Speakers

SPEAKERS FOR Third INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Adrian Smith

Adrian Smith

Adrian Smith is a British veterinarian who graduated from Cambridge in 1979 and emigrated to Norway in 1980. He held the Chair in Laboratory Animal Science at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science from 1988 until 2011. He has arranged over 50 courses for all personnel categories. He has been the Secretary of Norway’s consensus-platform for the 3Rs, Norecopa since it was established in 2007. He has had a special interest in 3R resources for many years and has co-authored several databases in this area.

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Dr. Sandra

Dr. Sandra COECKE (EC JRC, Italy) Belgian, has a STEM Education – Engineer Biotechnology (Free University Brussels) complemented with a PhD in the faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. She coordinated the European Member State Network of 35 high quality company and organisation Laboratories for the Validation of Standard Methods (EU-NETVAL) and its activities advising on novel deep learning AI methods. (ELECTRAMed: a new pre-trained language representation model for biomedical NLP 2021). She coordinates activities on globally harmonized (OECD level) good scientific cell and tissue culture standard method practices and promotes mathematical & AI methods applied to food safety and pathogen treats. (SAB of ONTOX: Ontology-driven and artificial intelligence-based repeated dose alternative toxicity testing of chemicals for next generation risk assessment). She has published over 100 in vitro toxicological peer reviewed papers, book chapters and has been invited speaker, chair and lecturer in many international conferences. She is a FISEA 1994, BEMA 2020 in vitro method foundations award winner.

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Dr. Albert Li

Dr. Albert Li has devoted his scientific career to the development and advancement of scientific concepts and in vitro technologies to accurately predict human drug properties including metabolic fate, drug-drug interaction potential, and organ-specific toxicity. His research is focused on the development and application of human-based in vitro experimental models, especially primary cultured human hepatocytes and, most recently, enterocytes, in the accurate assessment of human drug properties including metabolic fate, drug-drug interactions and drug toxicity. Dr. Li was one of the first scientists to successfully cryopreserve human hepatocytes and enterocytes/intestinal mucosa to retain properties of freshly isolated cells. Dr. Li and his colleagues have developed numerous experimental approaches using cryopreserved hepatocytes and enteric systems to evaluate human specific drug properties including drug metabolism, drug-drug interactions, drug toxicity, and pharmacology.

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Dr. Michael Johnson

Dr. Michael Johnson is a 2017 and 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and the CEO and Co-Founder of Visikol which is a biotech company that spun out of Rutgers University in 2016 and is focused on advanced imaging, digital pathology and 3D cell culture. Michael founded the company along with his fellow PhD candidate Thomas Villani and colleague Nick Crider. Michael has a diverse background with experiences in both the technical and business considerations of running a biotech business. Following his undergraduate degree in biology at Muhlenberg College, Michael spent three years in various roles at Johnson & Johnson while concurrently pursuing a PhD in applied microbiology at Rutgers University. Michael’s research background has focused on a wide-range of projects from remote sensing research with NASA to building light sheet microscopes and producing biofuels. Prior to launching Visikol, Michael worked on several other biotech-based entrepreneurial pursuits and is very passionate about translating cutting edge research into life-changing commercial technologies. At Visikol, Michael is responsible for the company’s overall strategy as well as its business development and operational efforts.

Dr. Manu Smriti Singh

Dr. Manu Smriti Singh

Dr. Manu Smriti Singh is Faculty at Department of Biotechnology and Center of Excellence for Nanosensors and Nanomedicine, Bennett University, India. She received her Doctoral Degree from Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, University of Bonn, Germany. This was followed by Postdoctoral Research in the field of Nanomedicine at both Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. She got interested and trained in 3D spheroids during her research visit to OncoRay, University Clinic, Dresden, Germany. Her laboratory focuses on developing nanomedicine to overcome cancer drug resistance and targeting non-cancer supportive cells of the tumor microenvironment.

Clive Roper

Dr. Clive Roper BSc PhD

Dr. Clive Roper BSc PhD
Clive graduated with a PhD in “in vitro dermal metabolism and toxicology” from Newcastle University. In 1996, he joined Charles River to develop the in vitro skin penetration service. After serving in study director and scientific manager roles, he became Director, In Vitro Toxicology covering skin absorption, routine regulatory in vitro toxicology, genetic toxicology, safety pharmacology, advanced in vitro 3D and tissue models and in vitro respiratory toxicology. He has presented at and organized small (Skin Metabolism) and large (WC9) conferences and most recently ASCCT (2021) and ACCT (2021). Clive has authored and co-authored many posters and abstracts as well as peer review papers with 2 papers quoted in OECD 428 and 2 in OECD 492. He is a peer reviewer for journals including TIV and Regulatory Pharmacology & Toxicology. He has advised agencies (e.g., NIH, SCCS, Health Canada and EPA) as well as industry bodies. He has developed models resulting in direct replacement of animals in dermal absorption and toxicology and inhalation toxicology. He was a founding member of the North American 3Rs Collaborative and serves on the microphysiology (MPS) subgroup. Clive is a Member of the Board of the UK NC3Rs. Clive is a chartered Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a member of ESTIV and is a European Registered Toxicologist. In 2021, Clive set up his consulting business, Roper Toxicology Consulting Limited, aiding in the development of new approach methodologies with SMEs and supporting regulatory acceptance of products to market using new approach methodologies with mid tier and multinational corporations.

ayshaaktar

Aysha Akhtar

Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., is the Co-founder, President, and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences, which is pioneering the transition to replace the use of animals in experimentation with superior human-based testing methods. A military veteran, she is a double-board certified neurologist and preventive medicine specialist, with a background in public health. Previously she served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Army Traumatic Brain Injury Program. As a Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. Akhtar frequently deployed to assist with national public health emergencies.
For a decade, Aysha was a Medical Officer at the Food and Drug Administration, most recently in the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats, implementing studies on vaccine effectiveness and safety and using her Top-Secret Security Clearance to develop national preparedness strategies for public health threats. Aysha is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the author of the two books, “Our Symphony With Animals, On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies” and “Animals and Public Health”, which argues for the need for health institutions to include animals as part of the “public” in public health. Aysha is a noted TEDx speaker.

Reyk Horland

Dr. Reyk Horland

Reyk studied Medical Biotechnology at the Technische Universität Berlin with a focus on tissue engineering concepts. Over the course of his academic career at the German Arthritis Research Center and the TU Berlin in the group of Prof. Roland Lauster, he has pursued the development of tissue models that can mimic human biology in vitro. The group especially focused on emulating the critical development steps during organ neogenesis employing the innate self-assembly processes of human organs and tissues. Utilizing this approach, he successfully developed a complex hair follicle model that can be used for in vitro screening purposes as well as for cell therapy based hair restoration strategies. In addition, he investigated the use of novel bioreactor systems to scale up production of tissue engineered skin models for use in transplant surgeries.
Since 2010, Reyk is actively involved in the development of TissUse’s Multi-Organ-Chip platform for culture analysis of drug candidates, cosmetics, chemicals and consumer products. Here, he led the efforts to establish and characterize a chip-based vascular model in an interdisciplinary team of engineers, computational modellers and biologists. He currently holds the position of CEO at TissUse.

Dasja Pajkrt

Dasja Pajkrt

Dasja Pajkrt, MD, PhD, MBA is Professor of Viral Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. She is head of OrganovirLabs, founder of the Amsterdam Organoid Centers (ORCAU), coordinator of two H2020 programs: Organoid for Virus research (OrganoVIR) and GUT VIrus BRain Axis Technology In OrgaNoid Science, member of the Dutch network Transition animal-free innovations (TPI). She is a deputy member of the Senate of the University of Amsterdam.
Her expertise is on pediatric viral infections, most specifically on picornavirus, cytomegalovirus and HIV infections. Her research group has multiple scientific publications on clinical disease, viral pathogeneses, host-pathogen interactions and outcomes of pediatric viral infections, published in high profile journals (Clin Inf Dis, Lancet Inf Dis, Neurology, J Exp Med, Blood, Science). She supervised a total of 19 PhD students and >40 medical or graduate students. She published >180 peer reviewed papers.

Johannes Hackethal

Johannes Hackethal

Johannes Hackethal is the Founder/ CEO of THT Biomaterials. He started his Entrepreneurial journey with THT (TheHumanTouch) – an extracellular Platform Technology. He pursued his doctoral studies at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science, Vienna. He obtained his Master of Science in Engineering; and Master of Medical Science in Medical Biology, a Double Degree Master from University of Applied Science Vienna (Austria) and Linköping University, (Sweden). He has several publications and patents for his credit. He has delivered talks in national and international seminars and conferences. He has received few awards and recognitions for his contributions.

Paola Occhetta

Paola Occhetta

Paola Occhetta got the PhD in Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano in 2015 on the development of microfluidic platforms for 3D cell culture. She concluded 4 years of PostDoc fellowship at the Department of Biomedicine of the University Hospital of Basel, working in the establishment of in vitro models of cartilage development and pathologies. She is currently PostDoc fellow at Politecnico di Milano, as beneficiary of a H2020 MSCA Individual Fellowship and of one Cariplo Project aimed at developing a model of joint-on-a-chip for advancing the development of anti-osteoarthritic drugs. She is also co-founder and CEO of BiomimX S.r.l., an Italian Start-up, Spin-off of Politecnico di Milano developer of beating organs-on-chip. She authored 27 scientific papers published on international peer-reviewed journals (H-index 11), 5 book chapters and she is inventor of 1 patent (granted by EPO and US) in the field of microfluidics.

Ramray Bhat

Ramray Bhat

Ramray Bhat is an associate professor in the department of Molecular Reproduction Development and Genetics, and an associate faculty with Biosystems Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore India. He is a member of the EMBO Global Investigator Network. He holds an undergraduate degree in Medicine from the University of Calcutta, a PhD in cell biology and anatomy from the New York Medical College and was a Komen postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His interests are in cancer, development, and evolution and his group’s research is funded by the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance and the John Templeton Foundation, USA.

Dr Rohit Bisht

Dr Rohit Bisht

Dr Rohit Bisht is a Research Associate, Department of Regulatory toxicology at PETA India and also act as an advisor to PETA Science Consortium International (PSCI), Germany. He is working with regulators, policy makers, stakeholders and scientists for the advancement of animal-free testing methods and non-animal based technologies to create human therapeutic products. He received his PhD (Ophthalmology) from The University of Auckland, New Zealand. This was followed by Postdoctoral Research in the field of non-invasive retinal drug delivery at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS-Pilani). He has also completed different research project at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA. During his research work, he developed ex-vivo model to testing ocular formulations and worked with cell lines, and zebrafish models for toxicity evaluations of drugs and chemicals. His research work was also highlighted in Advance Science News. He is awarded with graduate research award from American association of Pharmaceutical Scientist (AAPS, USA) and Research Associate Fellowship from Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.

Tilo Weber

Tilo Weber

Tilo Weber graduated in Biology at the University of Würzburg, Germany. He worked for three years in a biotechnology company that developed an animal-free endotoxin test. Afterwards he was an environmental educator in Sicily for one year before he joined the German Animal Welfare Federation’s Animal Welfare Academy in 2016 as Scientific Officer for alternatives to the use of animals in research, testing and education. His work focuses on promoting alternatives to regulatory animal testing including testing required for authorization of pharmaceuticals and feeding studies, testing of manufactured nanomaterials, alternatives to the use of animal-derived laboratory reagents e.g. Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), genetically modified animals, laboratory animal statistics and animal housing. Together with the cooperation partner cellasys GmbH he organizes Hands-On-Workshops on FBS replacement in the cell culture laboratory of the Animal Welfare Academy. In August 2021 he chaired a session on replacing FBS at the 11th edition of the World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences.

Lisiena Hysenaj

Dr. Lisiena Hysenaj

Dr. Lisiena Hysenaj, obtained her Ph.D at the Center of Immunology of Marseille in France under the supervision of Dr. Jean Pierre GORVEL. After Ph.D. she did a short post-doc in the laboratory of Professor Jeroen Roose at University of California San Francisco.Dr. Hysenaj works now as a science founding team of the biotech company NextVivo Bio. NextVivo aims to develop safer and more effective therapies using human derived immune competent organoids.

sridhar

Dr. Sridhar Radhakrishnan

Dr. Sridhar Radhakrishnan’s background is in Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals and he received his PhD in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Colorado State University. Before joining Research Diets, Inc., Sri was a Post-doctoral Scholar in the Department of Food Science, Pennsylvania State University. He has worked with both in vitro and in vivo (mouse and pig) models to screen, evaluate toxicity, study efficacy, and potency of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer phytochemicals. His background gives him a strong and a unique perspective to assist researchers with their laboratory animal diet formulation needs. He has thoroughly enjoyed helping and collaborating with researchers on different diet induced phenotypes in the last seven years at Research Diets, Inc.

Dr. Saroj Varavadekar

Dr. Saroj Varavadekar

Dr. Saroj Varavadekar is currently working as a Specialist in Regulatory Management at Merck Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. She monitors regulatory trends, comments on guidelines, and represents Merck at authority events & meetings. She ensures regulatory compliance for Merck products and creates awareness on new technologies. She has 10 years of experience in R&D, Product management & Regulatory Management and extensive experience in application development and providing technical and regulatory support to internal and external stakeholders. She pursued her PhD in Biotechnology from Institute of Chemical Technology and Master’s in Biotechnology from Mumbai University
Dr. John Huang

Dr. John Huang

Dr. John Huang is an inventor and entrepreneur in advanced biomedicine and bioengineering with a number of patented technologies. He is actively involved in product development and commercialization with great enthusiasm for novel biotechnologies and their influences on the life science industry. John is a recognized leader in hydrogel-based biomaterial with over 60 publications and conference presentations. He served as a board member of ASTM standards of 3D cell viability and 3D bioprinting, a principal investigator of several federal research programs, and an editorial board member and ad-hoc reviewer of 11 academic journals. John is the recipient of the Anheuser-Bush fellowship, research foundation award, and 22 new ingenuity awards. Dr. John Huang is the founder and CEO of TheWell Bioscience, Inc., a pioneer in the 3D biomimicking platform for precision medicine, cell therapy, and biomanufacturing. The company uses its state-of-art biomatrix system to closely mimic the natural extracellular matrix of the human microenvironment and establish a robust 3D cell culture platform and smart delivery system to advance drug discovery, tissue engineering, cell therapy, and personalized medicine. The company received multiple awards, including Most Innovative 3D Hydrogel System in 2020 Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Awards, Listed as #1 of 8 Top 3D Bioprinting Startups Impacting The Biotechnology Industry, Top 8 innovations by Scientist.com, and Leading Innovators in Cell Therapy Research 2021 Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Awards.

Dr. Prajakta Dandekar Jain

Dr. Prajakta Dandekar Jain

Dr. Prajakta Dandekar Jain is UGC Assistant Professor at Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology (DPST), Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, India. She completed her Ph.D. in Bioprocess Technology from the same department in 2010, following which she was the first women researcher to receive the RESPIRE long-term fellowship from the European Respiratory Society (ERS)-Marie Curie Co-fund, to conduct research in siRNA delivery systems for alleviating lung infections. She conducted this research at the Helmholtz Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Saarland, Germany for two years. Currently, her research work is focused in the areas of nanofibers for tissue engineering, 3D cell culture technology, microfluidic technology for organ development, 3D bioprinting and green technology. She has guided six Ph.D. students and over thirty masters’ students. She has authored over 95 publications in international journals, 2 books, 11 book chapters and has been awarded three design patents during her research career of fourteen years. She has received various awards including Savitribai Phule Stree Gaurav Puraskar, N R Kamath book awards, M.V. Deshpande and Dept. of Atomic Energy Young Scientist Awards, Young Associate of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences etc. She was also instrumental in initiating the Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India sponsored M.Tech. in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology course at DPST, ICT, Mumbai and is currently the coordinator of this course.
Dr. Bhagavatula Mani Ragava Sai Krishna

Dr. Krishna Bhagavatula

Dr. Bhagavatula Mani Ragava Sai Krishna also known as Krishna, is currently working as Director, Business Development for The Jackson Laboratory – India, Australia, and Singapore. He spear-heads The Jackson Laboratory vision of expanding its presence by providing required scientific and business development expertise to clients and distributors/partners. He supports scientific community and channel partners of JAX Mice models and services. He works with customers, breeders, distributors in offering integrated solutions towards enhancing scientific needs of research community.
Krishna has over two decades of experience working in the Life Sciences and Healthcare industries, with global experience working in India, Australia, and USA. He has worked in various senior level roles with multinational organizations such as Agilent Technologies, Taconic Biosciences (as Country Manager – India), Intertek and Global Value Web (GVW) Technologies (as Managing Director-India).
Krishna recently completed his MBA in General Management from The University of Adelaide, South Australia. He has Ph.D. from Cleveland State University in the area of Clinical Bio-analytical Chemistry with specialization in Molecular Medicine and a Masters in Microbiology from Osmania University, India.

pratima

Dr. Pratima Srivastava

Dr. Pratima Srivastava, is currently the Vice President of the Biology Discovery and Services division at Aragen Life Sciences, Hyderabad. She is spearheading the Digitalization era at Aragen and supervises a team of more than 150 staff as a Team Leader. She has more than 25 years of Research, Teaching and Management experience, she is well versed with Academia, Pharma and CRO functions in Drug Discovery and Development. She has Strong association with CSIR laboratories, Indian and US Universities, Medical Colleges, and Multinational Pharmaceutical companies. She is a visiting scientist in the Univ of Health Science Centre, at San Antonio and Roswell Park Cancer Institute. She has established DMPK department in Lupin Research Park, Pune and Pharmacogenomics department in CDRI, Lucknow. She has designed New generation Industry Oriented courses for JNU and NIPER students. She has Supervised and evaluated thesis work of 20 students. She has 78 publications in peer reviewed journals, 37 patents to her credit, and attended/presented in over 40 national and international conferences. She is a recipient of Young Scientist Awards from INSA, ISCA, IUBMB, CST etc. she received Prof. B.K. Bacchawat Memorial Young Scientist Award for Overall best performance nominated by DG-CSIR in 2003. She appeared in the Dec 2017 issue of Biospectrum: The Business of Bio and Health Sciences as Women Achievers: Walking with a Purpose.
faluguni

Dr. Falguni Pati

Dr. Falguni Pati is an Associate Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at IIT Hyderabad (IITH). He completed his Ph.D. from IIT Kharagpur and had Postdoctoral appointments in POSTECH, South Korea, and KTH, Sweden prior to joining IITH in 2015. His lab at IITH, Biofabrication and Tissue Engineering (BioFabTE) Lab focuses on developing innovative tissue-engineered products and in vitro tissue/organ models with 3D bioprinting technology. His research interests include developing novel bioinks, bioprinting methods, and technologies for the production of tissue analogs-on-demand, and in vitro tissue/organ models. Dr. Pati designed and developed a course on Biofabrication for the postgraduate students at IITH, which is the first of its kind in India. He has also been teaching a course, “Organ Printing” in NPTEL. He is the recipient of the prestigious Ramalingaswami fellowship in 2016. He has received research funding from various funding agencies including DST-SERB, DBT, ICMR, and MoE. Recently, his team has been awarded the Sree Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Research Grant worth 3 Cr in Biomedical Sciences for the clinical trial of their biomimetic hydrogel for the treatment of blinding corneal diseases.
Santosh Dixit

Santosh Dixit Ph.D

Chief Domain Expert ( Healthcare and LifeSciences , Innovation Labs, Persistent Systems

Santosh is a Healthcare and LifeSciences scientist with global expertise in preclinical, clinical , translational research and regulatory affairs for 20+ years . In his current role, Santosh handles Translational Oncology-focused innovative projects for diagnostics , therapeutics and medical device development. He provides technical and domain insights to software and data science teams about preclinical and clinical pharmacology, pharmacogenomics, biomarker discovery at various stages of product development lifecycles

Shreekanth Joshi

Shreekanth Joshi

Vice President ( Engineering), Healthcare and LifeSciences) , Persistent Systems

Shreekanth is a Healthcare and LifeScience domain leader with expertise in software product development for 25+ years working with customers globally and in India. In this capacity , he oversees the business growth, partnerships and differentiation creation for healthcare and life sciences business at Persistent. In the current role, Shreekanth works closely with instrument, medical device and biotech companies to create the next generation of therapies spanning preclinical, clinical and commercialization landscapes.

