Stephan Schaller is a Systems Scientist passionate about Model Based Drug Discovery, Development and Dosing (MI4D) with over eight years of industry experience. His experience ranges from target validation in the early phases of drug discovery to development of automated decision support systems for drug dosing at the point of care.

Stephan Schaller founded esqLABS GmbH to advance the integration of computational methods in healthcare to derive effective computational platforms for drug-, device- and treatment-development and -optimization (i.e. personalization).

During his time in industry, he has leveraged physiologically-based concepts for decision-making support to drug discovery and development teams in various therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, hematology, cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

Stephan Schaller studied Control Systems Engineering and Systems Biology at the University of Stuttgart, Germany and received his PhD from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany in collaboration with Bayer in Computational Engineering for the development of an automated decision support system for insulin dosing in type 1 diabetes patients.

List of Publications:

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Schaller S, et al.: A New Perspective on Closed-Loop Glucose Control Using a Physiology Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. IFAC Paper, 8th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, 2012; doi:10.3182/20120829-3-HU-2029.00111

Krauss M, Schaller S, et al.: Integrating cellular metabolism into a multiscale whole-body model.  PLoS computational biology 8: e1002750.

Schaller S, et al.: A generic integrated physiologically-based whole-body model of the glucose-insulin-glucagon regulatory system. CPT: PSP 2013.

Schaller S, et al.: Robust MPC of blood glucose using generic whole-body physiology-based PK/PD model kernels. IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering, 2015.

Wadehn F, Schaller S, et al.: A multiscale, model-based analysis of the multi-tissue interplay underlying blood glucose regulation in diabetes. EMBC 2016.

Lahoz-Beneytez J, Schaller S, et al.: Physiologically Based Simulations of Deuterated Glucose for Quantifying Cell Turnover in Humans. Frontiers in Immunology, 2017.

Schaller S, et al.: Blood glucose control in T1DM subjects- prospects for generic whole-body physiology-based PK/PD model kernels: Clinical Trial and Post-Hoc Study. In internal revision 2018.

Book Chapters

Lippert J. et al. (2015) Modeling and Simulation of In Vivo Drug Effects. In: Nielsch U., Fuhrmann U., Jaroch S. (eds) New Approaches to Drug Discovery. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 232. Springer, Cham

Conference Talks

Schaller S, Eissing T, et al.:  A physiologically-based PK/PD model to capture population variability for diabetes research and automatic blood glucose control. PAGE Meeting, Venice, June 6, 2012

Schaller S, et al.: A New Perspective on Closed-Loop Glucose Control Using a Physiology-Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. 8th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, Budapest, Hungary, 2012

Schaller S, Block M, et al.: The REACTION platform–Improving long-term Management of Diabetes-Personalized Diabetes Therapy and Automatic Blood Glucose Control. Medicine with SOA, Grid, and Cloud – transmed.infinity-3.de

Schaller S, et al.: Closed-Loop Insulin Delivery Using a Physiology-Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. 6th International Conference on Advanced Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD), Paris, France, 2013

Barrett J, Schaller S: Exendin-(9-39) for Treating Children with Congenital Hyperinsulinism. ASCPT Annual Meeting, Atlanta, USA, 2014

Schaller S: Next Generation PB-PK/PD Modeling: Beyond Small Molecules: PBPK of Biological Therapeutic. ASCPT Annual Meeting, New Orleans, USA, 2015

Schaller S: PB-PK/PD Modeling Beyond Small Molecules: A PBPK/PD Model of Glucose Homeostasis. ISSX, Cologne, Germany, 2017

Conference Posters

Presented multiple posters at different conferences (amongst others at ATTD 2012/13, LACDR Meeting 2014, PAGE 2014, ACoP 2014, ICSB 2016, PAGE 2017, PAGE 2018)

Pavel Balazki is an interdisciplinary scientist with a solid experience in physiological modeling and programming skills. He focuses on the combination of modeling and software development to offer QSP platforms as integrated solutions.

Before joining esqLABS, Pavel acquired strong knowledge and expertise in mechanistic and physiologically based PK/PD modeling, biology, and human physiology. He has developed software tools for stochastic simulations of biological systems and graph database-based text analysis.

Pavel studied bioinformatics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and completed his master’s thesis at Sanofi, where he was working on mechanistic modeling of diabetes. He then joined the Systems Pharmacology group at Bayer to work on his PhD thesis in collaboration with Professor Thorsten Lehr from the Clinical Pharmacy department of the University of Saarland.

List of Publications:

Balazki, P., Eissing, T., and Lehr, T. Physiologically-based pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PBPK/PD) systems pharmacology model of glucose homeostasis in human. Annual meeting of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG) 2017, Saarbruecken, Germany

Balazki, P., Woerle, V., Schaller, S., Eissing, T., and Lehr, T. Physiologically-based Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics model of dapagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor. Population Approach Group Europe (PAGE) meeting 2017, Budapest, Hungary

Balazki, P., Lindauer, K., Einloft, J., Ackermann, J., and Koch, I. MONALISA for stochastic simulations of Petri net models of biochemical systems. BMC Bioinformatics (2015) 16: 371

Alexander is a Chemist by training with a PhD focusing on theoretical and computational methods for structural and optical property predictions.

Spending several years in academia (U. of Lyon) working on molecular dynamics simulation and free energy methods. Alex has most recently been working with CROs in applying large-scale disease and quantitative systems pharmacology models integrated into clinical trial simulations, across a number of disease areas.

Alex will be leading the Systems Pharmacology team with the aim to promote widespread application of physiologically based and mechanistic modeling and to create robust and qualified, yet versatile models and applications for high impact decision making. 

Stephan Schaller founded esqLABS GmbH to advance the integration of computational methods in healthcare to derive effective computational platforms for drug-, device- and treatment-development and -optimization (i.e. personalization).

During his time in industry, he has leveraged physiologically-based concepts for decision-making support to drug discovery and development teams in various therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, hematology, cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

Stephan Schaller studied Control Systems Engineering and Systems Biology at the University of Stuttgart, Germany and received his PhD from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany in collaboration with Bayer in Computational Engineering for the development of an automated decision support system for insulin dosing in type 1 diabetes patients.

List of Publications:

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Schaller S, et al.: A New Perspective on Closed-Loop Glucose Control Using a Physiology Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. IFAC Paper, 8th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, 2012; doi:10.3182/20120829-3-HU-2029.00111

Krauss M, Schaller S, et al.: Integrating cellular metabolism into a multiscale whole-body model.  PLoS computational biology 8: e1002750.

Schaller S, et al.: A generic integrated physiologically-based whole-body model of the glucose-insulin-glucagon regulatory system. CPT: PSP 2013.

Schaller S, et al.: Robust MPC of blood glucose using generic whole-body physiology-based PK/PD model kernels. IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering, 2015.

Wadehn F, Schaller S, et al.: A multiscale, model-based analysis of the multi-tissue interplay underlying blood glucose regulation in diabetes. EMBC 2016.

Lahoz-Beneytez J, Schaller S, et al.: Physiologically Based Simulations of Deuterated Glucose for Quantifying Cell Turnover in Humans. Frontiers in Immunology, 2017.

Schaller S, et al.: Blood glucose control in T1DM subjects- prospects for generic whole-body physiology-based PK/PD model kernels: Clinical Trial and Post-Hoc Study. In internal revision 2018.

Book Chapters

Lippert J. et al. (2015) Modeling and Simulation of In Vivo Drug Effects. In: Nielsch U., Fuhrmann U., Jaroch S. (eds) New Approaches to Drug Discovery. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 232. Springer, Cham

Conference Talks

Schaller S, Eissing T, et al.:  A physiologically-based PK/PD model to capture population variability for diabetes research and automatic blood glucose control. PAGE Meeting, Venice, June 6, 2012

Schaller S, et al.: A New Perspective on Closed-Loop Glucose Control Using a Physiology-Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. 8th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems, Budapest, Hungary, 2012

Schaller S, Block M, et al.: The REACTION platform–Improving long-term Management of Diabetes-Personalized Diabetes Therapy and Automatic Blood Glucose Control. Medicine with SOA, Grid, and Cloud – transmed.infinity-3.de

Schaller S, et al.: Closed-Loop Insulin Delivery Using a Physiology-Based Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic Model Kernel. 6th International Conference on Advanced Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD), Paris, France, 2013

Barrett J, Schaller S: Exendin-(9-39) for Treating Children with Congenital Hyperinsulinism. ASCPT Annual Meeting, Atlanta, USA, 2014

Schaller S: Next Generation PB-PK/PD Modeling: Beyond Small Molecules: PBPK of Biological Therapeutic. ASCPT Annual Meeting, New Orleans, USA, 2015

Schaller S: PB-PK/PD Modeling Beyond Small Molecules: A PBPK/PD Model of Glucose Homeostasis. ISSX, Cologne, Germany, 2017

Conference Posters

Presented multiple posters at different conferences (amongst others at ATTD 2012/13, LACDR Meeting 2014, PAGE 2014, ACoP 2014, ICSB 2016, PAGE 2017, PAGE 2018)

Marco is a Clinical Biologist by training with a PhD in molecular pharmacology and PK/PD modelling. He spent over 15 years at the University of Liverpool working on the topic of pharmacogenetics and in developing PBPK approaches for the optimisation of drug delivery, including HIV therapy optimisation.

Marco has most recently been working with CROs in taking this approaches for modelling and simulation approaches and PKTK (Systems Toxicology) models across a number of disease areas.

Marco will be leading the Systems Toxicology team with the aim to promote collaborative innovation and to develop novel modeling approaches to streamline the toxicological assessment.

Nicoleta Spînu is a scientist with extensive experience in modeling and simulation applied to the safety assessment of chemicals, and regulatory affairs. Her research interests include the integration of quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathway (qAOP) type of models with PK/PD, and the use of PBPK/PD as software as a medical device in drug development and clinical decision-making. At esqLABS, Nicoleta will support the advancement of the qAOP for real-world applications including quantitative risk assessment, and the development of PBPK in precision medicine.

Nicoleta Spînu is a graduate of the UMF Cluj-Napoca Faculty of Pharmacy. She holds a PhD in computational toxicology from Liverpool John Moores University (2017-2021) under the supervision of Mark Cronin. Her PhD was the first one that investigated the concept of qAOP as part of the MSCA-ITN in3 Project, while the results were taken further by the scientific community.

Selected First-Author Scientific Publications

Spinu N, Cronin M, Lao J et al. 2022. Probabilistic Modelling of Developmental Neurotoxicity based on a Simplified Adverse Outcome Pathway Network, Computational Toxicology, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comtox.2021.100206

Spinu N, Cronin M, Enoch S, Madden J, Worth A. 2020. Quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathway (qAOP) models for toxicity prediction Archives of Toxicology, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-020-02774-7

Spinu N, Bal-Price A, Cronin M, Enoch S, Madden J, Worth A. 2019. Development and Analysis of an Adverse Outcome Pathway Network for Human Neurotoxicity Archives of Toxicology, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-019-02551-1

Selected Scientific Oral Presentations

Spinu N, Quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathway (qAOP) Models for Toxicity Prediction, ECETOC workshop on Quantitative Response-Response Relationships, 18 October 2022

Spinu N, Probabilistic Modelling of an Adverse Outcome Pathway Network for Developmental Neurotoxicity, the 11th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences (WC11), 26 August 2021

Spinu N, Development and Use of Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) Networks Within the in3 Project, the 20th International Congress on In Vitro Toxicology (ESTIV2018), 17 October 2018

Raphaëlle Lesage is a Bioengineer interested in understanding pathophysiological processes and using computational methods for drug development.

Before joining esqLABS, she worked at  KU Leuven as a researcher and at the Virtual Physiological Human Institute as Chief Scientific Officer. She developed several knowledge-based and data-driven computational models of osteochondral pathophysiology for drug development. She worked on establishing standard procedures, guidelines, and good simulation practices through engagement with regulatory and standardization stakeholders. She also coordinated international working groups to advance the field of in silico medicine.

Raphaelle obtained her Engineering degree in Pharmacology, Bioinformatics and Modeling for Biology from the Polytech School of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France.  For her PhD research, she joined the tissue engineering group of Prof. Liesbet Geris at the Skeletal Biology and Engineering Centre of KU Leuven, Belgium.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Lesage, R., Van Oudheusden, M., Schievano, S., Van Hoyweghen, I., Geris, L., & Capelli, C. (2023). Mapping the use of computational modelling and simulation in clinics: A survey. Frontiers in Medical Technology, 5.

Lesage, R., Blanco, M. N. F., Narcisi, R., Welting, T., van Osch, G. J. V. M., & Geris, L. (2022). An integrated in silico-in vitro approach for identifying therapeutic targets against osteoarthritis. BMC BIOLOGY, 20(1).

Tam, W. L., Mendes, L. F., Chen, X., Lesage, R., Van Hoven, I., Leysen, E., . . . Luyten, F. P. (2021). Human pluripotent stem cell-derived cartilaginous organoids promote scaffold-free healing of critical size long bone defects. STEM CELL RESEARCH & THERAPY, 12(1).

Musuamba, F. T., Rusten, I. S., Lesage, R., Russo, G., Bursi, R., Emili, L., . . . Geris, L. (2021). Scientific and regulatory evaluation of mechanistic in silico drug and disease models in drug development: Building model credibility. CPT-PHARMACOMETRICS & SYSTEMS PHARMACOLOGY, 10(8), 804-825.

Papantoniou, I., Hall, G. N., Loverdou, N., Lesage, R., Herpelinck, T., Mendes, L., & Geris, L. (2021). Turning Nature’s own processes into design strategies for living bone implant biomanufacturing: a decade of Developmental Engineering. ADVANCED DRUG DELIVERY REVIEWS, 169, 22-39.

Gorgun, C., Ceresa, D., Lesage, R., Villa, F., Reverberi, D., Balbi, C., . . . Tasso, R. (2021). Dissecting the effects of preconditioning with inflammatory cytokines and hypoxia on the angiogenic potential of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-derived soluble proteins and extracellular vesicles (EVs). BIOMATERIALS, 269.

Musuamba, F. T., Bursi, R., Manolis, E., Karlsson, K., Kulesza, A., Courcelles, E., . . . Geris, L. (2020). Verifying and Validating Quantitative Systems Pharmacology and In Silico Models in Drug Development: Current Needs, Gaps, and Challenges. CPT-PHARMACOMETRICS & SYSTEMS PHARMACOLOGY, 9(4), 195-197.

Lesage, R., Kerkhofs, J., & Geris, L. (2018). Computational Modeling and Reverse Engineering to Reveal Dominant Regulatory Interactions Controlling Osteochondral Differentiation: Potential for Regenerative Medicine. FRONTIERS IN BIOENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY, 6.

Nielsen, F. M., Riis, S. E., Andersen, J. I., Lesage, R., Fink, T., Pennisi, C. P., & Zachar, V. (2016). Discrete adipose-derived stem cell subpopulations may display differential functionality after in vitro expansion despite convergence to a common phenotype distribution. STEM CELL RESEARCH & THERAPY, 7.

Vanessa Baier is bioinformatician by training, with a focus on computational modeling in the field of systems biology/systems pharmacology. She has experience with lab data management tools, Bayesian population PBPK techniques, and the contextualization of in vitro data and mechanistic PBPK models. Her main area at esqLABS lies in vitro/in vivo extrapolation and toxicity modeling within PBPK QSP.

Vanessa studied computer science at TU Braunschweig and Bioinformatics at Goethe University Frankfurt. After an internship at Sanofi, she completed her master thesis at Bayer in the group of Complex Systems Modeling / Applied Mathematics. She then joined the group of Lars Kuepfer at RWTH Aachen University for working on her PhD.

List of Publications:

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Cordes H, Thiel C, Aschmann HE, Baier V, Blank LM, Kuepfer L. A Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Model of Isoniazid and Its Application in Individualizing Tuberculosis Chemotherapy. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2016; 60(10):6134–45.

Cordes H, Thiel C, Baier V, Blank LM, Kuepfer L. Integration of genome-scale metabolic networks into whole-body PBPK models shows phenotype-specific cases of drug-induced metabolic perturbation. npj Systems Biology and Applications 2018; 4(1):10.

Kuepfer L, Clayton O, Thiel C, Cordes H, Nudischer R, Blank LM et al. A model-based assay design to reproduce in vivo patterns of acute drug-induced toxicity. Archives of Toxicology 2017.

Thiel C, Cordes H, Baier V, Blank LM, Kuepfer L. Multiscale modeling reveals inhibitory and stimulatory effects of caffeine on acetaminophen-induced toxicity in humans. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol 2017; 6(2):136–46.

Thiel C, Cordes H, Fabbri L, Aschmann HE, Baier V, Smit I et al. A Comparative Analysis of Drug-Induced Hepatotoxicity in Clinically Relevant Situations. PLoS Comput Biol 2017; 13(2):e1005280.
Thiel C, Smit I, Baier V, Cordes H, Fabry B, Blank LM et al. Using quantitative systems pharmacology to evaluate the drug efficacy of COX-2 and 5-LOX inhibitors in therapeutic situations. npj Systems Biology and Applications 2018; 4(1):28.

Conference Posters

Baier, V., Thiel, C., Cordes, H., Blank, L. M., Kuepfer, L. Developing a physiology-based model of the bile acid metabolism in men. Population Approach Group Europe (PAGE) meeting 2018, Montreux, Switzerland

Christian Maass is a physicist and computational biologist with over eight years of academic and industrial experience, where he established a strong national and international network. He is passionate about the integration of computational modeling and biological experiments for translational pharmacology applications.
Before joining esqLABS, Dr. Maass worked in various therapeutic areas, e.g. neurodegenerative, inflammatory, and metabolic diseases (Alzheimer, rheumatoid arthritis, NASH/NAFLD). Among others, he developed individualized PBPK models for molecular radiotherapy (leukemia), automated workflows for big data (*omics), network-based analysis of inflammation diseases, and mechanistic modeling of organ-on-chip data.
He received his Master in Medical Physics from the University College London in 2012 and PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 2015. As a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA, he focused on application-driven method development for microphysiological systems in safety pharmacology. In 2018, Christian joined Certara’s Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) team, working on liver disease models and leading projects to integrate organ-on-chip (OoC) and computational modeling for translational pharmacology applications.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:

