From 26-30 June the Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente visited the 2nd MPS World Summit 2023 in Berlin. The MPS Summit was organized by Johns Hopkins University Centrer for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) (US and Europe-branch) and the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS).
It was a week filled with excellent science exploring many new insights and approaches, inspiring keynotes, great variety of symposia and posters, interesting round tables, a huge number of exhibitors and sponsors, and energizing social events. The new international MPS Socety (iMPSS) was initiated, bringing together all MPS stakeholders around the world.
Europe can be proud of its many scientists and growing number of EUROoCS members, who presented their newest results. The Netherlands was well-represented with many researchers from the University of Twente!
Next MPS World Summit will be hosted in Seattle, USA, from 10-14 June 2024.
OoCCT highlights
All Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente members presented on the conference in either oral presentations or poster presentations. Their sessions were a great success with many attendees and interesting discussions.
- Prof.dr. Andries van der Meer, heading the department of Applied Stem Cell Technologies (AST) and scientific lead of the OoCCT, presented the progress on the SMART-OoC project, discussing the development on a standardized open technology platform.
- Lena Koch, PhD student at AST, presented her work on iPSC-derived microbiome-gut-brain axis on a microfluidic chip.
- Carla Cofiño Fabres, also a PhD student at AST, presented her work on a micro-engineered heart tissue platform on chip.
- Dr. José Manuel Rivera Arbelaez, researcher at AST and BIOS Lab-on-a-Chip department, presented his work on assessing commercial drug compounds in an engineered heart tissue platform.
- Tarek Gensheimer, PhD student at AST, presented his work on the open OoC platform modelling the outer retina-blood barrier.
- Dr. Nuno Araújo-Gomes, postdoctoral researcher at the department of Developmental BioEngineering (DBE), presented his work on the integration of the next generation of bioluminescent-based biosensors onto microphysiological systems
- Eric Safai (AST) and Aniruddha Paul (BIOS), on behalf of the Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente, hosted an Educational Workshop on the Translational Organ-on-Chip Platform (TOP), an open platform for modular interfacing of organs-on-chips. They were aided by Andries van der Meer, Anne Leferink (AST) and Joshua Loessberg-Zahl (BIOS).
- Mariel Cano Jorge, PhD student at AST, won the 1st poster prize for her work on an engineered human mini-heart.
- Many poster sessions by all researchers, including Cécile Bosmans (PhD student at DBE), Tomas van Dorp (PhD student at AST), Heleen Goosen-Middelkamp (PhD student at BIOS), Verena Schwach (assistant professor at AST), Devin Veerman (PhD student at AST) and Huub Weener (PhD student at AST).
In addition, Andries van der Meer hosted a session together with the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute NEN on the roadmap for Organ-on-Chip towards Qualification and Standardization. He explains, "I was part of the pre-meeting by the CEN and CENELEC Focus Group on Standards for Organ-on-Chip, where we had a full house of experts from different countries and backgrounds. We learned a lot from each other and agreed on the need to involve industry partners and use standards to support innovation in this fast-growing field.”
Poster sessions from OoCCT researchers, from left to right: (top row) Cécile Bosmans,Tomas van Dorp, Heleen Goosen-Middelkamp, (bottom row) Verena Schwach, Devin Veerman, Huub Weener.