mandarkulkarni

Dr. Mandar Kulkarni

Dr. Mandar Kulkarni has acquired life science focused strategic and business development experience over the tenure of his career spanning two decades. He was an executive team member of a seed stage start-up in New Haven which was followed by leadership roles in several precision oncology companies in India where he routinely collaborated with leading institutions across the country. After earning his doctorate in molecular carcinogenesis from Purdue University, Dr. Kulkarni was selected to become a T32 fellow at the Yale School of Medicine and was awarded a young scientist award for his work in the structural biology and signal transduction. As a senior scientist at M/Z Diagnostics, he managed business, obtained an NIH-SBIR grant as a PI, and was awarded a Young scientist award by the FSG. At Sandor Lifesciences, as the Head of Molecular Biology and Genomics, he designed and executed numerous NGS, microarray and bioinformatics projects. Then, as the Chief Technology Officer at CGIndia, he managed all operations and led the development of research services, diagnostics, biopharma services, R&D, and genomics-based clinical assays in the area of precision oncology. He was also responsible for ensuring the financial success of the Indian business unit and established several high value collaborations in the Indian personalized oncology space. Currently, he is the CEO and Board Member at the VCR Park, VP of Operations and Management at Lumiseek, the Co-Founder and Director of Programs Management at Biolara, and the Co-Founder and General Partner at the Emerging Markets Cancer Ignition Fund (EMCIF).
Madhujit Damle

Dr. Madhujit Damle

Dr. Madhujit Damle is the General Manager of Molecular Devices, India and South Asia. He pursued PhD in Biochemistry from BARC Mumbai, and Post Doctoral Research from National Centre for Cell Sciences Pune India and later did an Executive MBA from Welingkar Institute Mumbai. He started his career as a Scientist with Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Mumbai. For the last 12 years he was involved in Technical and Techno Commercial Roles with ThermoFisher Scientific, PerkinElmer and Bio-Techne.

speakers for second international conference

mathieu

Prof. Mathieu Vinken

Prof. Mathieu, Pharm.D., Ph.D. is the Faculty at Vrije Universiteit Brussel-Belgium, and a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo-Brazil. He is a European Registered Toxicologist (E.R.T.). He is the past-President of the European Society of Toxicology In Vitro. He works in the field of in vitro toxicology and in the area of experimental hepatology. He is promoter of 6 completed PhD projects and 3 finalized postdoctoral projects. He is author of more than 180 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. He is editor of 3 books. He is editor-in-chief of few reputed journals. He is a regularly invited speaker on international conferences. He is member of various expert panels. He coordinates several (inter)national research projects and received a number of scientific awards.

Dr. Helena Kandarova

Dr. Helena Kandarova, is a Senior Scientist in In Vitro Toxicology at the Centre for Experimental Medicine, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia. Dr. Helena is a European Registered Toxicologist (E.R.T.). She is the current President of the European Society of Toxicology In Vitro, Vice-president of SETOX, Chair of the Slovak National Platform for 3Rs (SNP3Rs). She has over 50 Scientific Papers, 9 Book chapters and over 600 Conference Presentations (posters and oral presentations) for her credit. She has delivered key note speeches at international 3R Events. She is on the editorial board of few prestigious journals and is a scientific reviewer for few more journals.

luiza

Dr. Ana Luiza Garcia Massaguer Millas

Dr. Ana Millás is a biologist, with a postdoctoral degree from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at USP/São Paulo, a PhD in Materials and Bioprocess Engineering and a master’s degree in Polymer Technology from the School of Chemical Engineering at UNICAMP. She carried out part of her research in renowned centres and institutions, including Cornell University in the United States, Nottingham Trent University, and The Electrospinning Company in England.

adedamula

Dr. Adedamola (Dammy) Olayanju

Dr. Adedamola (Dammy) Olayanju is the Principal Scientist for Manchester BIOGEL. Dr. Dammy’s work focuses on the development and application of fully defined synthetic peptide hydrogels in Regenerative Medicine, Tissue engineering and robust in vitro 3D platforms such as the organoid technology for drug screening and development. As the company’s technical expert, he offers support and training programs in 2D and 3D cell cultures for customers, the wider community and also contributes to the development of external scientific projects.
Prior to joining Manchester BIOGEL, Dr. Dammy was a Senior Research Scientist at Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research (NPIMR), London. He also gained postdoctoral training and his PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, UK.

leticia

Ms. Letícia Charelli

Ms. Letícia Charelli is the Educational Technology coordinator at 3D Biofabrication Training and Innovation Center, (BioEdTech), a startup founded in 2018, located in São Paulo, Brazil which is spreading bioprinting technology so that researchers do not use animals for research.

Ms. Letícia has Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and a Masters in biotechnology from INMETRO – National Institute of Metrology, Quality, and Tecnology, with an emphasis on bio fabrication techniques, (3D cell culture and microfluidics). She is researcher with more than seven years of experience in primary cell culture, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells isolation, and 3D cell culture for tissue engineering and compound analysis. From past two years she has been working with organ-on-chip devices for 3D cell culture. Currently, she is developing optimized protocols for 3D bioprinting of heterogeneous and robust tissue-like constructs. Currently, she dedicates her time to develop optimized protocols for the biofabrication of organotypic on-chip devices and their validation as a reliable alternative method. Her main interests include Bioprinting technology, organ-on-chip, organotypic cell culture, and nanomedicine. She is an aspiring entrepreneur, seeking to translate the product from the bench to the bedside.

tuli dey

Dr. Tuli Dey

Dr. Tuli Dey is an assistant professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University. She is interested in developing an efficient and cost-effective platform to study tumor biology in vitro. In addition, she is passionate about creating a human-relevant disease model to reduce animal models from the research laboratories. She has completed her doctoral study (IIT Kharagpur) on cell and molecular biology and gained experience in biomaterials and disease biology modeling during her postdoc tenures (FAU Germany, IIT Kharagpur).

manish gore

Manish Gore

Manish Gore is currently pursuing Integrated PhD in Bioprocess Technology at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. Earlier, he obtained his undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. He is interested in developing physiologically relevant in-vitro models of human tissues/organs for preclinical and biomedical applications using three-dimensional cell culture methods and microfluidic technology.

ahuluwalia

Dr. Arti Ahluwalia

Dr. Arti Ahluwalia is currently the Full Professor of Bioengineering at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Director of the Research Center for Bioengineering and Robotics “E. Piaggio “, University of Pisa, the Director of the Centro3R, Italian Interuniversity Center for the promotion of the 3Rs in research and teaching. Dr. Arti is also co-Head of the NanoBioscopy Laboratory (a joint laboratory between the Piaggio Center and the Dept. of Biology of the University of Pisa) dedicated to Imaging and Microscopy. She is author of more than 100 scientific publications and 14 patents on microfabrication techniques and bioreactors. Her research has always maintained a high level of interdisciplinarity, being based on her knowledge of physics, mathematics, biology, and analytical and measurement sciences, applied to bioengineering. The underlying theme is the study of biomimetics and interaction between the biological and artificial worlds for the realization of bio-hybrid in vitro systems through the integration of engineering technologies (biomaterials, fluid systems, microscopy, biomechanics, biosensors, computational models). She has coordinated and participated in numerous competitive projects on the development of human resources, tissue engineering, biomaterials, biosensors and bioreactors. The outcomes of her research have been translated to commercial products through two companies, one of which she has cofounded.

