Ed LeCluyse, PhD, Chief Scientist of LifeNet Health’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine describes the importance of using data to identify the right hepatocyte lots for your specific applications.

• Learn which characterization data is important for your application
• Discover application-based characterization strategies
• Explore emerging trends in hepatocyte characterization
   

Ed LeCluyse, PhD, Chief Scientist of LifeNet Health’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine reveals the convenient all-human hepatocyte Tri-Culture Model, highlighting improvements in hepatocyte performance compared to traditional monoculture.

• Learn about current hepatocyte cultures and their respective challenges
• Discover the features and advantages of this novel Tri-Culture system
• Explore potential applications and future directions
   

Ed LeCluyse, PhD, Chief Scientist of LifeNet Health’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine discusses the important role of liver non-parenchymal cells (NPCs) for both in vivo and in vitro environments.

• Learn about each of the major NPCs of the liver and functionality
• Discover the important role that NPCs play in liver pathology and toxicology
• Explore how NPCs are becoming new tools to address challenges in drug development
   

Jeff Thomas, Program Director of LifeNet Health LifeSciences, and Gary Walters, Sr. Director and GM of LifeNet Health’s Research Tissue Franchise explain how only LifeNet Health controls every step of every tissue’s journey from donor to lab while serving researchers needs from early-stage discovery to pre-clinical drug-safety evaluation.

• Learn about the importance of using human biospecimens in research
• Discover how to obtain high-quality biospecimens for your research and available options
• Explore case studies where researchers successfully partnered with LifeNet Health to meet their biospecimen needs
   

Chris Willey, PhD, of University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Departments of Radiation Oncology shares how 3D human microtumors are being established as a human-based diagnostic screening method to optimize chemotherapeutic regimens.

• Learn why 3D microtumors may be the closes resemblance to human tumors ex vivo
• Discover how this model offers a quick, seven-day assay to evaluate potential chemotherapeutic drugs
• Explore how these 3D human models can be used for further investigations, including gene and protein analysis
   

Ed LeCluyse, PhD, Chief Scientist of LifeNet Health’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine presents on the criticality of utilizing primary human hepatocytes in pre-clinical drug development.

• Learn how human hepatocytes can fast forward your target identification
• Discover how human hepatocytes can be applied in drug metabolism studies and pharmacokinetics
• Explore fit-for-purpose specifications of various human hepatocyte applications
   

Mary Jane Cunningham, PhD, LifeNet Health LifeSciences Director for Clinical Applications and Services explains how the genotyping of primary human hepatocytes may be essential to your experimental design and how knowing the donor’s genotype could help with stratifying hepatocyte lots used in drug discovery and development assays.

• Learn the basics of genotyping and pharmacogenetics
• Discover how genotypes relate to the metabolism of Cytochrome P450 isozymes and Phase II molecules
• Explore how the genotypes for these enzymes can be used in experimental design planning
   

Alan Grodzinsky, ScD, Director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Biological, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering, shares exciting details on a human, in vitro model being co-developed by MIT, the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This model is being developed to study the effects of microgravity and radiation on the International Space Station.

• Learn about osteoarthritis, post-traumatic osteoarthritis, and how this model resulted from extensive studies on Earth
• Discover how this Human Cartilage-Osteo-Microphysiological System may hold the keys to the progression of post-traumatic osteoarthritis caused by traumatic joint injuries
• Explore how this in vitro model is being used for drug discovery and disease modeling
   

Laura Siminoff, PhD, Dean at the College of Public Health at Temple University discusses best practices for communicating and obtaining consent from donor families based on experience from the Genotyping-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx). Dr. Siminoff was a key contributor to the project, launched in 2010 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which characterized genetic associations across 49 tissues from over 800 postmortem donors.

• Learn why communication is essential when obtaining authorization from donor families
• Discovery what is required vs. recommended when authorizing tissue donation
• Explore how the tissue donation and research consent was used for the GTEx project
   

Jessica Weaver, PhD, Research and Product Development Scientist at LifeNet Health reveals the latest development with our all-human, hepatic Tri-Culture system.

• Learn how this model resembles native, human liver architecture
• Discover how hepatocyte phenotype and functionality are maintained for at least 2 weeks
• Explore how the new 96-well compatible design is amenable to high-throughput screening and robotics applications
   

Eda Rogers, PhD, Research and Development Scientist at LifeNet Health shares details of how she and other LifeNet Health scientists have isolated, cryopreserved, and characterized primary human thyrocytes.

• Learn the basics of endocrine disruption and unmet needs for reliably identifying endocrine disruptors
• Discover how primary human thyrocytes could represent a valuable tool for evaluating thyroid disruption
• Explore how the cells consistently form 3D thyroid microtissues and retain thyroid specific protein expression
   

Scott Jewel, PhD, and Galen Hostetter, PhD, both of the Van Andel Research Institute, share their best practices for the management and use of biospecimens, specifically around the identification of variables on biospecimen quality and processing that can directly impact research results. 

• Learn how specimens are managed to maintain biospecimen integrity and quality
• Discover how tumor and non-tumor regions can be isolated and analyzed
• Explore alternative procedures used to enrich for target nucleic acid isolation
   

Ed LeCluyse, PhD, describes how liver non-parenchymal cells (NPCs), including stellate, Kupffer, and liver endothelial cells, play a role in the progression of liver toxicity and disease. 

• Learn how high-quality and well-characterized human NPCs are necessary to have an accurate in vitro picture of cell-cell interactions
• Discover how these human NPCs "role play" with human hepatocytes in the onset and progression of NASH and liver fibrosis
• Explore how NPCs "act" in liver toxicity and Drug-Induced Liver Injury (DILI)
   

Daniel Perl, PhD, Director of the Brain Tissue Repository at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences/Department of Defense in Bethesda, Maryland, presents his research aimed at understanding the long-term consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among military personnel.

• Learn the different types of TBI and how they differ in their physics and nature of the damaged produced in the brain
• Discover how little is known about the long-term effects of TBI on the brain and the outcomes among military service members
• Explore how the DoD/USU Brain Tissue Repository, with its 258 donated brain specimens, may hold the key to understanding these effects
   

Ed LeCluyse, PhD, explains how LifeNet Health LifeSciences' unique, vertically integrated process has raised the bar for quality standards and enables access to high-quality human tissues and cells for research.

• Learn how LifeSciences' recovery program can improve the success of your target identification decision-making process
• Discovery how human primary cells from our advanced tissue processing and cell isolation techniques will enhance your test results for drug metabolism, enzyme induction and hepatotoxicity assays
• Explore how our refined cell culture techniques and novel platforms can provide more accurate and predictive data for candidate selection
   

Donald Tweedie, PhD, and Edward LeCluyse, PhD, of LifeNet Health’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine draw from their combined 70 years’ experience in drug development and research on alternative drug metabolism and toxicological methods to host a moderated, interactive Q&A session interspersed with questions from attendees.

• Learn the importance of using primary human hepatocytes that retain their native in vivo functions
• Discover how incorporating non-parenchymal cells in hepatocyte cultures creates a more in vivo-like liver environment
• Explore the investigative correlation between healthy and diseased liver cells and their incorporation into models for research