Realities and potential of gentle droplet biology: applications in single-cell functional screening, single-cell secretome studies, gentle cell sorting, and high-throughput 3D cell culture

Stéphanie van Loo is the founder, CEO and CTO of LiveDrop. She is a biomedical civil engineer and holds a PhD in applied sciences from the University of Liège. During her thesis at the Microfluidics lab, Stéphanie developed a technology for sorting cells in microfluidic droplets. Aware of the usefulness of this technology for the life sciences, Stéphanie then embarked on an entrepreneurial adventure to exploit these results. Stéphanie developed a business plan and a product prototype, before creating the LiveDrop company in 2022. In less than two years, the company has developed two commercial products: ModaFlow and OneFlow, along with their accessories and biological workflows.

Optimizing recombinant adeno-associated viruses for targeted therapeutic approaches in brain tumors

Dr. Virginie Neirinckx obtained her PhD in Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Science from the GIGA Research Centre (ULiège) in 2015 in the field of stem cells. She then joined the NorLux Neuro- Oncology Laboratory at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), headed by Prof. Simone Niclou, as a postdoc researcher studying endogenous inhibitors of receptor tyrosine kinases in glioblastoma (GBM). In 2020, she returned to ULiège-GIGA as an Assistant Professor in the unit of Prof. Bernard Rogister, co-supervising a research group focusing on brain tumor biology and on the development of new targeting strategies. She is teaching Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Neuropharmacology at ULiège. She published 29 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

MicroPhysiological systems to Replace, Reduce and Refine animal research

Doris Lou Demy is a PhD in cellular & molecular biology. During her academic career in development, immunology and neurobiology, spent mostly at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, she has worked with alternative models such as drosophila and zebrafish model. Since 2012, she is an active member of several Animal Welfare boards, and Ethical committees for animal experimentation. In 2014, she founded “White Rabbit”, a laboratory animals rehoming association. She joined the French center for 3Rs (FC3R) in 2022, where she is a scientific officer, in charge of call for projects, 3R awards and scientific valorization.