The 7th Annual UPM Biomedicals Conference took place on 14-15th September 2021 virtually in Helsinki, Finland.
The leading scientists from academy and industry gathered to present and discuss the latest hot topics and trends in 3D cell culture. The online conference was open to all and offered both educational and networking opportunities. The conference was video recorded and you can view the speeches below.
The conference focused on hurdles that have to be tackled in order to bring results from academia to the industrial level. The topics covered all aspects of 3D cell culture from development and implementation of disease models, personalized medicine, toxicology, organ-on-chip, 3D bioprinting and high throughput screening.
Dr. Christian Stirnimann works as Head of Theragnostics Discovery at the ETH technology platform NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies. Christian studied Biochemistry and Bioinformatics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and received his PhD in 2006 in Structural Biology in the group of Prof. Markus Grütter. From 2007 to 2010, he was a Marie Curie and EMBO postdoctoral fellow at EMBL in Heidelberg in the group of Dr. Christoph Müller. From 2011 to 2013, he worked as a scientist at the Paul-Scherrer-lnstitute in Villigen, Switzerland, where he was involved in the reconstruction and operation of a lab automation platform for protein crystallization. In 2013, he joined Biomedical Automation Technologies as a Lab Automation Specialist, before he became the head of Theragnostics Discovery at NEXUS in 2015.
Markus Rimann studied Biology with focus on Biotechnology at the ETH Zurich. After PhD completion at the Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, he did a Postdoc at the University of Zurich. For more than 10 years, he is now working at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). As the group leader of 3D Tissues and Biofabrication his main interest is the further development of the bioprinting technology. Bioprinted tissues of interest include skin, muscle, tendon and kidney. Additionally, his group is using different scaffold-free and scaffold-based 3D cell culture systems for substance testing. In order to standardize cell culture handling and analysis automation robots are routinely used. All of the projects are industry driven. He is leading the international network TEDD (Tissue Engineering for Drug Development and Substance Testing), with the goal of implementing 3D cell culture systems in routine processes across different industries.
Dr Kajsa Kanebratt has an MSc in Pharmacy from Uppsala University, Sweden, after which she did her PhD as an industrial PhD student at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg in collaboration with Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The focus of the thesis was predictive models for induction of cytochrome P450 enzymes, including both in vitro and in vivo studies. In 2009 she joined the In Vitro DMPK group at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg as a Senior Research Scientist. Since then Dr Kanebratt has been working on different in vitro models, most recently driving method development and implementation of 3D liver spheroids within drug discovery and development. Dr Kanebratt has a strong expertise in drug metabolism in different in vitro systems such as cell suspensions, 2D, and 3D cell cultures as well as microphysiological systems (MPS).
Wilfried Posch is an Assistant Professor in Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI), Innsbruck, Austria. Wilfried studied Molecular Biology and the focus of his PhD was the characterization of human dendritic cells (DCs) exposed to non-opsonized and opsonized HIV-1. In this project, not only differences in activation, productive infection and maturation of DCs were investigated, but also the change in molecular and protein expression upon infection. This part was mostly done during his research stay at the University College London, London, UK. After his fellowship as a Post-Doc at the INSERM UMR-S945 in Paris, France, he returned to Innsbruck and joined the research group of Prof. Dr. Doris Wilflingseder. In 2012 Wilfried began to establish and work with 3D respiratory cell culture systems, which also included cellular immune components such as macrophages and dendritic cells. 
Joe Trask is the North America Product Line Leader in the Cellular Imaging and Analysis group at PerkinElmer. He is instrumental in strategic customer support through teaching, training, and collaborations. He brings over 25 years of experience in high content screening technology from academia, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology studying cancer, immunology, neurodegeneration, and toxicology. Joe has published several research articles and book chapters in High Content Imaging field. Joe is an associated editor for the NIH/NCATS Assay Guidance Manual and was a co-founder and first President of Society for Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics (SBI2).
Dr. Jenni Leppiniemi, Postdoctoral research fellow, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
David joined Miltenyi Biotec’s Cancer Research and Development department in 2010, focusing on product development for cancer cell isolation and analysis. Next to his job in R&D, he studied Molecular Biology and Molecular Life Sciences, receiving the M.Sc. degree in Molecular Life Sciences in 2019. From 2015 to 2020, David led a team in the R&D department of Miltenyi Biotec, focusing on 2D and 3D cultivation and isolation of cancer and cancer-associated cells, before becoming a PhD student at the University Medical Center Geottingen / Miltenyi Biotec where he currently studies cancer-associated fibroblasts in solid human tumors.
Kaisa is a PhD student from Tampere University working in Micro and Nanosystems research group. She designs, fabricates, and characterizes microfluidic systems for cell culture applications also known as Organ-on-chip systems. The systems that she works with aim to more precisely and actively modify and control the cells’ microenvironment by applying active fluid flows to the chips. Her hands on experience extends from cell culture to microfabrication and microfluidics.
Xiaoju Wang is a Research Fellow funded by Academy of Finland at Åbo Akademi University (Finland) in term of 2020-2025. She is currently operating the research on both Pharmaceutical Sciences Laboratory and Laboratory of Natural Materials Technology in the university. Her research interests and activities mainly focus on developing chemistry and material approaches to engineer high-performance natural material-based bioinks for 3D bioprinting in service of fabrication of cell culture platforms. The major catalogue of natural materials that she works with include biomass-derived biopolymers and lignocellulosic nanomaterials. Her topic to present on UPM Biomedicals 7th Annual Conference: Biomaterial Inks of Nanocellulose/Photo-crosslinkable Biopolymer in Light-aided 3D Printing: A Focus on Rheological and Printability Assessments.
Paul Goodwin is the Science Director for Cytiva, a global provider of technologies and services that advance and accelerate the development and manufacture of therapeutics. Paul received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of California, San Diego and continued his education in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He then began work in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington in the laboratory of Dr. Russell Ross where he was introduced to the use of digital image processing and image analysis with light and electron microscopy. Paul was recruited by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to create and manage the Image Analysis Core Facility where he developed a number of new imaging techniques. After ten years he was recruited to Applied Precision, Inc. in Issaquah, WA where he has served various roles in advanced application development, product management, R&D, and acted as the Chief Scientific Officer until its acquisition by GE Healthcare, Life Sciences in 2011. In 2013 he moved into the CTO organization working across the Life Sciences business. GE Healthcare, Life Sciences was acquired by Danaher in 2020. Paul now serves as part of the CTO organization with innovation teams across Cytiva and Pall Biotechnology businesses to identify and solve technical challenges that affect our customers and our business, support innovation, and provide both long-term vision and strategic planning for the organization.
Erik Gatenholm, MBA
Dr. Corné Swart is the Executive Director of Business Development & Global Sales at Cellbox Solutions GmbH. He has a background in Biotechnology with a focus on cell & tissue culture procedures, which he obtained from his studies at Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and Lund University (Sweden). After receiving his master’s degree from Stellenbosch University, he went on to receive a doctorate from the University of Potsdam (Germany) for his work in the field of proteomics, that investigated the complex interplay between post-translational modifications and metabolism. At Cellbox Solutions, Dr. Swart has been collaborating with Key Opinion Leaders and other established customers in Academia, Pharma, Biotech on innovative projects that require the shipment of live cells and tissues under physiological conditions. These collaborations have generated valuable data on the benefits of using portable CO2 incubators and breathable packaging to ship biological material without any loss in quality and viability. In line with Cellbox Solutions’ vision to heal patients through Regenerative Medicine technologies, Dr. Swart is working with logistics partners, healthcare experts and regulatory advisors to define the supply chain procedures that are required for the therapies of tomorrow.
Dr Stephen Minger is one of the pioneering researchers in human stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. He received his PhD in Pathology/Neurosciences in 1992 from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After post-doctoral work in gene therapy and neural stem cell biology at UCSD, he was appointed a Lecturer in Biomolecular Sciences at King's College London in 1998. He was appointed a Senior Lecturer in 2005 and was the Director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory from 2002- 2009. In 2009, he was appointed Global Director for R&D for Cell Technologies at GE Healthcare. In 2013, he was appointed Chief Scientist for GE Healthcare, where he was responsible for global research strategy in cell therapy, regenerative medicine, and precision diagnostics. He left full-time employment with GE in 2015 but continued as Senior Consultant for GE Healthcare until 2018. 
I received my Master’s degree in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and I worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for six years as a specialist in up-stream bioprocess, R&D, and internal auditor as well as monoclonal antibody API supervisor. I came to Finland in 2017 as a senior researcher to work on vesicular compartments in bone-resorbing osteoclasts, as a member of the EU-funded EUROCLAST project (Marie Curie ESR) at the University of Turku. I joined Erikson's lab in June 2018 as a Ph.D. candidate. My research focuses on novel fundamental insights on the role of exosomal vimentin in mediating wound healing.
Elle is first year PhD student at University of Helsinki, Faculty of Pharmacy. She has been working in professor Marjo Yliperttula´s Biopharmacy group since 2019 around the topic of freeze-drying of GrowDex®. Aim of Elle`s PhD research project is to freeze-dry different wound care components in GrowDex® for wound care applications.
Prateek currently leads the R&D and commercialization efforts at Finnadvance, an EU Horizon 2020 funded one-man company which has grown to 15 people in 2 years. With a background in international commercial R&D with his previous venture in robotics and remote sensing, Prateek has accumulated more than 14 years in R&D with experience in more than 25 countries. His expertise has been recognized globally as the Winner of 11th Innovation World Cup at MEDICA and finalist for the Young Researcher Entrepreneur Award 2020. At Finnadvance he is developing high-throughput organ-on-chips platforms, for mimicking biological barriers to assess permeabilities for small molecules, micro/nano-formulations and extracellular vesicles across them.