Members consortium

The consortium consists of 8 Beneficiaries: 6 universities and 2 private sector companies. They will be supported by 3 Partner Organisations (private sector and NGO) for networking and training activities.

Beneficiaries

Prof. Dr. Dorien J.M. Peters

Leiden, the Netherlands

Dorien Peters, LUMC

Prof. Dr. Dorien J.M. Peters is a molecular and cellular biologist at the Department of Human Genetics of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. She applies a multidisciplinary state-of-the art program to get insight into the genetic, pathophysiologic and functional mechanisms of inherited disorders, most notably Polycystic Kidney Disease. The overall aim of her research is the design of new therapeutic approaches. Model systems are being generated and used to perform an in-depth analysis of the molecular alterations, to identify new drug targets and test potential therapies.

Prof. Dr. Gerard J.P. van Westen

Leiden, the Netherlands

Gerard van Westen, UL/LACDR

Prof. Dr. Gerard J.P. van Westen heads the computational drug discovery group at Leiden University as professor of ‘ArtificiaI Intelligence & Medicinal Chemistry’. His main lines of research are on one hand the application of various machine learning and data analysis methods in pre-clinical and early-clinical drug discovery. Examples include the use of machine learning (regressors) to predict affinity of drug candidates (molecules) for drug targets (proteins) in a polypharmacological context. On the other hand there is a focus on the application of structure-based drug discovery methods to understand molecular interaction at the atomic scale. Finally, they use machine learning to generate chemical structures of novel drug-candidates that meet one or more predefined criteria. In all these cases experimental validation is used to validate the models. For this there are intensive collaborations with experimental groups (medicinal chemistry, chemical biology).

Dr. Leo Price

Leiden, the Netherlands

Leo Price

Leo Price completed his PhD in Cell Physiology at University College, London (1995). During postdocs at Scripps, The Netherlands Cancer Institute and UMC Utrecht he developed his research on cell adhesion, examining how cells interact with each other and the environment. During this time and subsequently (2006-2011) as group leader at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research he developed automated 3D culture-based screening technology, applying this to genetic and compound screens. In 2011 he founded the CRO, OcellO, which provides compound testing services using spheroids, organoids and ex vivo cultured patient tissues to support early-stage discovery and development of drugs for various diseases, including cancer and polycystic kidney disease. In Spring 2021, OcellO was acquired by CrownBio. Leo now serves as Senior Vice-President of in vitro Biology at CrownBio.

Prof. Dr. Herman van Vlijmen

Beerse, Belgium

Herman van Vlijmen

Herman van Vlijmen graduated with a Master’s degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University in The Netherlands and a PhD degree in Physical Chemistry at Harvard University. He worked 9 years at the biotech company Biogen in the Boston area, ultimately as Senior Scientist, in the computational design of small molecule drugs and protein therapeutics. In 2005 he joined Tibotec, a Johnson & Johnson company focusing on infectious diseases, as Director of Computational Drug Design. He is now Global Head of Computational Chemistry in the Discovery Sciences organization at Janssen, Pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson, located in Belgium. Since 2008 he is also Adjunct Professor of Computational Drug Discovery at Leiden University. Herman has more than 70 publications and is inventor on 8 patents.

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MARIA ISABEL LOZA GARCIA EN LA USC

Prof. Dr. Mabel Loza Garcia

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Mabel Loza, USC

Mabel Loza is Professor of Pharmacology and head of BioFarma pharmacology research group at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Leader in the field of Early Drug Discovery at Spanish and European levels, endorsed by the participation in more than 89 research programs as principal investigator, founded by public and private institutions. Active participation in the development of 15 NCE that have reached clinical trials in the specific programmes of R&D transfer in drug development of different pharmaceutical companies. Author of 195 articles in indexed journals in the Journal Citation Report and more than 300 contributions at national and international congresses in Pharmacology, Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery. Has supervised 25 PhD theses and more than 100 postgraduate research projects, all awarded the highest marks. Reviewer of several journals in the areas of pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Coordinator of the Drug Discovery Galician Network (2007-onwards). the Drug Discovery Spanish Network of Excellence (REDEFAR) and the ES-OPENSCREEN Network connected to the ERIC EU- OPENSCREEN (European Research Infraestructure Consortium). Board of trustees of Kæertor Foundation, non for profit foundation for promoting reciprocal transference in open innovation in drug discovery. As entrepreneur, she has promoted the foundation of three companies (Pharmatools Digital Interactive SL, Allelyus and Oncostellae).

Prof. Dr. Pepo Brea

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Pepo Brea

Pepo is Assistant Doctor Professor of Pharmacology and Head of assay development and automation at the High Throughput Screening Unit (HTS) for drug discovery within the BioFarma research group at the University of Santiago de Compostela. His background in drug discovery corresponds to the international profile of scientist-technologist. More than ten years of experience in innovative public-private projects, make him a reference scientific in Spain in early drug discovery.

Author of 125 articles published in journals included in Journal Citation Report, 3 book chapters, 6 patents and more than 100 communications at congresses on pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and neuroscience. He has supervised 8 PhD theses.

He has participated in 70 research projects funded by either private or public bodies, including the Foundation La Marató de TV3 (in collaboration with the Schizophrenia Foundation), the Galician Government, the Spanish Government, and the European Union (EU).

Prof. Dr. Daniel Dietrich

Konstanz, Germany

Daniel Dietrich

Prof. Dan Dietrich is a Swiss toxicologist working since 1996 at the University of Konstanz. He completed his PhD at the Institute of Toxicology (ETH Zurich) and then went on to Post-Docs at Glaxo in the Research Triangle Park, NC, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. After a three-year assistant professorship at the Institute of Toxicology (ETH Zurich) and a habilitation (PD), he moved to the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh, PA, as an associate professor of toxicology, only to return to the University of Konstanz shortly thereafter as a full professor of Human and Environmental Toxicology. His main research interests are humane exposure to natural and synthetic toxins and the corresponding hazard and risk assessment. Amongst the areas covered are emerging new risks, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), natural toxins (marine biotoxins and cyanobacterial toxins), chemical and pharmaceutical hazard and risk assessment. Dan was co-chair of the OECD, VMGA focusing on EDCs, Chair of the EDC task force for ECVAM, expert for SAPEA and SAM, and is an external expert „Life Sciences for human well-being“ for the European Parliament since 2014. His research interests focussed early on the mechanisms underlying mycotoxin (ochratoxin A), plant (aristolochic acid) and cyanobacterial toxin (microcystins, anatoxins, ect.) toxicity in the human kidney. In conjunction with the latter, Dan’s research group is focused on developing microfluidic kidney models in vitro, specifically glomerular and cortical multi-cell type models that better allow determination of mechanisms of drug-, natural toxin- and disease-treatment induced toxicity in the human kidney and thus for a better prediction of adverse renal events in humans.

Prof. Dr. Per Artursson

Uppsala, Sweden

Per Artursson

Per Artursson is a professor in Dosage Form Design at the Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Sweden, where he heads the Drug Delivery research team. He is also Director of the Uppsala University drug optimization and pharmaceutical profiling platform within Science for Life Laboratories. His research aims at understanding drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination (ADME) at the molecular and cellular level in order to deliver drugs more effectively via the oral route. He also investigates the influence of drug transporting proteins, drug metabolizing enzymes and cellular and sub-cellular drug uptake, distribution and elimination. For this purpose, both 2D and 3D cell cultures are used in combination with state-of-the-art omics and bioinformatics. Both traditional small drug molecules and biopharmaceuticals such as peptides and antisense oligonucleotides are investigated. He is one of the world’s most highly cited scientists in his field and has received many international awards for his research.

Prof. Dr. Amin Rostami-Hodjegan

Manchester, United Kingdom

Amin Rostami, Manchester

Prof. Dr. Amin Rostami is the Director of the Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research (CAPKR) at the University of Manchester and a Professor of Systems Pharmacology with an active program of training PhD students in proteomics, PBPK, clinical PKPD and precision dosing. Amin is also the Senior Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer at Certara, where he ensures that various pharmaceutical companies incorporate the latest scientific advances in the field of biosimulation into their drug development efforts.

Dr. Jill Barber

Manchester, United Kingdom

Jill Barber (Un Manchester)

Jill Barber is the Proteomics Lead in the Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research at the University of Manchester. She quantifies proteins in many tissue types by tandem mass spectrometry, with a view to determining how different individuals metabolise and distribute drugs. These data are used to populate systems pharmacology models, which serve as computer-based avatars for different patient groups, allowing virtual clinical trials to be conducted on special populations. Diseases of interest include cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, chronic kidney disease, biliary atresia and polycystic kidney disease.

Prof. Dr. Twan Lammers

Aachen, Germany

Twan Lammers

Prof. Dr. Twan Lammers is Head of the Department Nanomedicine and Theranostics at the Institute for Experimental Molecular Imaging (ExMI) at the University Hospital Aachen and the Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. His group aims to individualize and improve disease treatment by combining drug targeting with imaging. To this end, image-guided (theranostic) drug delivery systems are being developed, as well as materials and methods to monitor tumor growth, angiogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis and metastasis. He has published over 250 papers and received multiple scholarships and awards, including a Starting and Consolidator grant from the European Research Council.

Partner Organisations

Dr. Sheila A. Peters

Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany

Sheila Annie Peters, Merck

Dr. Sheila Annie Peters is an Early Asset Lead at Boehringer Ingelheim. She is the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) Topic leader for the ICH (International Council for Harmonization) M12 group focused on harmonising drug-drug interaction (DDI) guidelines. Her areas of expertise include pharmacokinetics, Physiologically based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) and PK/PD modeling, human dose predictions, gut metabolism and drug-drug interactions She has authored a book on PBPK.

Dr. Iain Gardner

Sheffield, United Kingdom

Iain Gardner (Certara)

Dr Iain Gardner is head of the Translational Science in DMPK team at Certara/Simcyp. His research interests include drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic science and their application in the development of new therapies. The science team at Simcyp are responsible for further development of the population based physiologically based PK-PD simulator.

https://www.certara.com/software/simcyp-pbpk/

Tess Harris

Geneva, Switzerland

Tess Harris

Tess Harris is President of PKD International, the global alliance of PKD patient groups. She has autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) and had a kidney transplant in 2020 after 9 months on dialysis. She's a patient representative in several research programmes and networks in the UK and internationally, including the ERKNet (European Kidney Reference Network), the UK ADPKD Clinical Study Groups, SIMPLIFIED (UK), global PHOSPHATE, and SONG (Standardised Outcomes in Nephrology).