In January 2021, George Galaris joined the Metabolic Health Research group at TNO, location Leiden, and the Division of Drug Discovery & Safety at Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) as a post-doctoral researcher.

Previously, Galaris performed his PhD studies at Leiden University Medical Centre (Nephrology Department) in the group of Franck Lebrin where he utilized mouse models and embryonic stem cell-based tools to study the mechanisms of a genetic vascular disease called Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT).

Within the hDMT consortium, he will be involved in a multidisciplinary and collaborative project about developing a perfused 3D spheroid-based Liver-on-Chip model for studying Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) which allows preclinical testing of candidate therapeutics. Another goal will be the implementation of human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived liver cells into the model which may lead to personalized medicine and wide compound screening applications in the future.

In addition, Galaris will contribute to coupling this Liver-on-Chip model with the Gut-on-Chip model previously developed by researchers in TNO, location Zeist, and study the technical and biological aspects of the Liver/gut axis for in vitro DMPK applications.