Conference Day One

8:00 am Check-In & Coffee

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

  • Jason Ekert Head of Discovery Translational Technology, UCB S.A.

Discussing The Progress in The Field & Addressing Common Challenges Within Tissue Modelling

9:00 am Panel: Navigating the 3D Tissue Modelling Landscape Focusing on Model Adoption & Current Regulatory Frameworks

  • Beth Hoffman Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Origami Therapeutics, Inc.
  • Richard Cheng Senior Specialist, Engineer, Merck & Co
  • Manti guha principal Investigator and CIVM Lead, Incyte Corporation
  • Cindy Cheng Senior Director - Conjugation & In-Vitro Evaluation, Eisai
  • Colin Choi Associate Scientific Director, Biogen

Synopsis

  • Discussing the need for common benchmarks and standards to ensure comparability and reproducibility across different laboratories and research settings
  • Sharing insights and experiences from industry leaders on best practices, to bring these technologies internally by making a business case
  • Addressing the current regulatory landscape for accepting data from 3D tissue models in drug development

9:45 am Establishing Translational Centers for MPS Towards Regulatory Qualification as Drug Development Tools

Synopsis

  • NCATS/NIH will discuss its newest programs that will facilitate regulatory acceptance of MPS
  • NCATS/NIH will discuss hurdles to overcome in the MPS/CIVM field, and the future of the program
  • NCATS/NIH will discuss the newest NIH Common Fund’s Complement Animal Research in Experimentation (Complement-ARIE) program, which will speed the development, standardization, validation, and use of human-based new approach methodologies

10:15 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Synopsis

As the 3D tissue modelling 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!

11:15 am Tackling Cancer Pathophysiology Through Microphysiological Systems

  • Sai Pavan Grandhi Principal Scientist, Complex In Vitro Models, GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Synopsis

  • Examining the capabilities and advantages offered by MPS in providing unprecedented insights into cancer biology and drug responses
  • Assessing best practices and strategies for maintaining replicability, contributing to the reliability of data generated in the process of cancer drug discovery
  • Exploring strategies to ensure the scalability of these systems, laying the groundwork for their future impact in advancing cancer research and therapeutics

11:45 am Mimetas immune competent Organ-on-a-Chip models for IBD, MASH and IO discovery

  • Job Komen Business Development Manager, MIMETAS

Synopsis

  • Mimetas is one of the leading organ-on-a-chip companies with scalable, human-relevant models
  • Recent technical advances in our chip platform such as uniflow have further advanced our models
  • For immuno-oncology, IBD, and MASH we have created vascularized, immune-competent models to evaluate novel therapeutics

12:15 pm Enhancing Therapeutic Insights from a Tumor Fragment Model

Synopsis

  • Highlight the utility of cryo-preserved tumor fragments in designing studies that involve treating fragments with different combination regimes
  • Discuss the flexibility of this model, allowing for varied drug treatments and the subsequent collection of supernatant for in-depth analysis
  • Discuss the potential insights gained from these analyses, contributing to a deeper understanding of tumor biology and therapeutic responses

12:45 pm Lunch Break

Leveraging 3D Ex Vivo Cultures to Organoids to Gain Better Disease Insights

1:45 pm MiNK-215, an IL-15 Armored FAP-Targeting CAR iNKT Cell Therapy, Effectively Treats Human Organoid Models of Treatment-Refractory MSS Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Liver Metastases

Synopsis

  • Exploring methods for validating liver organoid models to ensure accurate representation of the liver metastases tumor microenvironment
  • Optimizing Organoid – immune cell co-culture for use in immune-oncology
  • Screening combination therapies

2:15 pm Implementing 3D Culture Platforms for Target Validation in Kidney Diseases

Synopsis

  • Uncovering how renal 3D-ex-vivo cell culture provides a physiologically relevant platform for precise studies, offering deeper insights into renal pathophysiology
  • Highlighting techniques to culture ex-vivo isolated glomeruli that are better representative of kidney morphology
  • Exploring the data from these 3D models using high-content focal imaging, and proteomics to support target validation

2:45 pm Scientific Poster Session & Refreshments Break

Synopsis

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

3:15 pm Mastermind Session: Best Practices for Sample Sourcing & Scaling Up Your Workflow

Synopsis

  • During the first 20 minutes of the session, uncover your peers’ best practices in selecting the right collaborator to provide patient samples and ensuring sample quality is maintained to support your study
  • Share your lessons learned and strategies to scale up your model in your work
  • Discuss innovative ideas and next steps that you can use to improve your current workflows within the final 10 minutes

Uncovering Best Practices to Ensure Consistency & Replicability Across Different Models

3:45 pm Establishing Consistency and Increasing Throughput: Applications to Improve 3D Cell Culture Workflows

Synopsis

  • Maximizing experimental results through utilization of existing products
  • How to integrate multiple tools to generate more data per experiment
  • New tools to improve scalability of 3D workflows

4:15 pm Recapitulating The Lung Pathobiology Using Organoids & Organ-On-A-Chip

  • Muriel Lize Associate Director in vitro respiratory research, Boehringer Ingelheim

Synopsis

  • Sharing methodologies to validate biology of these models to assess for idiopathic fibrosis
  • Implementing spatial biology techniques to validate model components and break-down biology into mechanism-based assays to enable screening
  • Discussing the multidimensional insights provided by these models together with validated human clinical biomarkers for a thorough understanding of the expected drug effects on the health of the patient

4:45 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks