CONFERENCE DAY ONE

8:00 am Check-In & Coffee

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

Standardizing Protocols to Enable Effective Reproducibility Across Different Models

9:00 am Balancing Model Complexity with Reproducibility to Drive Adoption of 3D In Vitro Models for Immunology Drug Discovery

Synopsis

  • Interrogating best practice to achieve model reproducibility whilst incorporating complexity
  • Strategizing practical methods to perform qualification and validation of complex in vitro models
  • Realizing experimental design considerations and technologies that enhance the efficiency and throughput of compound screening using 3D tissue models

9:30 am Characterizing a Patient-Derived Ex Vivo Model to Enhance Therapeutic Insights

Synopsis

  • Assessing optimized techniques to build ex vivo platforms that are better representative of the patient tumor microenvironment
  • Leveraging this model to elucidate mechanisms of action and understand patient response to different therapeutics
  • Discussing the future potential of these models to empower patient stratification approaches and taking a more personalized approach to treatment

10:00 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Synopsis

As the 3D tissue modeling community is reunited, this valuable session will ensure you get the chance to reconnect with peers and make brand new connections! This structured networking opportunity will pair you with fellow attendees for several 3-minute introductions, ensuring you have the opportunity to meet and network with your academic and industry colleagues!

Spotlighting Lessons Learned from Augmenting 3D Tissue Models Across Multiple Disease Areas

11:00 am Validating Different Liver 3D Tissue Models to Advance Therapeutic Screening

Synopsis

  • Addressing the importance of implementing human specific models to empower better target validation and therapeutic screening
  • Utilizing spheroids and MPS as replacements for animal research or to reduce animal use
  • Discussing the optimization of 3D cell systems to enhance their utility in drug discovery, ensuring relevance, reliability, and replicability in metabolic disease research

11:30 am Session Reserved for Corning

12:00 pm Harnessing Reproducible Organ-On-A-Chip Models to Advance Lung Disease Research

Synopsis

  • Investigating optimized strategies to recapitulate the disease microenvironment more accurately in organ-on-a-chip models
  • Utilizing these models to study fibroblast interactions and their role in lung disease
  • Validating the impact of ECM components on the cell co-cultures and target validation efforts in these lung disease models

12:30 pm Lunch Break

Enhancing Model Adoption Internally & Externally

1:30 pm Panel: Building Out a Strategy to Increase Model Adoption & Enable Better Alignment with Internal & Regulatory Stakeholders

Synopsis

  • Discussing what data needs to be produced to instil confidence internally and externally
  • Addressing best practices to clearly articulate the value of these models to convince your leadership team and internal stakeholders whether these models are worth of investment

2:15 pm Qualifying Microphysiological Systems for Highly Specific Contexts of Use as Bonified Drug Development Tools

Synopsis

  • Discussing the Translational Centers for MPS (TraCe MPS) Program’s role in supporting well-validated MPS to be submitted to the FDA ISTAND Program
  • Aligning on recent updates from the Translational Centers for MPS Program at NIH
  • Building highly specific context-of-use cases of MPS across different phases of drug development to facilitate regulatory approval

2:45 pm Discussing Initiatives to Enable Better Alignment on the Use of Complex In Vitro Models with Regulatory Stakeholders

Synopsis

  • Reintroducing the IQ-MPS affiliate and the goals of the regulatory working group to qualify CIVMs for regulatory use
  • Discussing best practice when interacting with regulatory bodies like the FDA and global regulatory bodies
  • Aligning on what CIVM data needs to be produced to instil confidence in the models externally

3:15 pm Scientific Poster Session & Refreshments Break

Synopsis

Witness some of the latest and greatest research in the 3D tissue modeling field by drug developers, academics, and researchers in this spotlight poster session!

Crafting the Right Balance Between Scalability, Model Complexity, & Throughput

4:15 pm Establishing a Reproducible Blood-Brain Barrier Model to Enhance BBB Therapeutic Development

Synopsis

  • Optimized strategies to recapitulate the blood-brain-barrier environment
  • How to best characterize the cells within the model?

4:45 pm Optimizing & Validating a Liver-on-a-Chip Model to Aid Drug Discovery Across Various Disease Areas

Synopsis

  • Reiterating the need for more physiologically relevant models
  • Assessing best practices to characterize this model
  • Spotlighting the potential of this model to aid research across various disease applications including NASH

5:15 pm Optimizing & Validating Organoid & Spheroid Models to Empower More Efficient Oncology Drug Discovery

Synopsis

  • Interrogating best practice to achieve model reproducibility whilst incorporating complexity for faster drug discovery
  • Strategizing practical methods to perform high-throughput screening with organoids and spheroids for compound screening
  • Realizing experimental design considerations that enhance the efficiency and throughput of compound screening 

5:15 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks