BioE COLLOQUIA SERIES: "Advanced In Vitro Platforms for Respiratory Research in Bridging In Vivo Interfaces" - via web streaming only (Covid-19 situation)
Event details
| Date | 27.04.2020 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Josué Sznitman, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (IL) |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
WEEKLY BIOENGINEERING COLLOQUIA SERIES
Abstract:
The development of lung-on-chips is providing new avenues for more realistic inhalation assays in research and thus an opportunity to depart from traditional in vitro lung assays. As advanced models capturing the cellular pulmonary make-up at an air-liquid interface (ALI), lung-on-chips emulate both morphological features and biological functionality of the airway barrier with the ability to integrate respiratory breathing. These in vitro systems allow importantly to mimic more realistic physiological respiratory flow conditions, with the opportunity to integrate physically-relevant transport determinants of aerosol inhalation therapy, i.e. recapitulating the pathway from airborne flight to deposition on the airway lumen. Here, we will discuss such advances and describe how these attributes are paving new avenues for exploring improved drug carrier designs (e.g. shape, size, etc.) and targeting strategies (e.g. conductive vs. respiratory regions) amongst other. While technical challenges still lie along the way in rendering in vitro lung-on-chip platforms more widespread across the general pharmaceutical research community, significant momentum is steadily underway in accelerating the prospect of establishing these as in vitro "gold standards".
Bio:
Josué Sznitman is a Swiss, French and Israeli national. Sznitman graduated from MIT (2002), followed by a Dr. Sc. (2008) from ETH Zurich. In 2008, Sznitman joined UPenn as a Postdoctoral Fellow and moved to Princeton University as a Lecturer and Research Associate. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion in 2010 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2016. Sznitman currently serves as Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and is the Director of the Norman Seiden Graduate Program in Nanoscience & Nanotechnology. As a researcher, he directs the Technion Biofluids Laboratory. Sznitman was awarded the Young Investigator Award (2015) by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) for a researcher under 40 and most recently the 2018 Emerging Scientist Award in Drug Delivery to the Lungs (Aerosol Society, UK). He serves as Associate Editor of Clinical Biomechanics, is a member of the Editorial Board of Biomicrofluidics and Journal of Biomechanics, and serves as Academic Editor of PLoS One. Between 2015 and 2019, he served as Committee Member and Coordinator of Short Term Scientific Missions (STSM) in the COST Action MP 1404 (SimInhale). Sznitman has been a recipient of European funding schemes including an FP7 Career Integration Grant (CIG), a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (StG) and a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Grant. His recent dissemination activities have included Webinars and a TEDx Talk (2019) titled “From race cars to the lungs” (available at: https://youtu.be/7IDfqlvWSU8).
Zoom link for attending remotely: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/98981744542
IMPORTANT NOTICE: this seminar can be followed via Zoom web-streaming only (link above), due to restrictions resulting from the ongoing Covid-19 situation.
Abstract:
The development of lung-on-chips is providing new avenues for more realistic inhalation assays in research and thus an opportunity to depart from traditional in vitro lung assays. As advanced models capturing the cellular pulmonary make-up at an air-liquid interface (ALI), lung-on-chips emulate both morphological features and biological functionality of the airway barrier with the ability to integrate respiratory breathing. These in vitro systems allow importantly to mimic more realistic physiological respiratory flow conditions, with the opportunity to integrate physically-relevant transport determinants of aerosol inhalation therapy, i.e. recapitulating the pathway from airborne flight to deposition on the airway lumen. Here, we will discuss such advances and describe how these attributes are paving new avenues for exploring improved drug carrier designs (e.g. shape, size, etc.) and targeting strategies (e.g. conductive vs. respiratory regions) amongst other. While technical challenges still lie along the way in rendering in vitro lung-on-chip platforms more widespread across the general pharmaceutical research community, significant momentum is steadily underway in accelerating the prospect of establishing these as in vitro "gold standards".
Bio:
Josué Sznitman is a Swiss, French and Israeli national. Sznitman graduated from MIT (2002), followed by a Dr. Sc. (2008) from ETH Zurich. In 2008, Sznitman joined UPenn as a Postdoctoral Fellow and moved to Princeton University as a Lecturer and Research Associate. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion in 2010 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2016. Sznitman currently serves as Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and is the Director of the Norman Seiden Graduate Program in Nanoscience & Nanotechnology. As a researcher, he directs the Technion Biofluids Laboratory. Sznitman was awarded the Young Investigator Award (2015) by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) for a researcher under 40 and most recently the 2018 Emerging Scientist Award in Drug Delivery to the Lungs (Aerosol Society, UK). He serves as Associate Editor of Clinical Biomechanics, is a member of the Editorial Board of Biomicrofluidics and Journal of Biomechanics, and serves as Academic Editor of PLoS One. Between 2015 and 2019, he served as Committee Member and Coordinator of Short Term Scientific Missions (STSM) in the COST Action MP 1404 (SimInhale). Sznitman has been a recipient of European funding schemes including an FP7 Career Integration Grant (CIG), a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (StG) and a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Grant. His recent dissemination activities have included Webinars and a TEDx Talk (2019) titled “From race cars to the lungs” (available at: https://youtu.be/7IDfqlvWSU8).
Zoom link for attending remotely: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/98981744542
IMPORTANT NOTICE: this seminar can be followed via Zoom web-streaming only (link above), due to restrictions resulting from the ongoing Covid-19 situation.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
Contact
- Institute of Bioengineering (IBI), Christina Mattsson