• Maass C, Stokes CL, Griffith LG, Cirit M. Multi-Functional Scaling Methodology for Translational Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Applications using Integrated Microphysiological Systems (MPS). Integrative Biology. 2017;9(4):290-302.
• Kletting P, Kull T, Maass C, Malik N, Luster M, Beer AJ, et al. Optimized Peptide Amount and Activity for (9)(0)Y-Labeled DOTATATE Therapy. Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2016;57(4):503-8.
• Kletting P and Maaß C, Reske S, Beer AJ, Glatting G. Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling Is Essential in 90Y-Labeled Anti-CD66 Radioimmunotherapy. PLoS One. 2015;10(5):e0127934.
• Maaß C, Rivas JRA, Attarwala AA, Hardiansyah D, Niedermoser S, Litau S, et al. Physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling of 18F-SiFAlin-Asp3-PEG1-TATE in AR42J tumor bearing mice. Nuclear medicine and biology. 2016;43(4):243-6.
• Maaß C, Kletting P, Beer A, Glatting G. Population-based modeling improves treatment planning for leukemia patients Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals. 2015;30(7):285-90.
• Hardiansyah D, Maass C, Attarwala AA, Müller B, Kletting P, Mottaghy FM, et al. The role of patient-based treatment planning in peptide receptor radionuclide therapy. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2016;43(5):871-80.
• Maaß C, Sachs JP, Hardiansyah D, Mottaghy FM, Kletting P, Glatting G. Dependence of treatment planning accuracy in peptide receptor radionuclide therapy on the sampling schedule. EJNMMI Research. 2016;6(1):30.
• Edington C, Chen WLK, …, Maass C, …, Griffith LG. Interconnected Microphysiological Systems for Quantitative Biology and Pharmacology Studies. Sci Rep. 2018; 8(1).
• Maass C, Sorensen N, Geishecker E, Stokes CL, Cirit M. Translational Assessment of Drug‐Induced Proximal Tubule Injury Using a Kidney Microphysiological System. CPT:PSP. 2019; 8(5).
• Maass C, Dallas M, LaBarge ME, Shockley M, Valdez J, Geishecker E, et al. Establishing quasi-steady state operations of microphysiological systems (MPS) using tissue-specific metabolic dependencies. Sci Rep. 2018.
• Trapecar M, Communal C, Velazquez J, Maass C, …, Griffith L. Gut-Liver physiomimetics reveal paradoxical modulation of IBD-related inflammation by short-chain fatty acids. Cell Systems 2020.

Conference Talks:

• PKUK 2019 in Stratford Upon Avon, UK: “Integration of OoC and QSP for Translational Pharmacology Applications”
• American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics:
  • Presentation of: Multi-Functional Scaling for Integrated Multi-Microphysiological Systems (MPS) (2017)
  • Presentation of: Data-driven Modeling Approach of Human Tissue Chips for Translational Pharmacology Applications (2018)
• Keystone Symposia: Organs – and Tissues-on-Chips (2018): in vitro Assessment of Drug-Induced Kidney Proximal Tubule Injury
• Gordon Research Conference – Drug Safety (2016): Presentation of: Designing Microphysiological Systems: From Bedside to Bench
• 44th Congress of the German Medical Physics Association (DGMP): Presentation of performed research in PBPK modeling of radiolabeled anti-CD66 antibodies in the treatment of leukaemia

Mark Davies has a PhD in Biological Sciences, from the University of Warwick, UK, and B.Sc in Biochemisty from University of Bath, UK.

Over the past 4 years, Mark has working in a Business Development Manager role, firstly at the Medicines Discovery Catapult (a UK based organisation with the aim to support UK Biotech/SME organisations) and more recently at Cegedim Health Data, a health data and software company providing Real-World Data solutions to the pharma/healthtech industry.

Marks experience is from 20 years within the pharmaceutical industry (AstraZeneca and Roche) covering different phases of drug discovery and development

Marks key area of specialism is in computational biology and health informatics with strong experience and passion to improve how we work with and analyse datasets from different sources. He has numerous publications and broad experience in experimental techniques, informatics and their applications to modelling techniques. As a business development manager, he brings a consultative approach (technical-sales) to the utility of real world data and healthcare data sources applied to questions in the pharmaceutical industry.

René Meyer is a Finance & HR Manager with a strong drive to build efficiency into organizational processes and structures.

Before joining esqLABS, he worked in similar roles and responsibilities at Tracks GmbH, easyOptimize GmbH, and the SkySails Group. He gained substantial experience in finance, HR management, business administration, public grants, and business model development, focusing on SMEs. He is proficient in financial planning concepts, investment strategies, taxation, financial markets, recruitment and HR Management, privacy and data protection, processes, and organization structures.

René studied for his MBA in Innovation, Enterprise, and the Circular Economy at the University of Bradford (UK). The Dipl-Betriebswirt and BA of Arts in European Business Studies were obtained in a dual program from ARU Cambridge (UK) and FH Landshut (Germany).

Marco Albrecht is a Biosystems Engineer, who is passionate about combining natural science disciplines with the power of mathematics.

He was interdisciplinary trained in molecular biology, system theory, control engineering, and modelling from the first semester at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg.  Magdeburg is a European hub for bottom-up modelling and harbours the Max-Planck Institute for the Dynamic of Complex Technical Systems.

Marco Albrecht has not only worked in four different hospital wards at an early age but also in several high-tech life-science start-ups and research incubators such as GenDx in the Netherlands, Optimata in Israel and BioMed X in Heidelberg as well as in several research groups such as the experimental dermatology group at the TU Dresden and the porous media department at the University of Bordeaux.

His Master´s thesis at the University of Heidelberg was on identifying differentially expressed features in transcriptome dynamics, and his dissertation at the University of Luxembourg was on mathematical histopathology and systems pharmacology of melanoma. Marco Albrecht reached in all research projects the highest possible grades and was funded by the prestigious EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie research grant.

Marco Albrecht brings substantial experience in modelling tissue physiology, systems biology and analysing omics-data to esqLABS and will act as QSP-platform developer. His first project will be in precision medicine for patients in intensive care units.

List of Publications:

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Marco Albrecht, Giuseppe Sciume, Philippe Lucarelli, and Thomas Sauter. Thermodynamically constrained averaging theory for cancer growth modelling. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 49(26):289{294, 2016.

Marco Albrecht, Damian Stichel, Benedikt Muller, Ruth Merkle, Carsten Sticht, Norbert Gretz, Ursula Klingmuller, Kai Breuhahn, and Franziska Matthaus. TTCA: an R package for the identication of dierentially expressed genes in time course microarray data. BMC bioinformatics, 18(1):33, 2017.

Margarita Gonzalez-Vallinas, Manuel Rodriguez-Paredes, Marco Albrecht, Carsten Sticht, Damian Stichel, Julian Gutekunst, Adriana Pitea, Steen Sass, Francisco J Sanchez-Rivera, Justo L Bermejo, et al. Epigenetically regulated chromosome 14q32 miRNA cluster induces metastasis and predicts poor prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma patients. Molecular Cancer Research, 2018.

Kotryna Seip, Kjetil Jorgensen, Marco Vincent Haselager, Marco Albrecht, Mads Haugland Haugen, Eivind Valen Egeland, Philippe Lucarelli, Olav Engebraaten, Thomas Sauter, Gunhild Mari Molandsmo, et al. Stroma-induced phenotypic plasticity offers phenotype-specific targeting to improve melanoma treatment. Cancer letters, 2018.

Marco Albrecht, Giuseppe Sciume, Francesca Maria Bosisio, Dagmar Kulms, and Thomas Sauter. Stroma oriented tissue modelling with a
micro-anatomical allocation of mechanical features using virtual rheometry. Planned for: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology. (In Preparation)

Marco Albrecht, Yuri Kogan, Philippe Lucarelli, and Thomas Sauter. Systems pharmacology of dabrafenib metabolism: drug interaction, CYP3A4 enzyme induction, and eect loss in hydrogels. Planned for: Nature Systems Biology and Applications. (In Preparation)

Marco Albrecht, Sebastien De Landtsheer, Philippe Lucarelli, Ines Mueller, Dagmar Kulms, and Thomas Sauter. Systems Biology approaches and computational models for cutaneous melanoma. Planned for: Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research. (In Preparation)

Laura is an Operations Manager, who takes a holistic approach to managing projects and making sure everything runs smoothly across the organization.

Before joining ESQlabs, Laura worked for several years as Project Manager for clients in the Life Sciences field. With her experience in project management, she brings a dynamic skill set and a proven track record of delivering excellence for every project. With a strong focus on client satisfaction, Laura fosters collaborative relationships built on trust, transparency, and open communication. Her expertise lays in streamlining processes, optimizing workflows, and enhancing overall productivity.

Laura earned her Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Berlin School of Business and Innovation.

Venetia Karamitsou is a mathematician with expertise in mechanistic and predictive modeling and an interest in utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning methods to aid the drug development process.

Before joining ESQlabs, she worked as a postdoc at Sanofi as part of the Translational Disease Modeling team. There, she contributed to the development of a quantitative systems pharmacology model for inflammatory bowel disease and to the generation and optimization of a virtual patient population.

Venetia obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Julia Gog in the Disease Dynamics group. Her thesis focused on developing a cross-scale model for the evolution of influenza and the effects of vaccination.

Walter Schmitt is a M&S scientist with more than 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical and crop science industry. During this time he was engaged in many different M&S related activities, as e.g. pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling, prediction methods for drug properties, environmental fate modeling, environmental effects modeling and others. His special focus lies on mechanistic, quantitative pharmacology methodologies, in particular Physiology Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling. He was one of the main developers of the PBPK-software PK-Sim, the predecessor of the now open-source software OSP Suite.

