On March 19 and 20, 2024 five PhD students attended an Organ-on-Chip imaging course designed to deepen their understanding of intricate 3D imaging and analysis techniques. This course was organized by the Nikon BioImaging Lab in Leiden. In preparation for this two-day course an online technical seminar was held in which the imaging possibilities were presented. Subsequently, the students filled in a form to inform the instructors about their specific imaging questions and objectives which led to the practical course for which the students could bring their own samples. For more information...

Once every ten years the Willy van Heumen lifetime achievement award is presented to a researcher with a special track record in research to Replace, Reduce and Refine animal studies. On December 12, 2023 Sue Gibbs was awarded with this price for her scientific contribution to reduce the use of animals for experiments, to educate students and young researchers on animal-free methods and to communicate to increase awareness and visibility of animal-free alternatives. For more information see:  https://vu.nl/en/news/2023/sue-gibbs-receives-prestigious-willy-van-heumen-lifetime-...

In May 2023, LymphChip organized Helpathon #8 asking help to find animal-free alternatives for serum and Matrigel. As a direct result of this Helpathon, an application was submitted to the Create2Solve Phase 1 call of ZonMw to optimize and standardize methods to produce serum and Matrigel free iPSC derived immune competent intestine: Immuno-Gut. Immuno-Gut got granted and the aim is to develop methods and carry out an and inter-laboratory validation study to obtain robust data for animal free production of immune competent iPSC derived intestine organoids. In Phase 1 products will be tested...

From May 22-24 LymphChip will organize a Helpathon in the O2 Building of VUmc. If you want to help Sue, Margot, Valeria, Jasper and Germaine finding animal-free alternatives for FCS and Matrigel please sign up via this link. All help, both negative and positive results are welcome. For more information please see here.

The annual meeting of hDMT was held in Amersfoort and attracted may researchers from the organ-on-chip field. As part of the program a PhD student Spotlight competition was organized to give PhD students the opportunity to present their research with a short video.

Sei Hien Lim from AIM Biotech gave a seminar to illustrate the applications of their idenTx and organiX plates in the fields of oncology, immune-oncology, vascular biology and neurobiology.

From September 20 till October 26, in total 18 PhD students, postdocs and technicians of the academic partners of LymphChip joined a tour consisting of site visits to all the academic labs.

On October 20-21 the Annual Meeting of LymphChip was hosted by VUMC in Amsterdam. In total 36 members of LymphChip participated representing the academic partners, co-financing partners and the Advisory Board. All the work packages presented their results and future plans.