 | Lecture and Hands-on Interactive Training |
 | Team taught by active researchers |
 | Thumbnail drive with Lectures and Workshop material |
 | Space limited to 24 participants |
 | Registration Fee: $895 |
Workshop Sponsor
Course Director
- Introduction to 3-D Culture – Why 3D;
- Using Extracellular Matrices to Generate 3-D Models;
- Comparison of Spheroids, Organoids and other 3-D Culture Systems;
- Adult Stem Cells and iPSCs to Generate 3-D models;
- Angiogenesis, Heterogeneous Cell Interactions;
- Intestinal, Lung and Liver Organoids;
- Cancer Organoids;
- Assays in 3-D;
- 3D Bioprinting (CellLink);
- BioInks and Cell Printing
Laboratory Topics:
- Intestinal Organoids (Murine);
- Passaging and Maintaining Organoids;
- Toxicology in Organoids – MTT assay;
- Cancer Spheroids and Invasion Assays;
- Angiogenesis and Tube Formation Assays;
- Analysis of Organoids – Microscopy;
- 3-D Bioprinting (CellInk)
Laboratory Outline:
- Intestinal organoids at different time points. Undifferentiated versus differentiated
- Plating and passaging intestinal organoids
- Drug treatment of intestinal organoids to assess toxicity using the MTT assay
- Endothelial cell tube formation assay as a model for Angiogenesis
- Generation of breast cancer spheroids (MDA-MB-231 cells, triple negative model)
- Invasion assay with breast cancer spheroids to mimic metastasis (MDA-MB-231 cells)
- Viability staining of organoids (Calcien AM, Propidium Iodide)
- Visualization of organoids
- Immunofluorescence techniques
- Brightfield and Confocal Microscopy
- 3-D bioprinting with BIO X 3-D Bioprinter (CellInk)
Course Director
Dr. Joseph Bressler is a research scientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute. He is also an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Bressler received his bachelor's of science degree in biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1973 and his doctoral degree in physiology from Rutgers University in 1978. His post-doctoral training at UCLA was in neurosciences, where he studied the involvement of glial cells in response to toxic agents. After his post-doctoral training, Dr. Bressler continued his studies on glial cells at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. Dr. Bressler has been a research scientist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute since 1988.
Guest Lecturers and Lab Instructors
 | Kevin Flynn, PhD Kevin Flynn is the manager of the Stem Cells and Gene Therapy laboratory at Bio-Techne. He earned his B.S. in Biology from Loyola University Chicago and his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from Colorado State University in 2008. He then did his postdoctoral work in Germany, first at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology and later at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. During this time, he worked on various projects focused on molecular mechanisms of neuronal development, cell migration and integrin-ECM interactions. For the last 3 years at Bio-Techne he has worked on matrices, media and supplement development for neural stem cells, adult stem cells, and pluripotent stem cells in both 2D and 3D culture systems. |
 | Sol Degese, PhD Sol Degese is a Scientist in Stem Cell and Gene lab, part of the Cell and Gene therapy division of the at Bio-techne. Her body research includes a variety of topics ranging from molecular cancer to 3D based cultures. After receiving her PhD degree studying mRNA stability of early-responsive genes from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, she worked as a postdoc fellow at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research at NIH (Bethesda, MD). During that time, her research included several in vivo studies on squamous cell carcinoma and uveal melanoma. Over the last few years, Dr. Degese worked developing stem cell, organoid and extracellular matrices which helped expand the 3D culture portfolio offered by Bio-techne as well as useful protocols to culture, harvest, and study organoids. She has worked with gastric, intestinal, pancreatic, and breast cancer organoids and has experience performing invasion, migration, and angiogenesis assays. |
 | Xi Lu, PhD Xi Lu is a Scientist within the Cell and Gene Therapy group at Bio-Techne. Dr. Lu received his B.S. from GA Tech in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013. Subsequently, he performed postdoctoral research at Uppsala University in Sweden and UT Health and Science Center at Houston. His research has focused on materials/tissue engineering such as hydrogels for stem cell therapy to treat spinal cord injury and microfluidics for neurodegenerative diseases. At Bio-Techne, he is developing natural and synthetic polymeric scaffolds for culturing human IPSCs in 2D and 3D applications such as brain organoids. Other projects include microcarriers for expansion of mesenchymal stromal cells and developing media for stem cell cultures. |
| Susan Tousey Susan Tousey is a researcher in the Stem Cell and Gene Therapy laboratory at Bio-techne. She earned her B.S. in Genetics and Cell Biology from the University of Minnesota, where she conducted research focused on Neuroscience. She has been working in product development projects at R&D systems for 13 years. During this time, Susan has worked on various projects related to neural stem cells, adult stem cells, and organoids. Recently, she has been working with 2D and 3D models to study hepatotoxicity as well as optimizing conditions for human organoids. |