Walter Schmitt is the author of more than 40 peer reviewed publications and book chapters which are listed here.

Walter is a physicist by training and received his PhD from the University of Cologne.

Styliani (Stella) Fragki is a human toxicologist who is passionate about promoting the use of alternatives to animal testing in chemical safety. She has several years of experience in toxicological risk assessment and she has provided support to the (agro)chemical industry with regard to their dossier preparation for plant protection products, biocides, and substances falling within REACH since 2010. She also worked for the Dutch government (RIVM-National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) as a scientist in the safety of substances entering the food chain (food contaminants, food contact materials, botanicals, etc.), but also in the application of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in chemical risk assessment. She joined esqLABS in January 2023 as a Senior Scientist Systems Toxicology. She has studied Biology (Thessaloniki, Greece) and she has an MSc in Food Safety (Wageningen, the Netherlands). Stella recently finalized her Ph.D. thesis in toxicology, specifically on the quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolations (QIVIVE) of alternative assays with physiologically based kinetic (PBK) models, parameterized with data based on in vitro and in silico tools. She has completed the full training for a European Registration as a Toxicologist (certification to be obtained soon).

List of publications:

Fragki S, Louisse J, Bokkers B, Luijten M, Peijnenburg A, Rijkers D, Piersma AH, Zeilmaker MJ, 2023. New approach methodologies: A quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation case study with PFASs. Food and Chemical Toxicology 172: 113559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2022.113559

Fragki S, Piersma AH, Marco JZ, Westerhout J, Kienhuis A, Kramer NI, Zeilmaker M, 2022. Applicability of generic PBK modelling in chemical hazard assessment: A case study with IndusChemFate. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 136:105267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yrtph.2022.105267

Fragki S, Hoogenveen S, van Oostrom C,  Schwillens P , Piersma AH, Zeilmaker M, 2022. Integrating in vitro chemical transplacental passage into a generic PBK model: A QIVIVE approach. Toxicology 465:153060. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2021.153060

Fragki S, Dirven H, Fletcher T, Grasl-Kraupp B, Bjerve Gützkow K, Hoogenboom R, Kersten S, Lindeman B, Louisse J, Peijnenburg A, Piersma A, Princen HMG, Uhl M, Westerhout J, Zeilmaker MJ, Luijten M, 2021. Systemic PFOS and PFOA exposure and disturbed lipid homeostasis in humans: what do we know and what not? Critical Reviews in Toxicology 51(2): 141-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408444.2021.1888073

Fragki S, Piersma AH, Rorije E, Zeilmaker M, 2017. In vitro to in vivo extrapolation of effective dosimetry in developmental toxicity testing: Application of a generic PBK modelling approach. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 332:109-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.taap.2017.07.021

Bil W, Zeilmaker M, Fragki S, Lijzen J, Verbruggen E, Bokkers B (2022). Response to Letter to the Editor on Bil et al. 2021 “Risk Assessment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Mixtures: A Relative Potency Factor Approach”. Environ Toxicol Chem. 41(1): 13-18. DOI: 10.1002/etc.5236

Bil W, Zeilmaker M, Fragki S, Lijzen J, Verbrugeen E, Bokkers B, 2021. Risk Assessment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Mixtures: A Relative Potency Factor Approach. Environ Toxicol Chem 40 (3): 859-870.  https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.4835

Van de Ven BM, Fragki S, te Biesebeek JD, Rietveld AG, Boon BE, 2018. Mineral oils in food; a review of toxicological data and an assessment of the dietary exposure in the Netherlands. RIVM Letter report 2017-0182. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28760446

Tiesjema B, Jeurissen SMF, de Wit L, Mol H, Fragki S, Razenberg L, 2017. Risk assessment of synephrine. RIVM Report 2017-0069. https://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/2017-0069.html

Wilbert de Witte is a Pharmacologist with a strong drive to understand complex mechanisms and the models that represent them.

Before joining esqLABS, he worked at Ablynx NV, later Sanofi Ghent, on the preclinical and clinical development of NANOBODY® therapeutics. He developed several PBPK and PBPK-QSP models as well as traditional TMDD and PKPD models for mechanistic analysis of in vitro, in vivo, and clinical data. He accumulated in-depth knowledge on the behavior of large molecules in different modalities and with various target binding characteristics.

Wilbert obtained his Master’s degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University (the Netherlands). For his PhD thesis, he studied the impact of drug-target binding kinetics on in vivo drug action. His PhD research was supervised by Prof. Liesbeth de Lange, Prof. Piet-Hein van der Graaf and Prof. Meindert Danhof at the department of Pharmacology at Leiden University.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Witte, W.E.A. de, Danhof, M., Graaf, P.H. van der, and Lange, E.C.M. de (2018). The implications of target saturation for the use of drug–target residence time Nat. Rev. Drug Disc. 18:82-84

Witte, W.E.A. de, Versfelt, J.W., Kuzikov, M., Rolland, S., Georgi, V., Gribbon, P., Gul, S., Huntjens, D., Graaf, P.H. van der, Danhof, M., Fernandez-Montalvan, A., Witt, G., and Lange, E.C.M. de (2018). In vitro and in silico analysis of the effects of D2 receptor antagonist target binding kinetics on the cellular response to fluctuating dopamine concentrations. Br. J. Pharmacol. 175:4121-4136

Vlot, A.H.C., Witte, W.E.A. de, Danhof, M., Graaf, P.H. van der, van Westen, G.J.P., and Lange, E.C.M. de (2018). Target and Tissue Selectivity Prediction by Integrated Mechanistic Pharmacokinetic-Target Binding and Quantitative Structure Activity Modeling. AAPS J. 20:11

Nederpelt, I., Kuzikov, M., Witte, W.E.A de, Schnider, P., Tuijt, B., Gul, S., IJzerman, A.P., Lange, E.C.M. de and Heitman, L.H. (2017). From receptor binding kinetics to signal transduction; a missing link in predicting in vivo drug- action. Sci. Rep. 7:14169

Witte, W.E.A. de, Vauquelin, G., Graaf, P.H. van der, and Lange, E.C.M. de (2017). The influence of drug distribution and drug-target binding on target occupancy: The rate-limiting step approximation. Eur. J. Pharm. Sci. 109S:S83-S89

Bot, I., Ortiz, N., de Witte, W., de Vries, H., van Santbrink, P.J., van der Velden, D., Kröner, M.J., van der Berg, D.J., Stamos, D., de Lange, E.C.M., et al. A novel CCR2 antagonist inhibits atherogenesis in apoE deficient mice by achieving high receptor occupancy. Sci. Rep. 2017, 7, 52

Witte, W.E.A. de, Danhof, M., Graaf, P.H. van der, and Lange, E.C.M. de (2016). In vivo Target Residence Time and Kinetic Selectivity: The Association Rate Constant as Determinant. Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 37: 831–842.

Witte, W.E.A. de, Wong, Y.C., Nederpelt, I., Heitman, L.H., Danhof, M., Graaf, P.H. van der, Gilissen, R.A.H.J and Lange, E.C.M. de (2015). Mechanistic models enable the rational use of in vitro drug-target binding kinetics for better drug effects in patients. Expert Opin. Drug Discov. 11: 45–63.

Schuetz, D.A., Witte, W.E.A. de, Wong, Y.C., Knasmueller, B., Richter, L., Kokh, D.B., et al. (2017). Kinetics for Drug Discovery: an industry-driven effort to target drug residence time. Drug Discov. Today 22: 896–911.

Dubois, V.F.S., Witte, W.E.A. De, Visser, S.A.G., Danhof, M., and Pasqua, O. Della (2016). Assessment of Interspecies Differences in Drug-Induced QTc Interval Prolongation in Cynomolgus Monkeys, Dogs and Humans. Pharm. Res. 33: 40–51.

Delft, P. Van, Witte, W. De, Meeuwenoord, N.J., Heden Van Noort, G.J. Van Der, Versluis, F., Olsthoorn, R.C.L., et al. (2014). Design of a ribosyltriazole-annulated cyclooctyne for oligonucleotide

labeling by strain-promoted alkyne-azide cycloaddition. European J. Org. Chem. 2014: 7566–7571.

Conference Talks

• Improvement of FcRn-binding behavior of the PK-Sim model for large molecules, poster presentation at QSPC2022
• Continuous Time Markov Modelling in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, poster presentation at PAGE 2021
• Binding Kinetics: Time is of the essence, Kinetics for Drug Discovery Scientific meeting 2017
  “Drug-target binding kinetics in the context of pharmacokinetics, endogenous competition and signal transduction.”

• European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry short course 2017
  “Binding kinetics and in vivo drug action”

• Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research spring meeting 201
  “How important are drug-target binding kinetics for drug discovery and development?

Luis David Jimenez Franco is is an electronics engineer and medical physicist passionate about applying technical, physical and physiological knowledge to improve people’s quality of life. Before joining esqLABS, he co-developed several physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models for radiopharmaceuticals as well as a PBPK-based algorithm which allows for individualised treatment planning in molecular radiotherapy.

Luis is experienced in clinical and pre-clinical trials for radiopharmaceuticals and has extensive knowledge of medical imaging and internal radiation dosimetry.

Luis studied Electronics Engineering at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Colombia) and completed Master’s degrees in Engineering (Universidad EAFIT, Colombia) and Medical Physics (University of Heidelberg, Germany). He received his Ph.D. in Medical Physics under the supervision of Prof. Gerhard Glatting.

List of Publications:

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:

1. Nazari M, Jiménez-Franco LD, Schroeder M, Kluge A, Bronzel M, Kimiaei S. Automated and robust organ segmentation for 3D-based internal dose calculation. EJNMMI Res. 2021 Jun 7;11(1):53
2. Merkx RIJ, Lobeek D, Konijnenberg M, Jiménez-Franco LD, Kluge A, Oosterwijk E, Mulders PFA, Rijpkema M. Phase I study to assess safety, biodistribution and radiation dosimetry for 89Zr-girentuximab in patients with renal cell carcinoma. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021 Mar 2.
3. Kramer V, Fernández R, Lehnert W, Jiménez-Franco LD, Soza-Ried C, Eppard E, Ceballos M, Meckel M, Benešová M, Umbricht CA, Kluge A, Schibli R, Zhernosekov K, Amaral H, Müller C. Biodistribution and dosimetry of a single dose of albumin-binding ligand [177Lu]Lu-PSMA-ALB-56 in patients
4. with mCRPC. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021 Mar; 48(3): 893-903.
5. Giesel FL, Adeberg S, Syed M, Lindner T, Jiménez-Franco LD, Mavriopoulou E, Staudinger F, Tonndorf-Martini E, Regnery S, Rieken S, El Shafie R, Röhrich M, Flechsig P, Kluge A, Altmann A, Debus J, Haberkorn U, Kratochwil C. FAPI-74 PET/CT Using Either 18F-AlF or Cold-Kit 68Ga Labeling:
6. Biodistribution, Radiation Dosimetry, and Tumor Delineation in Lung Cancer Patients. J Nucl Med. 2021 Feb; 62(2): 201-207.
7. Jiménez-Franco LD, Glatting G, Prasad V, Weber WA, Beer AJ, Kletting P. Effect of Tumor Perfusion and Receptor Density on Tumor Control Probability in 177Lu-DOTATATE Therapy: An In Silico Analysis for Standard and Optimized Treatment. J Nucl Med. 2021 Jan; 62(1): 92-98.
8. Fernandez R, Eppard E, Lehnert W, Jimenez-Franco LD, Soza-Ried C, Ceballos M, Ribbeck J, Kluge A, Roesch F, Meckel M, Zhernosekov K, Kramer V, Amaral H. Evaluation of safety and dosimetry of 177Lu DOTA-ZOL for therapy of bone metastases. J Nucl Med. 2021 Jan 8.
9. Attarwala AA, Hardiansyah D, Romanó C, Jiménez-Franco LD, Roscher M, Wängler B, Glatting G. Performance assessment of the ALBIRA II pre-clinical SPECT S102 system for 99mTc imaging. Ann Nucl Med. 2021 Jan; 35(1): 111-120.
10. Gruber L, Jiménez-Franco LD, Decristoforo C, Uprimny C, Glatting G, Hohenberger P, Schoenberg SO, Reindl W, Orlandi F, Mariani M, Jaschke W, Virgolini I. MITIGATE-NeoBOMB1, a Phase I/IIa Study to Evaluate Safety, Pharmacokinetics, and Preliminary Imaging of 68Ga-NeoBOMB1, a Gastrin-
11. Releasing Peptide Receptor Antagonist, in GIST Patients. J Nucl Med. 2020 Dec; 61(12): 1749-1755.
12. Jiménez-Franco LD, Kletting P, Glatting G. Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung der Dosimetrie und Therapieplanung in der Molekularen Radiotherapie durch maschinelles Lernen (Possibilities for improving dosimetry and therapy planning in molecular radiotherapy using machine). Der
13. Nuklearmediziner (Non peer-reviewed). 2019 Jun; 42(02): 148-156.
14. Winter G, Vogt A, Jiménez-Franco LD, Rinscheid A, Yousefzadeh-Nowshahr E, Solbach C, Beer AJ, Glatting G, Kletting P. Modelling the internalisation process of prostate cancer cells for PSMA-specific ligands. Nucl Med Biol. 2019 May-Jun; 72-73: 20-25.
15. Jiménez-Franco LD, Kletting P, Beer AJ, Glatting G. Treatment planning algorithm for peptide receptor radionuclide therapy considering multiple tumor lesions and organs at risk. Med Phys. 2018 Jun 15.

Conference Talks:

1. Gruber L, Decristoforo C, Uprimny C, Kaeopookum P, Jimenez LD, Glatting G, Hohenberger P, Schönberg S, Orlandi F, Mariani M, Jaschke W, Virgolini I. Results of a Phase I/IIa study using 68Ga- NeoBOMB1 in oligometastatic GIST. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Annual Meeting. Barcelona, Spain, 2019.
2. Kramer V, Fernandez R, Lehnert W, Flores J, Soza-Ried C, Ribbeck J, Ceballos M, Eppard E, Jiménez-Franco LD, Kluge A, Meckel M, Roesch F, Amaral H. Biodistribution and dosimetry of a single dose of [177Lu]Lu-DOTAZOL in patients with mCRPC. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Annual Meeting. Barcelona, Spain, 2019.
3. Jimenez L, Kletting P, Beer A, Glatting G. Potential benefits of varying the specific activity through the therapy cycles in PRRT with 177Lu- DOTATATE: a simulation study. German Society of Nuclear Medicine (DGN) Annual Meeting. Bremen, Germany, 2019.
4. Jiménez-Franco LD, Kletting P, Beer A, Glatting G. Prescribing tumour dose in molecular radiotherapy using a PBPK model-based algorithm for individualised treatment planning. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Annual Meeting. Düsseldorf, Germany, 2018.
5. Jimenez-Franco LD, Leszczynska AK, Glatting G. Allometric scaling of organ volumes and blood flows to generate Bayes parameters for use in PBPK models. German Society of Nuclear Medicine (DGN) Annual Meeting. Poster Presentation. Bremen, Germany, 2018.
6. Schneider F, Jimenez LD, Bludau F, Jahnke A, Illana C, Fleckenstein J, Clausen S, Obertacke U, Wenz F. Precision IORT – image guided IORT including online CBCT based Monte Carlo treatment planning. Radiotherapy and Oncology. Vienna, Austria, 2017.
7. Jimenez-Franco LD, Kletting P, Glatting G. Treatment planning in PRRT with 177Lu-DOTATATE considering optimization of the amount, schedule and affinity of a preload substance. Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) Annual Meeting. Denver, USA, 2017.
8. Jimenez-Franco LD, Hardiansyah D, Glatting G. Development of a PBPK model of arginine biokinetics in humans to optimize kidney protection during peptide receptor radionuclide therapy. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Annual Meeting. Barcelona, Spain, 2017.
9. Jimenez LD, Velásquez A, Trefftz H. Evaluation of various strategies to improve the training of a brain-computer interface system. Proceedings of Advances in Computer Science. Phuket, Thailand, 2013

Robert McIntosh is an experienced software professional with a particular interest in creating code that is easy to understand and easy to maintain.

Before joining esqLABS, he worked on a wide range of platforms and projects. He has written software that runs golf carts, electric bikes, electric riding lawn mowers, mobile apps for Android and iOS, and software for web, desktops, and servers.

As a contractor to Bayer Technology Services GmbH, Robert has already contributed to the Open Systems Pharmacology Suite before joining esqLABS.

Susana Proença is a biologist and toxicologist dedicated to the adoption of digitaltwins and PBPK techniques in QIVIVE and IVIVE frameworks to integrate in vitro data in hazard characterization. Her ambition is to enhance current QIVIVE strategies by integrating toxicodynamics to construct fully mechanistic frameworks for Next Generation Risk Assessment.

Before joining esqLABS, she worked at Wageningen University, Toxicology division under Dr. Nynke Kramer supervision. There she worked on evaluating in vitro kinetics of chemical related to different toxicological ontologies (such as cholestasis and development neurotoxicity) and developing strategies for performing QIVIVE for these chemicals. Before this she underwent an internship at ECVAM-JRC on in silico modelling of in vitro kinetics, which was followed by a stint automating chemical data curation from REACH dossiers, also in JRC.

Susana obtained her Master’s degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences from Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lisbon University (Portugal). For her PhD thesis, she studied the in vitro kinetics in complex in vitro models and IVIVE of challenging chemicals. The PhD was a collaboration with the projects in3 MSCA-ITN and IV-Kin Cosmetics Europe. Her PhD research was supervised by Dr. Nynke Kramer and Prof. Juliette Legler at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

C. Nunes, S. Proença et al (2023) Integrating distribution kinetics and toxicodynamics to assess repeat dose neurotoxicity in vitro using human BrainSpheres: a case study on amiodarone, Front Pharmacol. 2023; 14: 1248882. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1248882

S.Proença et al (2023) The effects of hexabromocyclododecane on the transcriptome and hepatic enzyme activity in three human HepaRG-based models –Toxicology, 485 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2022.153411

C. Bouwmeester et al (2022) Drug Metabolism of Hepatocyte-Like Organoids and Their Applicability in In Vitro Toxicity Testing. MDPI Molecules, 28,621 (https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28020621)

Ghosh et al (2022) HiPSC-Derived Hepatocyte-like Cells Can Be Used as a Model for Transcriptomics-Based Study of Chemical Toxicity, MDPI Toxics, 10, 1, https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics10010001

S. Proença et al (2020) Effective exposure of chemicals in in vitro cell systems: A review of chemical distribution models. Toxicology in vitro (73). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tiv.2021.105133

H. Lopes and S. Proença (2020) Insights into PCDD/Fs and PAHs in Biomass Boilers Envisaging Risks of Ash Use as Fertilizers. Applied Sciences-MDPI (10): 4951. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10144951

A. Paini, et al (2019) Next generation physiologically based kinetic (NG-PBK) models in support of regulatory decision making. Computational Toxicology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comtox.2018.11.002

S. Proença (2019) Insights into In Vitro Biokinetics Using Virtual Cell Based Assay Simulations-ALTEX 36(3), 447-461. https://doi:10.14573/altex.1812101

Selected Scientific Oral Presentations

Proenca S. and Kramer N. A Strategy to Optimize In Vitro Disposition Modeling for Next-Generation Risk Assessment, 2023 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting, March 2023, Nashville, USA

Proenca S, In vitro biokinetics, QVIVE and Physiologically-based kinetic modelling, Scientific workshop on alternative methods to Animal Testing in Risk Assessment of Cosmetic Ingredients, February 27, 2019, Brussels, Belgium

Proenca S, Evaluation of models to estimate the distribution kinetics of test chemicals in vitro, the 20th International Congress on In Vitro Toxicology (ESTIV2018), 17 October 2018, Berlin, Germany

Tatiana Zasedateleva is a scientist who started her career at esqLABS conducting research on “Rate-limiting step analysis for target binding in tissue” under the supervision of Dr. Wilbert de Witte. Currently, she actively contributes to projects focusing on the PBPK-modeling of large molecules.

Tatiana holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Moscow State University (Russia) and gained diverse professional experience during her academic journey. Her background encompasses research in atherosclerosis, specifically delving into the potential mechanisms of atherothrombogenicity associated with lipoprotein(a).  She also was involved in the development of quality control methods for the original drug during her thesis work. In addition to her academic pursuits, Tatiana gained industry experience at Abbott Laboratories, where she worked in the QA&RA department, specializing in medical devices.

Laura Villain is a biomodeler with interests in various mechanistic modeling approaches and statistical methods. She has experience with popPK, QSP, and PBPK models, complemented by her biostatistics skills.

Before joining esqLABS, she worked at Novadiscovery, where she developed and improved several PBPK and PBPK-QSP models to reproduce in silico trials. She gained in-depth knowledge of all the steps required to develop a model that can reproduce clinical outputs in compliance with regulatory guidelines. She is also interested in R programming and has provided internal training on R within the company. Before that, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in biostatistics in the oncology field at INRIA (Bordeaux University). There, she explored high-dimensional methods to link omics data with time-to-event outcomes.

Laura received her Master’s degree in biomodeling sciences from INSA Lyon (France). For her Ph.D. thesis, she studied the impact of interleukin 7 injections on HIV-infected patients. She used a mechanistic model and proposed an adaptive protocol of injections. Her PhD research was supervised by Dr. Daniel Commenges and Prof. Rodolphe Thiébaut at the Department of Public Health at Bordeaux University.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Fung T., Villain L., Chisholm R., Analytical formulae for computing dominance
from species-abundance distributions, Journal of Theoretical Biology.
2015

Ana J., Commenges D., Villain L., Prague M., Lévy Y. and Thiébaut R., Modeling
CD4+ cells dynamics in HIV-infected patients receiving repeated cycles of exogenous
interleukin 7, Journal of Theoretical Biology.
2017

Pasin C., Dufour F., Villain L., Huilong Z. and Thiébaut R., Controlling IL-7
injections in HIV-infected patients, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.
2018

Villain L., Commenges D., Pasin C., Prague M., Thiébaut R. , Adaptive protocols
based on predictions from a mechanistic model of the effect of IL7 on CD4 counts,
Statistics in Medicine.
2018

Submitted papers

Dong, L., Moodie, E. M., Villain, L. , Thiébaut R. , Evaluating the Use of Genera-
lized Dynamic Weighted Ordinary Least Squares for Individualized HIV Treatment
Strategies

Villain L., Thiébaut R., Bikfalvi A., Ferte T., Hejblum B. , Adaptation of Generalized
Berk Jones to time to event context

Chouleur T, Etchegaray C, Villain L et al, A multi-parametric integration of transcriptomics, proteomics and radiomics with clinical data using machine learning in patients with IDH-mutant Glioma

Conference Talks

Villain L., Commenges D., Prague M., Thiébaut R., Personalized administration
of IL7 in HIV infected patients using a mechanistic model, 6th Channel Network
Conference. Hasselt, Belgium, 2017

Villain L., Commenges D., Pasin C., Prague M., Thiébaut R., Adaptive protocols
based on predictions from a mechanistic model of the effect of IL7 on CD4 counts,
29th International Biometric Conference. Barcelona, Spain, 2018

Villain L., Commenges D., Pasin C., Prague M., Thiébaut R., Adaptive protocols
based on predictions from a mechanistic model of the effect of IL7 on CD4 counts,
Young researcher of the SFB. Paris, France, 2018

Villain L., Thiébaut R., Bikfalvi A., Hejblum B., Determination of the sample size
needed to identify a predictive signature of glioma survival, G.D.R. Statistics and
health. Paris, France, 2019

Villain L., Thiébaut R., Bikfalvi A., Hejblum B., Adaptation of the Generalized
Berk Jones method to a survival context to predict the survival of patients with
Lower Grade Glioma based on RNA-seq counts, IBSC. Krakow, Poland, 2020 (virtual conference)

René Geci is a Systems Biologist who just recently finished his master’s degree and now joins us as our first PhD student. He will work on the OnTOX project to help us advance human risk assessment of chemicals without the use of animals.

René obtained his bachelor’s degree in Biosciences at the University of Heidelberg in 2018. During his bachelor, he mostly did microbiological work on bacterial spores. But then he quickly switched agar plates and pipettes for the PC. He then did his master’s degree in Systems Biology and got fascinated by the world of modelling. After some short excursions into population genetics modelling and spatial modelling of calcium waves, he is enthusiastic to now dive deeper into toxicology, pharmacology and risk assessment.

Nele Janßen joined esqLABS in January 2022 and quickly became an indispensable force at the office. She keeps everything organized and up to date to keep others’ backs free.  Moreover, she supports scientists wherever she can, shows an insatiable willingness to learn, and goes beyond her training to make esqLABS a well-performing company.

Mariana,  a pharmacist with a Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutics, brings experience in applying PBBM to inform formulation development and understand oral drug absorption risks.

Mariana spent the last three years working at GSK in the Biopharmaceutics team, further applying tools for understanding biopharmaceutics risks in adult and pediatric drug development programs, including but not limited to the understanding of the behavior of formulations through application and development of biorelevant dissolution tests and physiologically based biopharmaceutics modeling (PBBM) for understanding absorption related risks.

Mariana obtained her MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Porto, Portugal, and completed her Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutics at the University of Bath, supervised by Dr. Nikoletta Fotaki. During her doctoral research, she worked on developing in vitro and in silico tools with a focus on predicting pediatric clinical outcomes.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Guimarães M, Somville P, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Investigating the Critical Variables of Azithromycin Oral Absorption Using In Vitro Tests and PBPK Modeling. J Pharm Sci. 2021 Dec;110(12):3874-3888. doi: 10.1016/j.xphs.2021.09.013. Epub 2021 Sep 13. PMID: 34530004.

Guimarães M, Somville P, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Performance Evaluation of Montelukast Pediatric Formulations: Part I-Age-Related In Vitro Conditions. AAPS J. 2022 Jan 10;24(1):26. doi: 10.1208/s12248-021-00661-2. PMID: 35013835; PMCID: PMC8817206.

Guimarães M, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Performance Evaluation of Montelukast Pediatric Formulations: Part II – a PBPK Modelling Approach. AAPS J. 2022 Jan 10;24(1):27. doi: 10.1208/s12248-021-00662-1. PMID: 35013803; PMCID: PMC8816611.

Guimarães M, Maharaj A, Edginton A, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Understanding the Impact of Age-Related Changes in Pediatric GI Solubility by Multivariate Data Analysis. Pharmaceutics. 2022 Feb 4;14(2):356. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics14020356. PMID: 35214088; PMCID: PMC8880315.

Guimarães M, Kuentz M, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Evaluating pediatric and adult simulated fluids solubility: Abraham solvation parameters and multivariate analysis. Pharm Res. 2021 Nov;38(11):1889-1896. doi: 10.1007/s11095-021-03123-8. Epub 2021 Oct 25. PMID: 34697725; PMCID: PMC8688383.

Guimarães M, Statelova M, Holm R, Reppas C, Symilllides M, Vertzoni M, Fotaki N. Biopharmaceutical considerations in paediatrics with a view to the evaluation of orally administered drug products – a PEARRL review. J Pharm Pharmacol. 2019 Apr;71(4):603-642. doi: 10.1111/jphp.12955. Epub 2018 Jul 3. PMID: 29971768.

Guimarães Sá Correia M, Briuglia ML, Niosi F, Lamprou DA. Microfluidic manufacturing of phospholipid nanoparticles: Stability, encapsulation efficacy, and drug release. Int J Pharm. 2017 Jan 10;516(1-2):91-99. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2016.11.025. Epub 2016 Nov 10. PMID: 27840162.