mandarkulkarni

Dr. Mandar Kulkarni

After earning his doctorate in molecular carcinogenesis from Purdue University, Dr. Mandar Kulkarni was selected to become a T32 fellow at the Yale School of Medicine and was awarded a young scientist award for his work in the structural biology and signal transduction. As a senior scientist at M/Z Diagnostics, he managed business, obtained an NIH-SBIR grant as a PI, and was awarded a Young scientist award by the FSG. At Sandor Lifesciences, as the Head of Molecular Biology and Genomics, he designed and executed numerous NGS, microarray and bioinformatics projects. Then, as the Chief Technology Officer at CGIndia, he managed all operations and lead the development of research services, diagnostics, biopharma services, R&D, and genomics-based clinical assays in the area of precision oncology. He was also responsible for ensuring the financial success of the Indian business unit and established several high value collaborations in the Indian personalized oncology space. Currently, he is also a key member of the senior executive team and drives the scientific agenda at Lumiseek.

jaganmohan

Dr. Jaganmohan Reddy

Dr. Jaganmohan Reddy is currently a CEO and CSO of UR Advanced Therapeutics Pvt Ltd, a startup organization working in the areas of Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials and cancer biology. He worked as a Visiting Scientist and as a Senior Researcher at Linkoping University post PhD before moving to India to establish his own laboratory. He has published 18 high impact peer reviewed articles, book chapters and holds a world patent on Artificial Cornea. He has trained several Masters and sponsored 3 PhD students. He has served as a reviewer, guest editor for several journals. Dr. Reddy presented his works in several invited talks at international conferences including TERMIS-AP 2019 and universities. He also served as a program organizing committee chair and scientific advisory committee for TERMIS EU2016 and chaired sessions during the conferences.

pushkar

Dr. Pushkar Kulkarni

Dr. Pushkar Kulkarni is a veterinarian by training, PhD in pharmacology & toxicology and a Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology (DABT). Presently, he is working as a Senior Research Scientist at Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences (DRILS), Hyderabad where he has set up a zebrafish laboratory from scratch. His past record includes working at Ranbaxy Laboratories, Gurgaon and GVK Bio, Hyderabad. He has got entrepreneurial experience as Co-founder & Director of two start-ups: Zephase Therapeutics (zebrafish services company) and Vegrandis Therapeutics (nanotechnology company). He has filed two international patents and published 45 research papers (including 1 book chapter) in reputed peer reviewed journals that have been cited around 750 times till date, with several of them been cited by Key Opinion Leaders in the field.

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Dr. Montip Gettayacamin

Dr. Montip Gettayacamin is Senior Director for Southeast Asia at AAALAC International, a position she has held for the past eleven years. In this role she supports AAALAC International’s accreditation program to advance research animal welfare in the region and assists institutions to attain accreditation. Dr. Montip received her veterinary medicine degree from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand in 1984. She is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. She has over 30 years of experience in Laboratory Animal Medicine and previously served as Assistant Chief for Research and Laboratory Animal Medicine, and Senior Research Scientist at Department of Veterinary Medicine, United States Army Medical Component, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (USAMC-AFRIMS), Bangkok, Thailand. The program has attained AAALAC International accreditation since 1999. She has authored and coauthored more than 50 scientific publications. She translated the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, National Research Council (NRC, 1996 and 2011), the Occupational Health and Safety in the Care and Use of Research Animals (NRC, 1997) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Agricultural Animals in Research and Teaching (FASS 2010) to Thai. Dr. Montip is a reviewer of Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) and a member, Editorial Board, Animal Models,and Experimental Medicine (AMEM) Journal. She is a former member of AAALAC International Council on Accreditation. She has served on International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) Governing Board and the Chair of Asia Regional Committee for 2019-2023. Dr. Montip is the Chair of the Educational and Scientific Program Committee, AFLAS Congress 2020.

Dr. Uday Saxena

Dr. Uday Saxena is Co-Founder and Chief Ideator of Reagene Biosciences. He was “Mentor –in-Residence” and Professor of Translational Research at Dr.Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences as well as Co-Founder of start-up Biotech Company. He has held Executive and Leadership positions at Parke-Davis, AtheroGenics, Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories and Kareus Therapeutics. He is responsible for leading teams that brought several drug candidates from idea into the clinic. He likes to use “disruptive science” to discover and understand new therapies.

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Mr. Akshay Sonawane

Mr. Akshay is Research Scientist at Oncoseek Bio. He is Double masters in Biotechnology from Pune University. His interest is in creating spheroids as disease models for various solid cancers, NASH, NAFLD, and few other infectious and metabolic diseases. He has experience of creating spheroid models for breast cancers earlier. He has 2 book chapters for his credit.

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Dr. Somshuvra Bhattacharya

Dr. Somshuvra Bhattacharya is working as Technical Information Scientist at The Jackson Laboratory USA. Dr. Som, after completing a Master’s degree in Pharmacy from Birla Institute of Technology in India, earned a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from South Dakota State University in 2018. His doctoral thesis focused on reverse engineering the corneal stroma to generate extracellular matrix-based therapeutic platforms for regeneration of damaged ocular surfaces, and treatment of other recurrent ocular dystrophies. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Som underwent postdoctoral training for 2.5 years at Sanford Health where he researched hypoxia driven tumor immune evasion studies, extracellular matrix protein-based pathology studies, and helped develop personalized immune system 3D models that can support patient-specific therapies.

Lena Smirnova

Dr. Lena Smirnova

Dr. Lena Smirnova is a Researcher at Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University. She is the Head of Education Program and Program on Microphysiological systems. Her research focus is on gene environmental interactions in autism using stem cell-derived brain organoids. She had a PostDoc training at Center for Alternative to Animal Methods, Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin, Germany where she worked on “The role of microRNA in developmental neurotoxicity”. She obtained her PhD in Biology from Charite University, Berlin, Germany, where she worked with the focus on Neuroscience, on the role of microRNA in brain development and stem cell differentiation. Earlier to this she had a Diploma (Master equivalent) in Radiobiology and Environmental Medicine from the International Sakharov Environmental University (ISEU), Minsk, Belarus.

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Dr. Subrahmanyam Vangala

Dr. Subrahmanyam Vangala  is the founder and CEO of ReaGene Biosciences Private Limited. He is an experienced pharma scientist and executive with more than two decades of leadership experience at global pharma in USA (Wyeth, JNJ., Purdue Pharma and Shire) and Contract Research Organizations in India (Sai Life and Advinus). He brings with him, unique insights into providing cost effective alternative solutions for substituting animal studies for regulatory products. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from Memorial University, Canada and postdoctoral experience at University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California at Berkeley.

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Dr. Kirsten Rosenmay Jacobsen

Dr. Kirsten Rosenmay Jacobsen, DVM, PhD is the Chief Scientific Officer at Ellegaard Göttingen Minipigs, Denmark. She earned her veterinary degree specialized in Biomedicine in 2009 and Ph.D. degree in Experimental Medicine at University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 2012. Kirsten is specialized in laboratory animal welfare and has worked with topics such as pain, stress, behavior, enrichment and refined models and veterinary care. She has numerous publications within the field and has several years of experience working with rodents and large animals – especially the Göttingen Minipig. Kirsten has been a Council Member of the National Animal Ethics Council in Denmark since 2017, and a AAALAC international ad hoc Specialist since 2020.

