EUROoCS 2020 Awards

During the closing ceremony of the EUROoCS 2020 conference five prizes were awarded:

-Two Best Presentation Young Investigator Awards (selected from 19 of 32 presentations in total)
-Best Presentation Senior Investigator Award
-Two Best Poster Awards (129 posters in total)

The presentation awards were elected by a jury of ten experts chaired by Alexander Mosig from Jena University Hospital, Germany. The poster awards were chosen by a jury of ten experts chaired by Nathalie Picollet-D’hahan from CEA, France.

Congratulations to the following awardees:

Best Presentation Young Investigator Awards
Award 1:
The Best Presentation Young Investigator Award (€ 500), sponsored by Ushio (Japan) was awarded to Joram Mooiweer (University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands) for his talk ‘Celiac disease-on-chip: modeling a multifactorial disease in vitro’. The Celiac disease model will enable studies on the underlying disease mechanism and will provide opportunities for precision medicine approaches to treat this complex disease. The presentation was prepared in collaboration with his colleague Renée Moerkens, also at the University Medical Center Groningen.

Joram Mooiweer: Generation of the Celiac disease-on-chip model

Award 2:
The other Best Presentation Young Investigator Award (€500) went to Oliver Schneider (Fraunhofer IGB/University of Tübingen, Germany) for his talk ‘Electrical pacing of hiPSC-derived cardiac µ-tissues in a centrifugal Heart-on-Chip platform’. By implementing electrical pacing capabilities of this new design, Oliver demonstrated that the Heart-on-Chip platform has become a valuable tool for investigating advanced tissue maturation via electrical stimulation.

Olivier Schneider: Chip composition, showing electrode insertion into the media module

Best Presentation Senior Investigator Award
Lisa Hoelting from InSphero AG (Switzerland) received the Best Presentation Senior Investigator Award (€500) for her talk ‘Applying a microphysiological 3D human liver-islet microtissue platform to study drug-drug interaction in metabolic diseases’. The liver – islet MPS platform will be used for studies on metabolic disease progression, drug efficacy and toxicity testing, drug – drug interaction and drug clearance assays.

Lisa Hoelting: Drug-drug interactions in the liver-islet MPS platform

Best Poster Awards
Award 1:
The Best Poster Award (€250), sponsored by UPM Biomedicals is granted to Marc Vila Cuenca (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands) for his poster entitled ‘Generating CADASIL patient-derived Vessels-on-Chip to model hereditary cerebral small vessel disease’. The hiPSC-based 3D Vessels-on-Chip network that has been developed in the group of Valeria Orlova will be used to recapitulate CADASIL pathogenesis by including patient-derived vascular smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells.

Marc Vila Cuenca: hiPSC-derived Blood Vessel-on-Chip

Award 2:
Bilge Sen Elci (EPFL, Switzerland) also received a Best Poster Award (€250) for her poster entitled ‘A Bile Duct-on-a-Chip’. The microfluidic chip-based approach to steer hepatobiliary organoid development into tubular tissues within microfabricated extracellular matrices (ECM) resulted in a Bile Duct-on-a-Chip with significant potential for the study of cholangiopathies.

Bilge Sen Elci: Bile Duct Tube Formation-on-Chip from mouse liver ductal organoid derived sible cells

Honourable mentions:
The poster jury has also decided that the following scientists deserve an honourable mention because of their excellent posters:

Merve Bulut (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands): Engineered 3D vessels-on-chip to model inflammatory responses using hiPSC-derived endothelial cells

Julia Rogal (Fraunhofer IGB / University of Tübingen, Germany): WAT’s up: a human immuno-competent and patient-specific white adipose tissue-on-a-chip

Ann-Kristin Muhsmann (Technical University Berlin, Germany): Fully automated multiorgan-chip assay execution and analysis

Katharina Schlünder (Fraunhofer IGB / University of Tübingen, Germany): PDMS-free microphysiological Pancreas-on-Chip platform to model endocrine function and metabolism

Peter Ertl (Vienna University of Technology, Austria): Microfluidic Multi-sized Brain Organoid Microarray for BBB transport screening

Nuria Roldan (AlveoliX, Switzerland): A smart breathing alveolus on chip model: concept and applications

EUROoCS 2020 beyond expectations

The 2nd edition of the Annual EUROoCS (European Organ-on-Chip Society) Conference was very different from the one held before. Instead of sunny summer days in Uppsala, Sweden, COVID-19 put EUROoCS 2020 into our own offices and homes. EUROoCS 2020 went virtual and in a remarkably short space of time.

The organizing committee transformed the conference that was held on 8th and 9th of July 2020 into the most well attended ever. Twice as many people, all EUROoCS members, attended compared to the year before: in total 402 participants from 28 different countries, including almost all European countries, but also Australia, Canada, China, India, Iran, Israel, Japan and US.


The latest results on Organ-on-Chip research were presented in 6 keynote lectures, 32 abstract selected talks and 129 posters. Posters at a virtual meeting? These were presented in a virtual ‘poster gallery’ and discussed in a virtual room during interactive poster sessions.
Thanks to the support and great deal of time and work of many people, the online conference was a great success and clearly demonstrated the increasing interest in Organ-on-Chip technology and the growing European research community.

A detailed report of the EUROoCS 2020 conference is available here.

Figure: Distribution of the participants by country (kindly provided by Berend van Meer, UTwente, the Netherlands)

NC3Rs Survey

The NC3Rs is currently running a survey targeted to end-users of organ-on-a-chip technology. The aim of the survey is to gather information on the current use and application of the technology, provide insight into the impacts on the 3Rs and to help inform the NC3Rs’ future strategy in this area. If you are currently using, considering using or have used organ-on-a-chip technology, please take 30 minutes to complete the survey before Friday 14 August. The survey can be accessed here.

