Nila is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. She received her BSc in Cell Biology at McGill University in Montreal. Under the supervision of Professor Alison McGuigan, Nila’s research focuses on developing an easy-to-use, higher-throughput 3D-engineered tumor model and complementary image-based assays, to interrogate the dynamics of patient-derived organoids upon standard-of-care chemotherapy treatment, and the impact of the tumor microenvironment on treatment response. Nila was recently awarded the PRiME Fellowship, where she is co-supervised by Dr. Cheryl Arrowsmith from the Toronto Structural Genomics Centre, and has received support from NSERC CREATE graduate scholarships, the Barbara and Frank Milligan Graduate Fellowship, and the BME Doctoral Completion Award. Nila is an active member of the graduate student community and is Programming Co-chair for the student and young investigator section at the upcoming TERMIS-Americas Conference.

Shannon Mumenthaler, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. She is also Chief Translational Research Officer for the Lawrence J Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC, which is a translational institute that bridges research and innovation by bringing together researchers, patients, and physicians dedicated to improving health of the human condition. Dr. Mumenthaler’s research program is centered around the development and utilization of physiologically relevant, organ-dependent tumor models that allow for the characterization of colorectal cancer cellular dynamics, and serve as a platform for testing specific therapeutic modalities to prevent or delay tumor progression. Specifically, she is integrating biologically-inspired 3D model systems (i.e., organoids and organs-on-chips) with dynamic imaging and computational approaches to provide new insights into the significance of the physical and cellular microenvironment on tumor progression.

Sarah Moss is a Staff Scientist at Advanced Solutions Life Sciences. She joined the Advanced Solutions teams in early 2018 and has since contributed to various projects related to 3D tissue design and automation. Specifically, her focus is on studying isolated human microvessels and developing strategies for their incorporation into various 3D tissue environments. She previously completed her graduate work at The Ohio State University with a focus in microfluidics and cancer biology.

Dr Fabio Stossi, Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor Collge of Medicine, Houston, TX; is a native of Milan, Italy. He completed his BS and PhD studies at Universita’ degli Studi di Milano, in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, and in Endocrinology and Metabolism. He then moved to the US as a postdoc in Dr. Benita S. Katzenellenbogen’s laboratory at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he became interested in gene transcription and its modulation by steroid receptors, particularly focusing on estrogen receptor in breast cancer. He joined Dr. Michael A. Mancini’s group at Baylor College of Medicine, as an Assistant Professor, to explore the use of imaging technoques and high content analysis in steroid receptor biology. He is currently Associate Professor, Technical Director of the Integrated Microscopy Core and group leader for imaging in the GCC Center for Advanced Microscopy and Image Informatics. His interests are imaging and analysis of single cell gene transcription, development of novel analysis methods for single cell measurements, and assay development in environmental toxicology.

Tim Spicer joined Scripps early on at its onset in Jupiter Florida and has been working there for 10 years. Prior to that he was employed at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. for nine years as a Research Scientist in the Department of Lead Discovery and Profiling, Discovery Technologies and Infectious Diseases. Tim received an MS in microbiology at the SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse. He has authored 75 publications and 4 patents. Tim works across multiple organizations and currently co-directs the Scripps Molecular Screening Center. He leads a team that implements assays and supports screening on fully automated platforms. He has experience developing anti-microbial, GPCR, kinase, protease, nuclear receptor, and/or ion channel assays in a variety of HTS-compatible formats (reporter-gene, TR-FRET, HTRF, fluorescence, luminescence, and absorbance). He is recognized at Scripps and by collaborators as a leader in evaluating new assay technologies for the purpose of making UHTS the standard.

Hans Clevers obtained his MD degree in 1984 and his PhD degree in 1985 from the University Utrecht, the Netherlands. His postdoctoral work (1986-1989) was done with Cox Terhorst at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of the Harvard University, Boston, USA. From 1991-2002 Hans Clevers was Professor in Immunology at the University Utrecht and, since 2002, Professor in Molecular Genetics. From 2002-2012 he was director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht. From 2012-2015 he was President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). From June 2015-2019 he was director Research of the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology. As of March 18th, 2022 Hans Clevers is the Head of Pharma Research and Early Development and a Member of the Enlarged Corporate Executive Committee of F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd , in Basel Switzerland.

Jason Yim is a first year PhD student at MIT studying Computer Science and advised by Regina Barzilay and Tommi Jaakkola. His research interests are in using machine learning to understand the natural sciences, particularly biology. Jason graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 and was employed by DeepMind between 2018-2021, working on topics ranging from AI for medical imaging and protein structure modeling.

Dr. R. Allysa Stern, M.S., Ph.D., is an accomplished cell biologist with extensive experience using cell-based assays to study mechanisms of disease and toxicity. She received her Ph.D. in Physiology from North Carolina State University with a concentration on cellular physiology and disease modeling. She has years of experience developing novel 2D and 3D in vitro models using a variety of cell types from multiple tissues, including primary hepatocytes and stem cells. As a Product Applications Scientist at Cell Microsystems, she leverages her expertise in advanced imaging and cellular and molecular biology techniques for new product and assay development and customer support.

Stefan N. Lukianov, AM MS is the first-time JHU student founder of Salve Therapeutics.  He has undergraduate degrees from the University of Maine and masters from the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University in the biomedical sciences.  He has worked in reputable labs at Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, McLean Hospital and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. He also has extensive experience in science journalism, having published and edited for ASBMB Today, ACS C&EN Show Daily, the Harvard Medical Student Review and MIT Science Policy Review.  Stefan also loves teaching and has held a diverse array of private and public education roles at various grade levels in STEM fields.

Betty is currently the facility manager for the High Content Cellular Analysis (HiCCA) Lab at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Her Ph.D. was in developing a novel 3-dimensional invasion assay in a microfluidic platform called Digital Microfluidics.