LIVe 2024

Bacterial and Fungal Infections

Prof. Doris Wilflingseder

Prof. Doris Wilflingseder is a University Professor of Infection Biology at the Medical University of Innsbruck since August 2020. Prior to this, she served as the Deputy Head of the Division of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology (HMM) at the same university from January 2012 to November 2019. She has a Postdoctoral lecture qualification in Immunology, which was obtained in November 2009.

Inhalation Toxicity Testing

Prof. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser

Prof. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser received her Ph.D. in cell biology in 1996 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ). She worked as a postdoc and group leader at ETHZ and the University of Bern, Switzerland. She is an expert in cell-nanoparticle interactions, focusing on 3D human lung tissue models. Since 2011, she has been co-chair BioNanomaterials at the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; the position is shared equally with Prof. Alke Fink. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, is an associate editor of “Particle and Fibre Toxicology” and was the president of the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM).

Inhalation Toxicity Testing

Dr. Adithya Sridhar

Dr. Adithya Sridhar is an Assistant Professor at Amsterdam UMC working on neural, gut, and airway models for studying viral (picornavirus, CMV, HIV-1) pathogenesis and antiviral testing. He has research experience in tissue engineering, organoids, virology, cell and molecular biology, bioassay development, nanotoxicology, electrochemistry (SECM), microfluidics and microfabrication (for biological applications). During his postdoctoral research, he worked on ‘Development of different models along the airway and gut-brain axis’. In 2019, he became a senior scientist and supervised postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and research technicians on the development of different models along the airway and gut-brain axis.

Think different

Prof. Josué Sznitman

Prof. Josué Sznitman is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. In 2002, Sznitman earned a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He then went on to receive a Dr. Sc. from ETH Zurich in 2008. After completing his doctoral studies, Sznitman joined the University of Pennsylvania as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Later, he moved to Princeton University where he was appointed as a Lecturer and Research Associate by the Princeton Council of Science & Technology. He is a world leader in the area of pulmonary physiology and drug delivery to the lungs. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles and is a co-inventor on several patents. He is also an associate editor for Clinical Biomechanics (Elsevier), a member of the Editorial Board of Biomicrofluidics (AIP) and the Journal of Biomechanics (Elsevier), and serves as an Academic Editor for the journal PLoS One. In 2018, he received the Emerging Scientist Award in Drug Delivery to the Lungs by the Aerosol Society.

Prof. Vito Mennella

Prof. Vito Mennella is MRC investigator and Director of Research at the MRC Toxicology Unit at University of Cambridge, where he studies the cellular and molecular impacts of environmental pollutants and drugs on airway health. Prof. Mennella earned his PhD in Physiology and Biophysics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in NYC, followed by postdoctoral studies at the HHMI/University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where he pioneered super-resolution microscopy approaches to build nanoscale maps of cellular structures. As group leader since 2014, Prof. Mennella has been focusing on the analysis of the airway epithelium leading to the improvement of diagnosis of rare diseases of the lung and to the discovery a new type of cilium in airway multiciliated cells. Most recently, he led a team that revealed a new isoform of ACE-2, the receptor for SARS-CoV-2 in airway epithelial cells and examined its function. His scientific journey exemplifies curiosity, innovation, and dedication to advancing our understanding of airway biology.

Biological Barriers & Drug Delivery

Prof. Claus-Michael Lehr

Prof. Claus-Michael Lehr is a professor at Saarland University and co-founder and head of the Drug Delivery Department at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS). He is also co-founder and managing director of PharmBioTec GmbH, a non-profit contract research organisation of Saarland University. Prof. Claus-Michael Lehr completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA, from 1991 to 1992. He was also a research fellow at the Leiden/Amsterdam Centre for Drug Research in the Netherlands from 1992 to 1993. From 1993 to 1995 he was Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at Philipps University, Marburg, Germany. He has been Professor of Biopharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology at Saarland University since 1995. Prof. Lehr's research focuses on drug delivery across biological barriers. Prof. Lehr has authored or co-authored more than 400 publications with over 12,000 citations. He is also Associate Editor of the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics.

Exposure Devices and Deposition Modelling

Dr. Otmar Schmid

Dr. Otmar Schmid is the head of the Pulmonary Aerosol Delivery Group at the Comprehensive Pneumology Center and Helmholtz Zentrum München in Munich, Germany. Dr. Schmid’s research interests include health risks, diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities of respiratory aerosol, and in-vitro/in-vivo correlations in toxicology, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics. He also developed various technologies for aerosolized substance delivery to air-liquid interface cell culture models of the lung.

Prof. Dario Greco

Dario Greco (b. 1978) is professor of bioinformatics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, and the director of FHAIVE, The Finnish Hub for Development and Validation of Integrated Approaches (https://www.fhaive.fi). He is also professor of pharmaceutical bioinformatics, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, principal investigator at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland, and the coordinator of the Finnish 3R Centre (https://www.fin3r.fi). To date, he published over 190 peer reviewed articles, reviews, and book chapters in the areas of nanotoxicology, toxicogenomics, drug discovery, network biology, data modelling and bioinformatics which were cited over 11,000 times (h-index 50). To date, he has completed the supervision of 10 PhD theses. FHAIVE is currently composed of over 30 people, including senior scientists, postdoctoral fellows, PhD and MSc students, technicians, and administrative staff. As principal investigator, Greco received funding from the Academy of Finland, the EU (HE, H2020, Green Deal, ERC, and IMI2 programs), the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Finnish Red Cross, the Finnish Government for a total of over 15 M€ for the period 2013 – 2024. Among the ongoing projects, he leads the European Research Council (ERC Consolidator) project ARCHIMEDES (2022-2027), focused on developing in vitro and computational NAMs and IATA for pulmonary fibrosis. Moreover, Greco is the coordinator of the EU HE INSIGHT project (2024 – 2028), coordinator of the EFSA funded TULI project (2024 – 2027), and deputy coordinator of the EU HE CHIASMA project (2024 – 2028), focused on the development of an integrated SSbD framework and NAMs to replace animal experiments in biomedicine, toxicology, and pharmacology.