David Hughes,
Chief Technical Officer,
CN Bio Innovations Ltd.
Dr David Hughes is the Chief Technical Officer at CN Bio Innovations. Dr Hughes graduated with an MEng and DPhil from the University of Oxford in Chemical Engineering. After 4 years in Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline he joined CN Bio Innovations (formerly Zyoxel Ltd) to lead commercialization efforts on their organ-on-a-chip technologies. He is a co-PI on the Physiomimetics consortium which is headed by Prof L. Griffith at M.I.T and funded by a $26million dollar DARPA award from the Microphysiological Systems program, more commonly referred to as the human-body-on-a-chip program. Dr Hughes has also lead EU Framework 7 and Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) projects to develop organ-on-a-chip models for fatty liver disease and mono-genetic liver disorder.
LiverChip – Development of Organ-on-a-chip Liver Disease Models
Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technologies offer the promise of in vitro models which more closely recapitulate the in vivo. Current OOCs typically have low to medium throughput, offer high information content and are relatively complex when compared to 2D cultures, making it more likely that these technologies could replace certain animal tests than supplant high throughput screens. An initial wave of activity focused on drug metabolism and safety applications of OOCs however an animal-centric regulatory framework, particularly for safety testing, and a disconnect between the cost and benefit that OOCs can provide in ADME/Tox make this a challenging area in which to achieve widespread adoption. Disease modelling provides a more compelling opportunity for OOC technologies: a number of diseases are poorly recapitulated in animal models so OOCs offering improved translational relevance would be highly desirable. A small airway-on-a-chip to model COPD and asthma, and a hepatitis B infected liver-on-a-chip model are two examples of disease OOCs already being exploited by pharmaceutical companies in the development of new drugs. This presentation will describe the development of models for viral hepatitis, malaria and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) building on a microfluidic OOC platform, LiverChip®. Liver disease represents a significant and growing global health burden, being the only one of the top five causes of death to have increased in the UK in the last decade. The liver is a complex organ, comprised of multiple cell types undertaking hundreds of essential functions and is a major site of drug metabolism and toxicity. The liver is also a unique immunological organ in which liver resident macrophage (Kupffer) cells and lymphocytes play critical roles in first line immune defence against invading pathogens, modulation of liver injury and recruitment of circulating lymphocytes.
Add to Calendar ▼2016-07-07 00:00:002016-07-08 00:00:00Europe/LondonOrgan-on-a-Chip World Congress and 3D-Culture 2016Organ-on-a-Chip World Congress and 3D-Culture 2016 in Boston, USABoston, USASELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
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