From May 21 to 23, 2024, the University of Tübingen became the meeting point for around 200 participants from science, industry, politics, and authorities: The second 3R LÄND Conference took place under the motto „Towards the Future of Biomedical & Pharmaceutical Research“ and made a significant impact on the advancement of animal-free research approaches in Baden-Württemberg. Organized by the 3R-Center Tübingen, the event provided a dynamic platform for knowledge transfer, interdisciplinary exchange, and networking around the 3R principles.
2024 Keynote Lectures
- Prof. Dr. Josef Penninger (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, DE): Human organoids for infection research
- Prof. Dr. Daniela Salvatori (Utrecht University, NL): The power of education for the transition to animal-free innovation: from theory to practice
- Prof. Dr. Marcel Leist (Konstanz University, DE): Development of non-animal methods for neurodegeneration research and neurotoxicity assessment
- Prof. Dr. Simone Mayer (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology & Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, DE): Human brain organoids as models of rare neurological disorders as a stepping stone towards personalized medicine
- Prof. Dr. Peter Loskill (Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, DE): Recapitulating Complex Tissues using Organ-on-chip and Organoid Technologies
2024 Sessions
- Innovation in Organ-on-Chip
- Innovation in Organoid
- Innovation in In Silico models
- Application of NAMs for personalized medicine
- Use of NAMs in industrial research
- NAM-based basic biomedical research
- Application of NAMs for toxicology
- Training and education for NAMs
Keynote Speaker will be announced soon - stay tuned!
2024 Keynote Speaker
Prof. Dr. Josef Penninger
Josef Penninger born in Gurten, Austria, is since July 1, 2023 the Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Germany. At the same time, he was appointed part-time Professor for Precision Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. Josef Penninger studied medicine at the University of Innsbruck. From 1990 to 1994 he worked as post-doctoral fellow at the Ontario Cancer Institute, thereafter until 2002 at the Department of Immunology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. As Principal Investigator at Amgen, his independent lab contributed to the development of the antibody Denosumab for bone loss and found the first connection for RANKL to mammary gland development in pregnancy and breast cancer. In 2002, he moved to Vienna, to start and develop the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, which has become one of the prime research centers in the world. From the end of 2018 to June 2023 Josef Penninger returned to Canada and was the Director of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Penninger created a similar environment at the LSI that nurtured and trained the best and brightest young minds of UBC scholars. His major accomplishments include pioneering insights into the molecular basis of osteoporosis and breast cancer and demonstrating a critical role for ACE2 as the cellular receptor for SARS Coronavirus infections and linking ACE2 to lung failure in such infections.
Prof. Dr. Daniela Salvatori
Daniela Salvatori works as Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Veterinary Faculty, in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
She is a veterinarian and a European Certified Veterinary Pathologist. She leads from 2019 the Utrecht Transition Program to Animal-free Innovations, an interdisciplinary group focused on innovation of research and education without use of laboratory animals.
Her research studies mechanisms of tumorigenesis of human and animal stem cells, and works on the characterization and validation of in vitro models for studying human and animal diseases. She works on evidence-based approaches for introduction of animal-free educational methods, in particular on plastination and virtual reality.
She has recently worked on the vision document focused on the use of fewer laboratory animals in higher education published by the Universities of the Netherlands and the Dutch Medical Hospital.
Her work focuses on animal-free innovations in life science education and on the importance of education as catalyst for acceptance of animal-free new approach methodologies. Her lecture will focus on these two aspects.
Prof. Dr. Simone Mayer
Simone Mayer is originally from Baden-Württemberg. She obtained her BA hons degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (UK) and a MSc and PhD from the Georg August University Göttingen, International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology focusing on synaptic neurobiology. She did her postdoctoral work in the lab of Arnold Kriegstein at the Broad Stem Cell Center of the University of California, San Francisco funded by the European Molecular Biology Organization and the German Research Foundation (2015-2018) and developed a novel technique to perform multimodal single-cell analysis.
In 2018, she returned to Baden-Württemberg to set up her independent research group in „Molecular Brain Development“ at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research / University of Tübingen. During this time, she leveraged her expertise in human brain development and stem cell biology to establish several human brain organoid models of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. She has a strong focus on patient engagement, working very closely together with the patient organization PCH-Familie e.V. to reveal disease mechanisms underlying the rare genetic disorder pontocerebellar hypoplasia (PCH). Her work has been recognized by the Eva Luise Köher Research Award in 2023 and a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Grant in 2022.
Since February 2024, Dr. Mayer holds the W3-professorship for Systemic Cellular Neurobiology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
Prof. Dr. Marcel Leist
Marcel Leist obtained an MSc in toxicology (Guildford 1989), and a PhD in pharmacology (Konstanz 1993). Since 2006, he has been head of the Department of In vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine at the University of Konstanz (inaugurated by the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation), and director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT-Europe), a joint venture with Johns-Hopkins University. From 2000-2006, he worked as ‘Head of Department of Disease Biology’ on the discovery of neurology and psychiatry drugs in the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck A/S. His research resulted in > 400 publications (cited over 35,000 times), and was awarded with many national and international research prizes. The current research addresses the question on how model data can be used for the prediction of the adverse effects of chemicals on the human population. While the current safety system world-wide is based on the use of experimental animals as model system, the research of Marcel has focused on new approaches to use alternative data sources. Steps towards this include (i) the development of non-animal new approach methods (NAM), (ii) the integration of multiple information layers from NAM in next generation risk assessment (NGRA), (iii) extrapolation of model data to complex real-life scenarios, and (iv) uncertainty analyses for the predictions. An example is the contribution to the GIVIMP guideline issued by the OECD or the developmental neurotoxicity in vitro test battery promoted by EFSA and the EPA.
Prof. Dr. Peter Loskill
Peter Loskill is Full Professor for Organ-on-Chip (OoC) Research at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen (EKUT) and the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen in Reutlingen, and head of the 3R-Center Tübingen for In vitro Models and Alternatives to Animal Testing. Dr. Loskill graduated in 2012 from Saarland University with a PhD in Physics focusing on Biointerface Science. He then spent three years as postdoctoral fellow in the Healy lab at University of California at Berkeley developing human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC)-based OoC models, funded by the NIH/NCATS TissueChip program and the German Science Foundation (DFG). In 2015, he was named as one of Technology Review’s “Innovators under 35 Germany” and awarded a Fraunhofer ATTRACT Grant, the highest funded German starting grant program, which enabled him to start an independent research group at Fraunhofer IGB Stuttgart. In 2021, he accepted a W3-professor position, heading the Department for Microphysiological Systems in the Faculty of Medicine at EKUT and NMI. From 2021 to 2023, he served as the Chair of the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS) and, in 2023, he became part of the governing board of the International MPS Society (iMPSS). Dr. Loskill and his interdisciplinary µOrganoLab merge engineering, biology, physics, and medicine to generate next generation tissue models recapitulating complex human biology in vitro. His research focuses on i) development of tailored OoC platforms, ii) application of OoCs for pharmaceutical research, toxicological screening, and biomedical studies, as well as on iii) enabling technologies that support parallelization, automation, and ease of use.
THE 3R LÄND
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