Conference Poster presentations

• Guimarães M, et al. The use of an in vivo, in vitro and in silico strategy for paediatric drug product development. 2023 APS PharmSci, Reading, UK
• Guimarães M, et al. Investigating the impact of age on Oral Montelukast Pharmacokinetics using in vitro dissolution and PBPK modeling. 2020 EUPFI EuPFI – 12th Conference European Paediatric Formulation Initiative, Virtual
• Guimarães M, et al. Prediction of the effect of co-administration of food with granules in adults and infants based on biorelevant dissolution testing. 2019 AAPS PharmSci 360, San Diego, USA
• Guimarães M, et al. Understanding the impact of age-related changes on the dissolution of a poorly soluble compound in the fasted state. 2019 Abstract in AAPS PharmSci 360, San Diego, USA
• Guimarães M, et al. Understanding the impact of age-related changes in paediatric gastrointestinal solubility by multivariate data analysis. AAPS PharmSci 360, Washington DC. USA.

Felix Mil is a data scientist with experience in software development, as well as a background in biotechnology. He is skilled in developing applications and packages using R, and enjoys revealing insights from complex data and designing meaningful data visualizations.

Before joining esqLABS in march 2023, he worked at Stago, first as an In Vitro Diagnostics R&D scientist, later as data analyst for prospective clinical research and finally as a data scientist and software developer in the instrument’s R&D department.

He has designed and built numerous R and Python tools to streamline data analysis and reporting processes. Felix has honed his ability to create customized R Shiny applications and dashboards that facilitate collaborators’ understanding of the insights within their data. Through its dedication to delivering top-notch design and functionality, Felix has established a reputation as a valuable asset to any data-driven team. In addition to his design work, he has also contributed in defining data pipelines within big data environments using Spark. His expertise in both front-end design and back-end development make him a versatile team player, capable of contributing to projects across the data spectrum.

Lara Lamon is an Environmental Scientist with a solid drive to investigate the unknowns of chemical exposure and enhance model simulations to protect human health and the environment.

She worked at ECVAM in JRC on the grouping and reading across nanomaterials. She provided a case study following the framework on read across released by ECHA for submissions of chemicals dossiers within the REACH regulation. She also contributed to a similar topic in GRACIOUS (H2020 project, grant agreement No 760840) and other previous FP6 and FP7 projects. She also contributed to developing and applying modeling approaches to estimate environmental emissions and concentrations of environmental and emerging pollutants, including uncertainty analysis (Monte Carlo and sensitivity analysis).

Lara obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Science at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and her supervisor was Prof. Antonio Marcomini. During her Ph.D., she spent eleven months at the Safety and Environmental Technology group at ETH Zürich, where she collaborated with Martin Scheringer, Matthew Macleod, and their team.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Calgaro, L., Giubilato, E., Lamon, L., et al. Emissions of pharmaceuticals and plant protection products to the lagoon of Venice: development of a new emission inventory. Journal of Environmental Management, 330 (2023), 117153. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JENVMAN.2022.11715

Stone, V., Gottardo, S., Bleeker, E. A. J., […] Lamon, L., et al. A framework for grouping and read-across of nanomaterials- supporting innovation and risk assessment. Nano Today, 35 (2020) 100941. doi:10.1016/J.NANTOD.2020.100941.

Basei, D. Hristozov, L. Lamon, A. Zabeo, N. Jeliazkova, G. Tsiliki, A. Marcomini, A. Torsello, Making use of available and emerging data to predict the hazards of engineered nanomaterials by means of in silico tools: A critical review, NanoImpact. 13 (2019) 76–99. doi:10.1016/J.IMPACT.2019.01.00

Lamon, D. Asturiol, A. Vilchez, R. Ruperez-Illescas, J. Cabellos, A. Richarz, and A. Worth, Computational models for the assessment of manufactured nanomaterials: development of model reporting standards and mapping of the model landscape. Comput. Toxicol., 2018. doi: 10.1016/J.COMTOX.2018.12.002

Lamon, D. Asturiol, A. Vilchez, J. Cabellos, J. Damásio, G. Janer, A. Richarz, A. Worth, Physiologically based mathematical models of nanomaterials for regulatory toxicology: a review, Comput. Toxicol. (2018). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comtox.2018.10.002

Lamon, D. Asturiol, A. Richarz, E. Joossens, R. Graepel, K. Aschberger, A. Worth, Grouping of nanomaterials to read-across hazard endpoints: from data collection to assessment of the grouping hypothesis by application of chemoinformatic techniques, Part. Fibre Toxicol. 15 (2018) 37. doi:10.1186/s12989-018-0273-1

Lamon, K. Aschberger, D. Asturiol, A. Richarz, A. Worth, Grouping of nanomaterials to read-across hazard endpoints: a review, Nanotoxicology. (2018) 1–19. doi:10.1080/17435390.2018.1506060

Aschberger, D. Asturiol, L. Lamon, A. Richarz, K. Gerloff, A. Worth, Grouping of multi-walled carbon nanotubes to read-across genotoxicity: A case study to evaluate the applicability of regulatory guidance, Comput. Toxicol. 9 22–35. doi:10.1016/j.comtox.2018.10.001

Desalegn, S. Bopp, D. Asturiol, L. Lamon, A. Worth, A. Paini, Role of Physiologically Based Kinetic modelling in addressing environmental chemical mixtures – A review, Comput. Toxicol. (2018). doi:10.1016/j.comtox.2018.09.001

Prieto, R. Graepel, K. Gerloff, L. Lamon, M. Sachana, F. Pistollato, L. Gribaldo, A. Bal-Price, A. Worth, Investigating cell type specific mechanisms contributing to acute oral toxicity, ALTEX. (2018). doi:10.14573/altex.1805181

Graepel, L. Lamon, D. Asturiol, E. Berggren, E. Joossens, A. Paini, P. Prieto, M. Whelan, A. Worth, The virtual cell based assay: Current status and future perspectives, Toxicol. Vitr. 45 (2017). doi:10.1016/j.tiv.2017.01.009

Avilov, L. Lamon, D. Hristozov, A. Marcomini, Improving the prediction of environmental fate of engineered nanomaterials by fractal modelling, Environ. Int. 99 (2017) 78–86. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2016.11.027

Lamon, J. Rizzi, A. Bonaduce, C. Dubois, P. Lazzari, L. Ghenim, S. Gana, S. Somot, L. Li, D.M. Canu, C. Solidoro, N. Pinardi, A. Marcomini, An ensemble of models for identifying climate change scenarios in the Gulf of Gabes, Tunisia, Reg. Environ. Chang. 14 (2014). doi:10.1007/s10113-013-0430-x

Lamon, M. MacLeod, A. Marcomini, K. Hungerbühler, Modeling the influence of climate change on the mass balance of polychlorinated biphenyls in the Adriatic Sea, Chemosphere. 87 (2012). doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2012.02.010

Teran, L. Lamon, A. Marcomini, Climate change effects on POPs’ environmental behaviour: A scientific perspective for future regulatory actions, Atmos. Pollut. Res. 3 (2012). doi:10.5094/APR.2012.054

Lamon, H. Von Waldow, M. Macleod, M. Scheringer, A. Marcomini, K. Hungerbühler, Modeling the global levels and distribution of polychlorinated biphenyls in air under a climate change scenario, Environ. Sci. Technol. 43 (2009). doi:10.1021/es900438j

Lamon, M. Dalla Valle, A. Critto, A. Marcomini, Introducing an integrated climate change perspective in POPs modelling, monitoring and regulation, Environ. Pollut. 157 (2009). doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2009.02.016

Conference Talks

• Lamon L., D. Asturiol, E. Joossens, K. Aschberger, -N Richarz, R. Graepel, A. Worth, 2016, Grouping for read-across manufactured nanomaterials: TiO2 as a case study 5th Nanosafety International Conference, 7-10 November 2016 Grenoble (FR).
• Lara Lamon, D. Asturiol, K. Gerloff, T. Palosaari, J. Bessems, K. Aschberger, A. Worth 2014 Computational methods for the toxicological assessment of manufactured Nanomaterials. 4th Nanosafety International Conference, November 2014, Grenoble (FR).
• Lamon L., MacLeod L., Hungerbühler K., Marcomini A., 2010, Implications of a climate change scenario on the environmental behaviour of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the Adriatic Sea. Platform presentation at the SETAC Europe 20th annual meeting 2010, Seville.
• Lamon L., von Waldow H., MacLeod M., Scheringer M., Marcomini A., Hungerbühler K., 2009, Modeling the effects of a climate change scenario on organic pollutants atmospheric distribution. A global case study. Dioxin 2009, Beijing.
• Lamon L., von Waldow H., MacLeod M., Scheringer M., Marcomini A., Hungerbühler K., 2008, Assessing the effect of climate change on the global distribution of PCBs, Short paper, Dioxin 2008, Birmingham.

Diane Lefaudeux is an interdisciplinary scientist with a strong drive to understand complex mechanisms and in particular those arising from biological systems.

Before joining esqLABS, she worked at Novadiscovery where she developed PBPK-QSP models on various therapeutic areas to predict outcomes using virtual populations.

Diane obtained her Master’s degree in General Engineering from École Centrale Paris, France, as well as in Control Systems Engineering and Systems Biology from University of Stuttgart, Germany.

