Speaker Bios
Prof Linda Griffith
School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Speaker bio
Prof. Linda Griffith received her BS in from Georgia Tech (1982) and her PhD from UC Berkeley (1988), both in Chemical Engineering. She is currently the School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also directs the Center for Gynepathology Research. She is currently the School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also directs the Center for Gynepathology Research. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and has received numerous other awards from professional societies and from MIT.
Dr. Claire Caygill
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Speaker bio
Claire Caygill is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate within the Infection Biology and Therapeutics research group at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on development of advanced human infection models to identify therapeutics and better understand the host response to infectious diseases affecting resource poor populations and low-middle income countries. Claire has most recently been using CN-Bio’s lung-on-a-chip and liver-on-a-chip platforms to characterise SARS-CoV-2 variants in upper and lower airway models, whilst utilising liver-on-chip to access SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic potential.
Dr. Amélie Moreau
Servier R&D Institute
Speaker bio
Amélie Moreau defended her PhD in molecular biology, dealing with the detoxication process and crosstalks occurring with other physiologic pathways within Prof. Patrick Maurel’s laboratory in Montpellier (France, INSERM). She then joined Prof. Olivier Fardel’s team in Rennes (France, INSERM) where she explored deeper drug transporters functioning. Her experience in drug–drug interactions and in vitro pharmacokinetics in Servier DMPK’s team help her to have a great overview of the different ways to explore drug fate in the human body.
Déborah Lenart
Genetic Toxicology, Charles River Laboratories
Speaker bio
Déborah Lenart is a Research Scientist I at Charles River Laboratories in Montreal, Canada, specializing in Genetic Toxicology since 2017. With a Master’s degree in Toxicology from Toulouse, France, she focuses on GLP regulatory tests for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. She has contributed to the Liver on Chip project and co-authored an article in Mutation Research recently. Déborah and her team have collaborated with CNBio for over five years, aiming to advance Genetic Toxicology endpoints and reduce animal use in preclinical regulatory testing.
Dr. Audrey Dubourg
Product Manager, CN Bio
Speaker bio
Dr Audrey Dubourg is CN Bio’s Product Manager for the PhysioMimix® OOC range of microphysiological systems. Prior to joining CN Bio, she worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), in the US, in the Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics department. She completed an MSc in microbiology at the University of Montpellier II, followed by a PhD in microbiology/parasitology at the University of East Anglia. Audrey has extensive experience in the disciplines of molecular biology and 3D mammalian cell culture. Since joining CN Bio, she has been actively involved in promoting the benefits of incorporating organ-on-a-chip technology into drug discovery and development workflows.
Dr. Emily Richardson
Lead Scientist - Toxicology,
CN Bio
Speaker bio
Dr Emily Richardson is a Lead Scientist in the R&D team at CN Bio. She joined the team in 2020 and led the development of the PhysioMimix® lung and lung-liver MPS models. Emily is experienced in the application of complex cell biology to drug discovery, having previously worked in cellular therapeutics in an industry setting and as a trained biochemist with specialty in molecular biology. She completed her PhD at the University of Leicester, using 3D cell culture to determine molecular mechanisms driving highly metastatic lung cancers. She now leads R&D projects within the CN Bio team revolving around toxicology in the liver and the lung MPS, as well as driving collaborative projects with various academic, industry and regulatory partners.
Dr. Yassen Abbas
Lead Scientist, CN Bio
Speaker bio
Dr. Yassen Abbas is a Lead Scientist at CN Bio. He completed an MEng in chemical engineering at The University of Edinburgh and joined the European Space Agency as a graduate engineer. He later received a PhD from the University of Cambridge and completed a postdoc fellowship, also at Cambridge on the development of a tissue engineered model of the human endometrium. He has experience with real-time sensor technology, organoids and development of in vitro tissue models using human primary cells. Dr Abbas has published five peer-reviewed scientific articles, four as first author.