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Dr. Yasunari Kanda

Dr. Yasunari Kanda, Ph. D. is the Head, Division of Pharmacology, National Institute of health Sciences (NIHS), Kawasaki, Japan. Dr. Kanda’s research area is regulatory science, which seeks to apply new science into the review process, and bridge the gap between scientific innovation and patient safety. He coordinates NIHS’s research activities JiCSA (Japan iPS Cardiac Safety Assessment), including development and validation of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes assays, and has collaborated with FDA. He has worked with HESI NeuTox in terms of seizure liability and HESI PBPK. In addition, he has contributed to several OECD guidance (Good In Vitro Method Practice, Developmental Neurotoxicity, and PBPK) as expert group. He is a member of International Scientific Committee at WC11 and a member of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Pharmacological Society. He serves as the Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters related to assessing the safety and effectiveness of drugs and chemicals.

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S Dravida

S Dravida, Founder and CEO of Transcell Group, leads their product portfolio www.transtoxbio.com that has all new league of human surrogate in vitro systems with innate powers to predict safety and potency of drug/vaccine/cosmetics candidates being trialed for human applications. Through this vertical-specific offering her company adds value in understanding pharma assets better and on the most relevant preclinical systems that require no extrapolation to human applications.

Saikat Biswas

Mr. Saikat Biswas

Mr. Saikat Biswas is the Global Head – Life Sciences Digital Operations at Wipro Ltd. He did his Bachelor of Technology at National Inst of Technology Warangal, and MBA, from prestigious Institutes of India and
Executive Leadership program from Harvard University. Saikat has more than two decades of experience in IT / ITES industry driving strategic global programs for Fortune 500 clients. Strong knowledge and expertise in the Life Sciences Industry. He has rich experience in driving Global operations & outsourcing models having worked with Health & Life Sciences clients / engagements in USA, UK, Ireland and Asia.
At present, he is the Global Head of Life Sciences Digital Operations business of Wipro Ltd. Prior joining Wipro, he worked almost 14 years with Cognizant. Was part of the Life Sciences business, played several leadership roles based out of NJ USA. Early part of his career, he had major contributions in the Healthcare business worked in USA and also for NHS ( National Health Services, UK). A visionary leader spearheading transformative solutions in Life Sciences space, advocating changes to improve business value meter of Life Sciences Clients.

Franco Mondini

Franco  Mondini is currently the International Sales Director of Tecniplast, Italy. Tecniplast is the world leading company in the Lab Animal Industry in designing, manufacturing and distributing patented equipment for laboratory animals since 1949.

 

speakers for first international conference

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Dr. Marcel Gyger

Marcel Gyger is currently the Member of the Scientific Board of the Fondazione Guido Bernardini, Chair of the FELASA Accredition Board for Education and Training, FELASA Vice-President for Education and Training, present Hon. Secretary of ETPLAS (European Education and Training Platform for Laboratory Animal Science) and Head of the animal facilities of Campus Biotech Geneva, Switzerland. Marcel is an Ethologist and has worked extensively in the field of bioacoustics and communication in Rodents and Birds. He obtained his Ph. D. in Physiology from the University of Lausanne and later had a Post-Doc training at Rockefeller University, NYC, USA.

Charu Chandrasekera

Charu Chandrasekera, is currently the Executive Director at Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods, Ontario, Canada. Charu who hails from srilanka, is an experienced biochemist/molecular biologist, former animal researcher, and science policy expert who advocates for higher standards in biomedical research and a paradigm shift in which our species, Homo sapiens, serves as the quintessential animal model and our biology is the gold standard in biomedical research, education, and regulatory testing through 21st century science, innovation, and ethics.

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S Dravida

S Dravida, Founder and CEO of Transcell Group, leads their product portfolio www.transtoxbio.com that has all new league of human surrogate in vitro systems with innate powers to predict safety and potency of drug/vaccine/cosmetics candidates being trialed for human applications. Through this vertical-specific offering her company adds value in understanding pharma assets better and on the most relevant preclinical systems that require no extrapolation to human applications.

Dr. Uday Saxena

Dr. Uday Saxena is Co-Founder and Chief Ideator of Reagene Biosciences. He was “Mentor –in-Residence” and Professor of Translational Research at Dr.Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences as well as Co-Founder of start-up Biotech Company. He has held Executive and Leadership positions at Parke-Davis, AtheroGenics, Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories and Kareus Therapeutics. He is responsible for leading teams that brought several drug candidates from idea into the clinic. He likes to use “disruptive science” to discover and understand new therapies.

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Dr. Subrahmanyam Vangala

Dr. Subrahmanyam Vangala  is the founder and CEO of ReaGene Biosciences Private Limited. He is an experienced pharma scientist and executive with more than two decades of leadership experience at global pharma in USA (Wyeth, JNJ., Purdue Pharma and Shire) and Contract Research Organizations in India (Sai Life and Advinus). He brings with him, unique insights into providing cost effective alternative solutions for substituting animal studies for regulatory products. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from Memorial University, Canada and postdoctoral experience at University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California at Berkeley.

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Prof. Thomas Hartung

Professor Thomas Hartung is currently the Director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Baltimore. He is a professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (Joint) and a Professor of Evidence-Based Toxicology. The main goal of his research is towards a paradigm shift in toxicity testing to improve public health. His experience in clinical and experimental pharmacology and toxicology has been documented in more than 550 publications. His previous work centered on the immune recognition of bacteria, including pyrogen testing, and the induced inflammatory response. He has an active lab that is involved in research on developmental neurotoxicity based on genomics and metabolomics.  He has many honors and awards like the Research Award for replacing animal experiments from the German Ministery of Health and the European F.I.S.E.A. Foundation, Luxembourg, Doerenkamp/Zbinden Award for replacement of animal experiments, Sandoz Award for therapeutically relevant pharmacological research, Business Innovation Award of the region lake Konstanz for the development of an alternative pyrogen test, RIVM Award at the World Conference on Animal Use and its Alternatives, US Society of Toxicology Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award, Russell & Burch award of the Humane Society of the US, Agilent Thought Leader award, EuroGroup for Animals – Animal Welfare Award, Björn Ekwall Memorial Award of the Scandinavian Society for Cellular Toxicology to name a few.

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Dr. Lars Friis Mikkelsen

Dr. Lars Friis Mikkelsen is the CEO of Ellegaard Göttingen Minipigs in Denmark. In 1994, he received his veterinary (DVM) degree from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark and in 2007, he received his Master´ in Laboratory Animal Science (MLAS) degree from the University of Copenhagen. Furthermore, he received an Executive MBA degree from the National University of Singapore in 2014.
 
Lars has a unique international educational and professional background combining science and business with a vision of making a difference for the society, the patients and the animals being used in research. His passion for combining science and business have led to a number of board memberships in international organizations plus numerous peer-reviewed publications in well-recognized journals, and he is a well-known and often invited speaker at international scientific meetings and conferences sharing his scientific interests, knowledge and experience.
 