WC11 webinars on 3Rs in COVID-19 research

On 25 and 26 August 2020 at 3 PM CET, the 11th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Science will organize two 1.5 h webinars on 3Rs in COVID-19 research. On both days, several excellent presentations will highlight innovative model systems to study COVID-19, and will also discuss new strategies for the development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics and much more!

The full program of both webinars will be available mid-July via the website: www.wc11maastricht.org

ISSCR 2020 Goes Virtual

The International Society for Stem Cell Research has transformed its annual scientific meeting ISSCR on 23-27 June, into a virtual experience, bringing the global stem cell community together to share knowledge, collaborate, and network.

Join ISSCR and your colleagues for The Global Stem Cell Event – and take part in live Q&A, connect in networking hubs, browse the digital poster hall, explore a vibrant, virtual exhibit floor, and enjoy on-demand viewing of all sessions 24 hours a day. One low registration price now includes workshops and special sessions. The virtual event format means you will now have unprecedented access to world-renowned stem cell scientists and educational and professional development sessions.

Learn more about the full program, high-caliber speakers, and explore the workshops and special sessions that are incorporated into the virtual meeting this year.

New (Reduced) Meeting Registration Rates

Trainee member: $65 USD
Full/affiliate member: $150 USD
Non-ISSCR member: $400 USD

Full access to the ISSCR 2020 Virtual Meeting includes:
•Tuesday Workshop Sessions
•Plenary Scientific Sessions
•Concurrent Scientific Sessions
•Virtual Tradeshow
•Networking Opportunities
•Poster Presentations
•Panel Discussions

For more information see the website www.isscr2020.org

3Rs Science Prize 2020 Call for submissions

The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) is proud to announce that a call for submissions is now open for its 2020 3Rs Science Prize.

Application deadline: 5 October 2020 at 12:00 (noon) Brussels time

The EPAA aims to promote the development, validation and acceptance of 3Rs alternative approaches (replacement, reduction and refinement of testing on animals). The 3Rs science prize is granted every two years to a scientist with an outstanding contribution to the 3Rs. We want to promote positive contributions from industry or academia and encourage more scientists to focus their research on the 3Rs goals. Scientists working on relevant methods for regulatory testing (e.g. safety, efficacy, batch testing) that provide an outstanding contribution to the use of the 3Rs may apply for the prize.

A selection board (composed by EPAA members and representatives of the EPAA Mirror Group) will evaluate the submissions, provide the EPAA steering committee with the results of the evaluation and give a recommendation on the ranking of the submissions. Based on this recommendation, the Steering Committee will select the winner, to whom the prize of €10,000 will be awarded.
The prize will be granted to the institution of the winner to be announced at the EPAA Annual Conference, on 10 November 2020. The winner will have the opportunity to present his/her work at the 2020 EPAA Annual Conference, gathering regulators, industry stakeholders, academia and civil society. Applicants should, therefore, confirm that they are available on 10 November 2020 to present their work at the Annual Conference if they win. Their travel and accommodation will be paid for by EPAA.

For more details on selection criteria, application process and time-line see EPAA 3Rs Science Prize 2020 Call for submissions and the EC-website.

Source: EC-website

WC11 Abstract Submission deadline extended to 22 March 2020

Make your appearance on the scientific program of the 11th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences (WC11) to be held in Maastricht, The Netherlands from 23-27 August 2020. Submit an abstract of your 3R-related work now!

The deadline for submitting an abstract is: 22 March 2020. You can submit your abstract via the website.

Do not miss out on this opportunity to share your latest insights and innovations with peers from industry, universities and regulatory bodies all over the world. With a multidisciplinary program, we will explore both the latest novelties in 3R innovation and the more traditional issues, centered around four themes ‘Safety’, ‘Innovative technologies’, ‘Ethics, Welfare and Regulation’ and ‘Disease’.

For more information see the WC11 website and newsletter.

Abstract submission for EUROoCS 2020 extended until March 15

Abstract submission for EUROoCS 2020, held on 8-9 July 2020 in Uppsala Sweden, is now open via http://www.euroocs2020.angstrom.uu.se.

Submitted abstracts will be selected either for an oral presentation or for the interactive poster session.

Deadline for abstract submission:     15 March 2020
Deadline for abstract selection:         1 April 2020

Scientific program committee
Maria Tenje (chair, Uppsala University Sweden)
Albert van den Berg (University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Peter Loskill (Fraunhofer IGB, EKUT, Germany)
Torsten Mayr (University of Graz, Austria)
Adrian Roth (Roche)
Janny van den Eijnden-van Raaij (hDMT)

Registration
Special reduced fees will be available to members of EUROoCS.
To become a member of EUROoCS click here.

EUROoCS members:

-Seniors: 2,000 SEK (~200 €*) + 500 SEK (~50 €*) late registration from 5 May 2020
-Students:1,600 SEK (~160 €*) + 500 SEK (~50 €*) late registration from 5 May 2020

Non-society members:
-Seniors: 2,400 SEK (~240 €*) + 500 SEK (~50 €*) late registration from 5 May 2020
-Students: 2,000 SEK (~200 €*) + 500 SEK (~50 €*) late registration from 5 May 2020

*dependent on the exchange rate.

More information about registration will become available soon via the conference website www.euroocs2020.angstrom.uu.se.