Abstract

Dr Lay Ping Ong

Talk title: Cellular therapy for the failing heart – benefits of multicellularity?

Biography:

Chronic heart failure is a clinically unmet need. Stem cells are cells that can turn into any cell type in the body, and so adding new heart muscle using a stem cell-based approach holds great promise to reinstate the pumping ability of the heart.

Dr. Lay Ping Ong is a clinical academic (Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Cambridge) interested in advanced heart failure and heart transplantation. Her prior experience as a UK cardiothoracic surgical resident led to her PhD in cardiac regeneration. During her PhD, Dr. Ong discovered that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs)-derived cardiomyocytes carry a huge potential as a cellular therapy to cure heart failure. Then, she pivoted into physician-scientist training to advance this work toward clinics.

Currently, Dr. Ong is funded by a joint MRC -Astra Zeneca fellowship, which uses a combinatorial approach to data-driven target discovery with downstream validation in complex human heart 3D assays. The ultimate aim is to develop novel therapies (stem cell-based and/or gene therapy) to treat chronic heart failure in collaboration with academics, clinicians, and industry scientists.

Dr Federico Bosetto

Talk title: Aptamers as therapeutic tools against resistant bacteria

Biography:

Federico Bosetto graduated in Biological Sciences and in Molecular and Cellular Biology, both at the University of Bologna, Bologna (Italy). In 2021, he got his PhD degree in Agricultural Science and Biotechnology at the University of Udine, Udine(Italy), submitting a PhD thesis on “Development of synthetic methods, namely oligonucleotide aptamers, in order to stimulate the plant defense response in Arabidopsis thaliana”. In 2020, he performed a PhD visiting period at Istitut Pasteur of Paris (France) at Bioorganic chemistry of nucleic acids group. After the PhD, in 2021, he joint Pure Biologics (Wrocław, Poland) as R&D Scientist at Aptamers group, working on the development of chemically modified DNA aptamers for therapeutic purposes for human diseases. In 2023, he joint the University of Cambridge as Research Associate in Mela lab, working on the development of DNA aptamers in the field of the antibiotic resistance.