EUROoCS (European Organ-on-Chip Society) Conference on 1st and 2nd of July (due to COVID-19 held online) prizes were awarded for the Best Presentation Award, Best Junior Presentation Award, Best Poster Award, Travel Award and Exhibition Quiz Award. Dutch hDMT researcher Ulgu Arslan from the Leiden University Medical Center won the Best Presentation Award and Milica Dostanić from Delft University of Technology won the Travel Award.
The presentation awards were elected by a jury of 21 experts chaired by Erika Györvary (CSEM), Jose Tarazona (EFSA) and Maryam Shojaee (Uppsala University).
Congratulations for both winners and all other awardees.
Best Presentation Young Investigator Awards
Award 1
The Best Presentation Award (€ 500), sponsored by Nortis (USA) was awarded to Ulgu Arslan (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands) for her talk ‘ Vascularized three-dimensional cardiac microtissue-on-chip’. hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and cardiac fibroblasts were integrated into 3D scaffold-free cardiac microtissues, which displayed well organized microvasculature network. These 3D cardiac microtissues were next integrated into a microfluidic chip with an external network formed by hiPSC-derived endothelial cells and primary human brain vascular pericytes. A promising approach for further maturation of the tissue via optimal nutrient delivery and for controlled drug delivery.
Award 2
The Travel Award (€250) sponsored by Roche went to Milica Dostanić (Delft University of Technology) for the presentation of her work on ‘An engineered heart tissue platform with integrated pacing microelectrodes’. Electric pacing was incorporated into a miniature engineered heart tissue platform by means of microfabricated electrodes, enabling ultimate accuracy and precision in controlled in situ tissue stimulation. The suitability of the integrated microelectrodes to replace external pacing electrodes, and the biocompatibility of the overall platform were shown. The system was pre-configured to fit a 96-well plate format to enable forthcoming high-throughput biological assays.
Other award winners:
‘Best Junior Presentation Award’ (Tengku Ibrahim Maulana, University of Tübingen, Germany), ‘Best Poster Award’ (Lea Lara de Maddalena, Alveolix, Switzerland), ‘Travel Award’ (Inês Sousa-Pereira, IBEC, Spain and Marina Pérez-Aliacar, University of Zaragoza, Spain) and ‘Exhibition Quiz Award’ (Claire Dessalles, LadHyx Ecole Poletechnique, France).
