Partner news

Join AutoCRAT partners at NUI Galway as they host the webinar “Real-Time Near Infrared Fluorescence Imaging Research Tools With The Potential For Clinical Use” on December 10, 2020, at 2 pm GMT. 

Click here for free registration:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2047840817639953935

Fluorescence-guided surgery, a real-time intraoperative navigation modality, enables surgeons to precisely discriminate boundaries between lesions and healthy tissue.

In this webinar, Prof. O’Shea of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland will present research on a novel class of NIR-fluorophores (BF2-azadipyrromethene) as an attractive tool for the identification of different anatomical features. In addition, this fluorophore has also shown high biocompatibility and labelling efficiency with human cells and their-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs). This valuable feature further supports its application in cell and EV tracking analysis for both in vivo and in vitro.

If you have any questions about the webinar, please contact Dr Maojia Xu by email at .

Prof Dr Bernd Giebel, University Hospital Essen

At the virtual International Society of Liquid Biopsy (ISLB) conference on Friday, October 30th, 2020, Prof Dr Bernd Giebel of the University Medicine Essen (www.uk-essen.de) will deliver a presentation acknowledging AutoCRAT. This talk entitled “Mesenchymal Stem Cell-derived Extracellular Vesicles, a novel Tool in Regenerative Medicine” will be broadcast to attendees on Friday, October 30th as part of the ISLB – ISEV joint session in Extracellular Vesicles. Find the entire conference programme here.

Profs Mary Murphy and Frank Barry, both from NUI Galway presented aspects of AutoCRAT at a recent Marie Curie Innovative Training Network workshop hosted in Galway. Coordinator Mary Murphy’s talk was entitled “Mesenchymal Stromal Cells for Modulation of Disease Progression in Osteoarthritis: Mechanistic to Translational Insights”  and Prof Barry’s was “Stromal Cell Therapy for Arthritic Disease: Evidence, Mechanism and Production.” The online workshop was held on October 13th and 14th, 2020.

RenalToolBox, the ITN hosting the workshop, is taking a coordinated approach to develop novel tools and technologies to assess the safety and efficacy of cell-based regenerative medicine therapies with a focus on kidney disease. See the workshop programme here.

Our partners at Panaxea (http://panaxea.eu/) have a unique role within AutoCRAT. On the Panaxea, PI Dr Janne Mewes remarks:

“We will evaluate the expected cost-effectiveness of the AutoCRAT platform in an early stage of development over the course of the four-year project. The results of the cost-effectiveness analysis aim to demonstrate the value-for-money of the platform to society, taking all changes in treatment and societal costs into account in comparison to the current standard of care, as well as the expected treatment results. The analysis will provide insights for decision-makers in hospitals, health insurers, and health technology assessment agencies, and be of value for guiding the further development of the platform.

As a first step, Panaxea conducted explorative interviews with the consortium partners to analyse the expected benefits of the new treatment modality, the expected changes in the treatment path of the patient, and on the wider effects of the platform, once implemented.”

Dr Janne Mewes

Panaxea´s AutoCRAT team is led by Dr Bert Vrijhoef and Dr Janne Mewes. Panaxea is a research consultancy based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which supports informed decision-making on innovations in the health sector. For more information, please visit www.panaxea.eu

Read Janne’s entire news story on Panaxea’s website here.

Jelena Ochs

As part of the 2-day, online Advanced Therapies Connect meeting, Jelena Ochs, Research Fellow at Fraunhofer IPT joined a round table discussion entitled, “Time to automate: what about flexibility?” There were 15 participants in the discussion chaired by Dalip Sethi from Terumo BCT.

The September 29th/30th meeting was attended by more than 250 people from academia and industry. It was hosted by Phacilitate with an aim to network and push the cell therapy industry forward. Find the agenda here.

Prof. Dr Rer. Nat. Bernd Giebel, University Hospital Essen

AutoCRAT PI Prof. Dr Rer. Nat. Bernd Giebel of the Institute for Transfusion Medicine at the University Hospital Essen, Germany presented a talk entitled MSC-derived extracellular vesicles as part of the online Web EV talk series on July 16th, 2020. In his AutoCRAT-acknowledged talk, Bernd discusses how mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles are potential modulators of the immune system in many diseases. Watch the entire talk on YouTube.

The Web EV talk series is virtually hosted Dr Carolina Soekmadji and Prof. Jan Lötvall via Zoom each week. The programme aims to support networking and to push the science forward in the field of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs).

Our partners at Valitacell (https://www.valitacell.com/) are hosting a webinar, Automation and Imaging for Media Development in Cell Therapy Manufacturing on Wednesday, August 19th, 4 pm CEST/7 am PST. This is part of a Bioprocessing Webinar Series 2020 in partnership with TECAN. Customers from both companies will present their research and solutions for the development and production of biologicals.

Learn more about the speaker, Dr Marilina Piemontese, IRC Enterprise Postdoctoral Researcher, Regenerative Medicine Institute [REMEDI], NUI Galway, in Ireland and the content of this webinar here. You can register for this free webinar here.

Valitacell is an Irish biotechnology SME that develops, markets and sells technology to biopharmaceutical, contract development and manufacturing companies enabling them to make biological drugs faster, cheaper and with greater regulatory confidence. Within AutoCRAT, Valitacell works alongside consortium members to develop ChemStress® fingerprinting technology for MSC functional profiling throughout the cell manufacturing process and investigates the application of their Quantum technology in MSC secretome assessment. These analytical tools will be fully automated in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute of Production Technology.

AutoCRAT partner Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) will begin construction of the largest non-profit stem cell and gene therapy facility in the Netherlands in 2020. This will be one of the largest such facilities in Europe measuring at 4000 square metres. The Leiden facility is called NECSTGEN, the Netherlands Centre for the Clinical advancement of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies.

The NECSTGEN is a public-private partnership. Researchers and start-ups will soon be welcomed in Leiden, NL in order to accelerate the application of regenerative medicine therapies. NECSTGEN is in part a collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Commercialisation of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), who realised a similar facility in Toronto.

Currently, there are limited affordable, non-profit facilities where cell and cell product development for regenerative medical treatments are manufactured at scale.

One of the founders of NECSTGEN, Gerard van Loon stated, “NECSTGEN is a 100% daughter of the LUMC and started particularly to boost the cell and gene therapy research in Leiden, and particularly the LUMC.”

Congratulations to LUMC and their partners for this great achievement and contribution to the regenerative medicine field!

Read the official press release here.