List of Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Wilder CL, Lefaudeux D, Mathenge R, Kishimoto K, Zuniga Munoz A, Nguyen MA, Meyer AS, Cheng QJ, Hoffmann A. A stimulus-contingent positive feedback loop enables IFN-β dose-dependent activation of pro-inflammatory genes. Mol Syst Biol. (2023) 19: e11294

Lefaudeux D, Sen S, Jiang K, Hoffmann A, UCLA Ribonomics Group. Kinetics of mRNA nuclear export regulate innate immune response gene expression. Nat Commun. (2022) 13(1):7197.

Wang N, Lefaudeux D, Mazumder A, Li JJ, Hoffmann A. Identifying the combinatorial control of signal dependent transcription factors. PLoS Comput Biol. (2021) 17(6):e1009095

De Meulder B, Lefaudeux D, Bansal AT, Mazein A, Chaiboonchoe A, Ahmed H, Balaur I, Saqi M, Pellet J, Ballereau S, Lemonnier N, Sun K, Pandis I, Yang X, Batuwitage M, et al. A computational framework for complex disease stratification from multiple large-scale datasets. BMC Syst Biol. (2018) 12(1):60.

Lefaudeux D, De Meulder B, Loza MJ, Peffer N, Rowe A, Baribaud F, Bansal AT, Lutter R, Sousa AR,

Corfield J, Pandis I, Bakke PS, Caruso M, Chanez P, Dahlen SE, et al. U-BIOPRED clinical adult asthma clusters linked to a subset of sputum omics. J Allergy Clin Immunol. (2017) 139(6):1797-1807

Conference Talks

European Respiratory Society Congress 2015: The first U-BIOPRED sputum handprint of severe asthma.

European Respiratory Society Congress 2014: Clustering analysis of clinical variables in U-BIOPRED adult asthma cohort.

Leonie Lautz is a Scientist at esqLABS. Her work focuses on the development and application of harmonised methodologies applied to human health and animal health of chemicals, integration of cellular (in vitro) methods and computational models with a particular emphasis on kinetics and metabolism. Her research interests include physiologically based kinetic/dynamic modelling in livestock and laboratory animal species for next generation risk assessment. She is involved in projects related to veterinary pharmaceuticals, contaminants and feed/food safety.

After obtaining her BSc/MSc degree at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Leonie worked as scientific project leader at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES, Paris, France). For this work, Leonie was awarded the SOT Exposure Specialty Section Best Abstract in 2020. In parallel to her work at ANSES, Leonie was appointed as junior researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen, where she obtained her PhD in veterinary toxicology/food safety in 2019. After that, she was employed at Wageningen Food Safety Research, where she was involved in/coordinated several projects for the European Food Safety Agency related to feed-food transfer and physiologically based kinetic modelling for livestock. Leonie was part of the international group that drafted the OECD GD on physiologically based kinetic models published in 2021.

Sophie is a biophysicist interested in understanding the complex interactions driving physiological processes by using mathematical modeling and simulation.

Before joining esqLABS, she worked as a Pharmacometrician at AstraZeneca (Gothenburg, Sweden). She supported project work with the development of popPK and PKPD models, to increase understanding of the exposure-effect relationship. She gained a good understanding of the contribution of modeling and simulation to the processes of dose-finding and study design.

She is passionate about female health-related topics and continued to promote her PhD work after graduation.

Sophie obtained her Master’s degree in Biophysics from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. For her PhD research, she joined the group for Computational Systems Biology of Prof. Susanna Röblitz at the Computational Systems Biology Unit of the University of Bergen, Norway.

List of Publications:
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• Fischer-Holzhausen, S. and Röblitz, S., 2022. Hormonal regulation of ovarian follicle growth in humans: Model-based exploration of cycle variability and parameter sensitivities. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 547, p.111150.
  Fischer-Holzhausen, S. and Röblitz, S., 2022. Mathematical modelling of follicular growth and ovarian stimulation. Current Opinion in Endocrine and Metabolic Research, p.100385.
• Fischer-Holzhausen, S., Yamamoto, K., Fjeldstad, M.P. and Maleckar, M.M., 2021. Probing the Putative Role of KATP Channels and Biological Variability in a Mathematical Model of Chondrocyte Electrophysiology. Bioelectricity, 3(4), pp.272-281.
  Yamamoto, K., Fischer-Holzhausen, S., Fjeldstad, M.P. and Maleckar, M.M., 2022. Ordinary Differential Equation-based Modeling of Cells in Human Cartilage. In Computational Physiology: Simula Summer School 2021− Student Reports (pp. 25-39). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• Fischer, S., Ehrig, R., Schäfer, S., Tronci, E., Mancini, T., Egli, M., Ille, F., Krüger, T.H., Leeners, B. and Röblitz, S., 2021. Mathematical modeling and simulation provides evidence for new strategies of ovarian stimulation. Frontiers in endocrinology, 12, p.613048.
• Chernev, P., Fischer, S., Hoffmann, J., Oliver, N., Assunção, R., Yu, B., Burnap, R.L., Zaharieva, I., Nürnberg, D.J., Haumann, M. and Dau, H., 2020. Light-driven formation of manganese oxide by today’s photosystem II supports evolutionarily ancient manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis. Nature communications, 11(1), p.6110.

Pre-Print

• Fischer-Holzhausen, S. and Roeblitz, S., 2023. A workflow for incorporating cross-sectional data into the calibration of dynamic models. bioRxiv, pp.2023-01.
  PhD thesis
  Fischer-Holzhausen, S., 2023. A matter of timing: A modelling-based investigation of the dynamic behaviour of reproductive hormones in girls and women.

Conference Talks

•  A Matter of Timing – An Investigation of the Interplay Between Reproductive Hormones and Ovarian Follicles (SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, 2023)

Carla earned her Ph.D. from the University of Bologna, specializing in optimizing antibiotic treatments through the analysis of real-world data from intensive care patients. Her research focused on individualizing patient treatment using a PK/PD approach, mainly tailoring biomarker kinetics, such as C-reactive protein (C-RP). In addition to her work in antibiotic optimization, Carla has expertise in between-species scaling techniques for predicting first-in-human doses of monoclonal antibodies using PBPK modeling methodologies.

Publication List:

Troisi C, Cojutti PG, Rinaldi M, Laici C, Siniscalchi A, Viale P, Pea F. Measuring Creatinine Clearance Is the Most Accurate Way for Calculating the Proper Continuous Infusion Meropenem Dose for Empirical Treatment of Severe Gram-Negative Infections among Critically Ill Patients. Pharmaceutics. 2023 Feb 7;15(2):551. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15020551. PMID: 36839872; PMCID: PMC9967919.

Sanz Codina M, Gatti M, Troisi C, Fornaro G, Pasquini Z, Trapani F, Zanoni A, Caramelli F, Viale P, Pea F. Relationship between Pharmacokinetic/Pharmacodynamic Target Attainment and Microbiological Outcome in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients with Documented Gram-Negative Superinfections Treated with TDM-Guided Continuous-Infusion Meropenem. Pharmaceutics. 2022 Jul 29;14(8):1585. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics14081585. PMID: 36015211; PMCID: PMC9412264.

Stefano is an IT system Administrator with a passion for solving complex technical challenges. His background is in Computer science, Cloud Infrastructure engineering, and DevOps.

His journey began with a solid foundation in IT, as he delved deeper into the tech realm, he found himself drawn to the dynamic intersection of Cloud Infrastructure Engineering and DevOps.

His passion lies not only in maintaining stability but also in fostering innovation. He collaborates with development teams, bridging the gap between code and infrastructure, ensuring a harmonious symphony of software delivery.

TBA

Rudolf Engelke is a biomedical researcher turned data scientist and quantitative developer. Currently employed as a Senior Software Developer at esqLABS, he specializes in software development with a focus on statistical methods implementation.

Before joining esqLABS, Rudolf worked in the biomedical and financial sectors, utilizing R and Python for various projects and analyses. In biomedical research, he excelled as a data scientist, working on a wide range of data in clinical and omics fields. He wrote software packages specialized in statistical modeling and the automation of data processing and analysis. In the financial sector, he advanced his expertise by developing financial models and software, with a focus on database engineering and the implementation of robust modeling and machine learning pipelines.

List of Publications:
Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• Buyukozkan, M., Alvarez-Mulett, S., Racanelli, A.C., […] Engelke R, et al. (2022). Integrative metabolomic and proteomic signatures define clinical outcomes in severe COVID-19. iScience 15;25(7):104612.
• Engelke, R., Ouanes, S. et al. (2022). Proteomic Analysis of Plasma Markers in Patients Maintained on Antipsychotics: Comparison to Patients Off Antipsychotics and Normal Controls. Front Psychiatry 13:809071.
• Yousri, N.A., Engelke, R., et al. (2022). Proteome-wide associations with short- and long-term weight loss and regain after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. Obesity (Silver Spring) 30(1):129-141.
• Majeed, Y., Halabi, N., Madani, A.Y., Engelke, R., et al. (2021). SIRT1 promotes lipid metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis in adipocytes and coordinates adipogenesis by targeting key enzymatic pathways. Sci Rep. 11(1):8177.
• Zaghlool, S.B., Kühnel, B., Elhadad, M.A., […] Engelke, R. et al. (2020). Epigenetics meets proteomics in an epigenome-wide association study with circulating blood plasma protein traits. Nat Commun. 11(1):15.
• Suhre, K., Arnold, M., Bhagwat, A.M., Cotton, R.J., Engelke, R., et al. (2017). Connecting genetic risk to disease end points through the human blood plasma proteome. Nat Commun. 8:14357.

TBA