In addition, Lars founded LarSolution in 2014; offering support and solution for in vivo pharmacological research and business development, professional advice on laboratory animal care and use as well as guidance on animal welfare, health and veterinary related issues; all servicing the scientific community in the spirit of the 3Rs Principles; and all through the company’ vision of implementing the LFM Principles of Leveraging, Fulfilling & Managing business operating in the best LarSolutionable way.
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Victoria Sachs

Victoria Sachs is currently an Animal Use Trainer for The Jackson Laboratory residing in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of California, Davis in Animal Science and is responsible for educating animal care technicians and animal researchers on proper animal handling and biomethods focusing on the excellent and ethical treatment of mice in animal research. She also has extensive experience producing and caring for a variety of humanized mouse models and conducting applicable studies focusing on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), immunotoxicity, oncology and graft versus host disease (GvHD). 
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Dr. Brenda Kick

Dr. Brenda Kick is currently a Senior Clinical Veterinarian at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine campus. She obtained her veterinary degree from Colorado State University and completed a laboratory animal medicine specific residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has worked with laboratory animals since 2006, with much of her experience working with non-human primates and mice. Her career interests include improvements for laboratory animal welfare and humane endpoints, aging mice colony care, and refinements to animal use.

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Dr. Ritu Verma

Dr. Ritu is a leading cell biologist with a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from IIT Delhi and associated with Dabur Research Foundation for over 16 years. She is currently heading preclinical operations and is responsible for overall strategy and coordination for different projects. She has wide experience in cell-based animal-free models in different therapeutic areas such as oncology, metabolic disorders, immunity, inflammation, dermatology, dermal pathologies amongst others. She has expertise in designing a roadmap strategy for a wide range of products in compliance with various requirements as per project need.

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Dr. Montip Gettayacamin

Dr. Montip Gettayacamin is Senior Director for Southeast Asia at AAALAC International, a position she has held for the past eleven years. In this role she supports AAALAC International’s accreditation program to advance research animal welfare in the region and assists institutions to attain accreditation. Dr. Montip received her veterinary medicine degree from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand in 1984. She is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. She has over 30 years of experience in Laboratory Animal Medicine and previously served as Assistant Chief for Research and Laboratory Animal Medicine, and Senior Research Scientist at Department of Veterinary Medicine, United States Army Medical Component, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (USAMC-AFRIMS), Bangkok, Thailand. The program has attained AAALAC International accreditation since 1999. She has authored and coauthored more than 50 scientific publications. She translated the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, National Research Council (NRC, 1996 and 2011), the Occupational Health and Safety in the Care and Use of Research Animals (NRC, 1997) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Agricultural Animals in Research and Teaching (FASS 2010) to Thai. Dr. Montip is a reviewer of Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) and a member, Editorial Board, Animal Models,and Experimental Medicine (AMEM) Journal. She is a former member of AAALAC International Council on Accreditation. She has served on International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) Governing Board and the Chair of Asia Regional Committee for 2019-2023. Dr. Montip is the Chair of the Educational and Scientific Program Committee, AFLAS Congress 2020.

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Bryan E. Ogden

Bryan E. Ogden is Director of the SingHealth Experimental Medicine Centre and the National Large Animal Research Facility, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.  He is a member of Singapore’s National Advisory Committee for Laboratory Animal Research and founding past-President of the Singapore Association for Laboratory Animal Science (SALAS). Dr. Ogden earned his veterinary degree from the University of Minnesota in 1980.  Prior to beginning his career in laboratory animal medicine, Dr. Ogden worked eight years in private veterinary practice, including farm animals, pets, and critical care. He has served on 12 different IACUCs during his career. His previous positions have included: Director, Veterinary Services, Maccine Pte. Ltd.; Animal Resources Division Head and Assistant Director, Oregon National Primate Research Center; and Associate Director, Department of Comparative Medicine and Clinical Professor, Oregon Health & Science University.  He is a Diplomate in the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and currently serves as a Council Member Emeritus for AAALAC International.
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Dr. Dewi Rowlands

Dr. Dewi Rowlands is Director, Centre for Comparative Medicine Research, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China. Dr. Rowlands received a doctorate degree in Physiology and a master of philosophy degree in Pharmacology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom. He has expertise in development of animal research models of pain, reproductive and degenerative diseases, together with experience in management and development of animal care and use programs in teaching and research.  Dr. Rowlands currently serves as Chairperson of the Legal Sub-Group and as a Member of the Animal Welfare Advisory Group of the Hong Kong Government and founding President of the Hong Kong Laboratory Animal Sciences Society.  He currently serves as a member of AAALAC International Council on Accreditation.
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Dr. Manjunath Ramarao

Dr. Manjunath Ramarao is the Executive Director, Site Leader, Research and Early Development, BBRC and Head of Discovery Biology and Translational Medicine, BBRC at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He leads a large team of scientists involved in drug discovery research efforts spanning diverse areas including in vitro biology, mechanistic biochemistry, genomics, protein sciences, biophysics, crystallography, electrophysiology, computational biology, compound management and automation. He joined BMS in 2009 after an industrious career at Wyeth, Cambridge, MA, USA, which spanned over eight years where he initiated and successfully led several drug discovery programs. Prior to that he worked as an Instructor in Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. He holds Ph.D. and MS in Physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA and MSc (Biochemistry) and B.Sc. from Bangalore University, India.

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Dr. Vijay Pal Singh

Dr. Vijay Pal Singh is currently the Joint Director (Social and Behavioural Change & AMR) in the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), Govt of India. Earlier he served as an Assistant Professor in the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR). Dr. Singh is a Graduate in Veterinary Medicine, Postgraduate in Dairy Husbandry and milk processing and a Doctorate in Biotechnology. He has 36 indexed research articled.

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Dr. Balaji Bhyravbhatla

Dr. Balaji Bhyravbhatla, is the Managing Director at HyLasCo Bio-Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. Dr. Balaji, after his Ph.D in Biophysics from Brandies University started his career as post doc in Florida state University and later remained as a visiting faculty member in the Institute of Molecular Biophysics and played major role in facilities planning, setting up of infrastructure as well as training programs. Later, in 2001 he joined as faculty in University of Massachusetts medical school and instrumental in starting the research core in structural biology and training programs in structural biology in the Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He continued his research on large protein structures and mechanisms of oxygen transport using haemoglobin from various species as well as computational methods for solvent models and ligand binding. His technical expertise in early stage drug discovery and mechanism of action studies, small molecule characterization and API developments, analyzing patents and formulating IP strategies led him to co found XTAL Biostructures for structure guided drug discovery services. He led XTAL from its inception, first as VP for research and later as its CEO to a multimillion dollar self funded organically growing company. Recently he stepped down as the CEO of XTAL to start Hylasco Biotechnology in 2012 partnering with internationally reputed manufactures and suppliers of animal models and related services. His vision is to bring down the cost of drug discovery by providing appropriate animal models in a cost effective way to the Indian Pharma and Biotech sectors.

