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Dr. Marshall completed a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences at Stirling University, followed by an MSc in Cellular and Molecular Pathology at Dundee University. She stayed in Dundee for her PhD, supervised by Dr Anil Mehta, Clinical Reader in the School of Medicine. Throughout her academic career, her research focussed on the physiology, cell biology and immunology of human respiratory epithelium, specifically in relation to the pathophysiological changes observed in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease. She joined Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States in 2016 as Science Communications Officer.
Innovative human-specific investigational approaches to autoimmune disease
Anja van de Stolpe
Philips Research Group, The Netherlands
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Dr. van de Stolpe obtained her PhD in cell and molecular biology from the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht and carried out post-doctoral research at Stanford University. She is currently a Fellow and Clinical Advisor/Thought Leader at Philips Research where she is involved in multiple translational research projects and in business development and research strategy, with a majot focus on oncology. Her current main research interest is innovative molecular cancer diagnostics and human disease models on chips
Human Artificial Lymph Node Model (HuLAN) for biopharmaceuticals testing and disease modelling in vitro
Christoph Giese
Director for Quality Control and Cell and Tissue Services, ProBioGen AG, Germany
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Christoph received his PhD from the University of Giessen and joined ProBioGen as group leader for cellular analytics and automation for single cell screening. His current activities include the development of immune cell-based assays, tissue engineering, organoid models and in vitro methods. Leading both the Quality Control and the Cell and Tissue Services Departments at ProBioGen, Dr. Giese manages analytical activities for internal services from R&D to GMP manufacturing.
ANCA-associated vasculitis and organ-on-chip disease models
Elena Csernok
Clinic for Rheumatology/Immunology and Vasculitis Center, Germany
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Dr. Csernok was head of the Vasculitis Diagnostic Unit at the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Klinikum Bad Bramstedt. She graduated from the University of Iasi in Romania and received her PhD from the University of Lübeck in Germany. She is active in immunodiagnostic studies focused on rheumatic disorders and participates in the development of effective and innovative methods for anti-neutrophilic cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) diagnostics.
Existing efforts and roadmaps: EU perspective
Emily McIvor
Policy Director, Humane Society International, United States
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Emily McIvor, Policy Director, Humane Society International
Ms McIvor is a member of the European Partnership on Alternatives to Animal Testing (EPAA) Mirror Group and of the ECVAM stakeholder forum. She contributed to various expert groups during the preparation and negotiation of Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used in research, and co-ordinated the “Make Animal Testing History’ campaign.
Existing efforts and roadmaps: North American perspective
Catherine Willett
Director of Regulatory Toxicology, Risk Assessment and Alternatives at Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States, United States
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Dr. Willett is a member of the Society of Toxicology (SOT), serves on the U.S. National Toxicology Program Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods, served on the board of the former International QSAR Foundation, serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute of In Vitro Sciences, and is on Shell’s Animal Testing Review Panel.
Implementing three Rs through the Directive
Katrin Schütte, Directorate-General Environment, Belgium
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Dr. Schütte was awarded a PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Heidelberg and is certified in General Toxicology by the American Board of Toxicology. She is Policy Officer at the Directorate General of the Environment (DG-ENV) for the European Commission in Brussels. Dr Schütte has extensive regulatory experience with new chemical notifications and expertise in skin safety assessment, eye irritation assessment and toxicology testing of detergents and other cleaning products.