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Dr. Avery August

Dr. Avery August is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He is currently HHMI Professor and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. His previous position was as Distinguished Professor of Immunology in the Department of Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences, and Director of the Center for Molecular Immunology & Infectious Disease, at The Pennsylvania State University at University Park, where he started as an Assistant Professor in 1999. He received a B.S. degree in Medical Technology from the California State University at Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. degree in Immunology from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He was a Postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University with the late Hidesaburo Hanafusa. His research interests include regulation of immune response by intracellular signaling events, CD8+ T cell memory development, and production of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells during lung inflammation or infection.

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Dr. Christian PELLEVOISIN

Dr. Christian PELLEVOISIN is currently the Scientific Director at EPISKIN, a subsidiary of L’Oreal, dedicated to the development and production of reconstructed human epithelia for safety and efficacy assessment of chemical, cosmetics, drugs and medical devices. Engaged in projects that led to the introduction of new models and methods to the market, Dr. Chris also developed the EPISKIN Academy program to promote alternative methods through education and training. He is involved for several years in the biocompatibility of medical devices. He is the chairman of the French AFNOR S92J commission for biocompatibility of medical devices and convenor of the ISO/TC 194/WG8 skin irritation and sensitization.

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Prof P.V.S. Kishore

Dr. P.V.S. Kishore is the Professor & Head of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy, College of Veterinary Science, Gannavaram in India. He completed the Animal Welfare Training Course sponsored by RSPCA in 1992 and was appointed as the Honorary Animal Welfare Officer, Animal Welfare Board of India for the period from 1992-1997. He was the recipient of the ‘Humane Education Award 2003’ from the International Network for Humane Education, England. He is the CPCSEA Nominee/Inspector of Government of India since August 2009. He established the ‘Willed Body Programme in Veterinary Education’ the first of its kind in the country. He organized one National Workshop on ‘Willed Body Programme and Humane Alternatives for Laboratories in Veterinary Education’. He was the pioneer in the country to start an Anatomy youtube channel ‘Willed Body Programme’. He pioneered the development of the innovative teakwood anatomy educational models. He guided many post-graduate scholars for research works on laboratory animals. He is presently undertaking a DST project on bone regeneration in rats.

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Dr. Brian W. Soper

Dr. Brian W. Soper, is the Manager and Senior Technical Information Scientist at Technical Information Services which provides educational resources to the scientific community. Dr. Soper has worked at The Jackson Laboratory for more than 25 years. He has conducted research on hematopoietic stem cell biology, bone marrow transplantation, immune tolerance and treatment strategies for a mouse model of human enzyme deficiency.  Brian’s expertise includes the immuno-biology of humanized mice following human PBMC or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and their use to study human immune modulation and immuno-oncology when co-transplanted with human tumors.

Franco Mondini

Franco  Mondini is currently the International Sales Director of Tecniplast, Italy. Tecniplast is the world leading company in the Lab Animal Industry in designing, manufacturing and distributing patented equipment for laboratory animals since 1949.

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Dr. Tharanga Thoradeniya

Dr. Tharanga Thoradeniya obtained her Bachelor of Veterinary Science (B.V.Sc) degree from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and her Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Dr. Thoradeniya is a vibrant advocate for science and particularly for young scientists and women in science. She is the past president of the Sri Lanka Association for Laboratory Animal Sciences (SLALAS) (2017/18) and Sri Lankan Academy of Young Scientists (2016/17). In addition, she is actively contributing to the Sri Lanka Veterinary Association (current Assistant secretary), Sri Lanka College of Biochemists (founder co-secretary and current vice-president), Sri Lanka National Chapter for Organization for Women in Science in the Developing world (OWSD) (founder treasurer).

She has conducted animal ethics and welfare trainings nationally and internationally. As the Secretary and current chairperson of the Animal Research Welfare Sub Committee at the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo and a member of the Bioethics Committee of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka (2018), she is playing a leading role in developing consensus guidelines for the care and use of animals in research in Sri Lanka and in establishing a ‘culture of care for animal research through harmonization’. She was the key player of the training workshop on Animal Ethics held in the University of Colombo in January 2020, where key stakeholders dealing with animal experimentation and ethics at educational and research institutes across Sri Lanka participated.

Dr. Thoradeniya has broad research interests in nutrition modulation of chronic disease risk and the metabolism and functionality of micronutrients, and animal welfare and alternatives. Her research work has been published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals and she has presented her work and provided expertise at conferences, symposia and workshops. Dr. Thoradeniya has received many awards and honours, including the Presidential Research Award, National Consultative Award- International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and has won many competitive travel awards/scholarships including IUBMB Women in Science travel grant. She received Commonwealth Academic Fellowship in 2014 and has participated at Erasmus+ staff mobility for teaching programme in 2017. 

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Dr. Suresh Poosala

Dr. Suresh Poosala is the Founder and President of OncoSeek Bio Pvt Ltd; Board of Directors, Reagene Biosciences; Advisor to The Jackson Laboratory; Council Member, AAALAC International,  Strategic Advisor, Science in India, The Jackson Laboratory, USA  Committee member-Antibiotic Residues, FSSAI, GOI, India  Consultant for in vivo Regulatory and Facilities Accreditations, Pacific Rim Executive Member, Federation of Asian Biologists Association (FABA). He is a leader, scientist and motivator with three decades of international experience in fostering science, innovation and collaborative culture, by building and nurturing high-performing teams.  His career spans scientific excellence in discovery and research, which resulted in high impact publications in high visibility international journals including Nature and he created exceptional quality in vivo facilities and created trained teams for R&D. He has succeeded as a leader in enabling great collaborations between CROs and Discovery programs, academia and industry, and between many strategic partners.  He returned to India after 25 years at NIH, Washington, Bristol-Myers Squibb, San Francisco, University of Maryland, Baltimore, and St. Jude’s Research, Memphis.  He launched a startup after his return to India and is participating in several active advisory roles and partnerships, his way of giving back to Science in India.

Leslie Retnam

Leslie Retnam is currently the Director of Veterinary Services at Biological Resource Centre (BRC), Agency for Science, Research and Technology (A*STAR), Singapore. He is a Council Member with the AAA. He is also Attending Veterinarian for the Animal Care and Use Program at the Biomedical Sciences Institutes (BMSI), A*STAR. Since 2003, he has been a member of Singapore’s National Advisory Committee on Laboratory Animal Research (NACLAR), whose charge is to recommend guidelines for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes in Singapore. He chairs the NACLAR Subcommittee on Training. Since 2006, he has served with AAALAC-I, first as Ad Hoc site visitor and then as Council Member in 2009. He was Assistant Section Leader in 2013 and Section Leader in 2014 and 2015 for the Pacific Rim Section. He is also presently a member of the Ministry of Health’s Expert Subcommittee for Restricted Human Biomedical Research, Singapore’s Accreditation Council, and Chair of the Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) Council Committee.

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Mr. Manu Jaggi

Mr. Manu Jaggi is Chief Operating Officer at Dabur Research Foundation

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