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Join us for our upcoming NASH Symposium!

Thursday, August 25th, 2022 from 11:00AM - 2:00PM ET/ 8:00AM - 11:00AM PT

Advancing NASH Research with Mice: Best Practices and Applications of Westernized Diets

11:00AM - 2:00PM ET | 8:00AM - 11:00AM PT

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a complex spectrum of disorders ranging from simple benign steatosis to steatohepatitis (NASH) with fibrosis. NAFLD is increasingly common around the world, especially in Western nations.

There are still no FDA-approved therapeutics for this metabolic disease due to extremely high attrition in late-phase clinical trials, making the selection of appropriate preclinical research models critical for drug approval.

Taconic Biosciences is bringing together researchers across academia and industry to discuss translational NASH modeling, particularly as embodied in Westernized diet through enrichment with fat, cholesterol, and fructose. Join us for this virtual event on Thursday, August 25, 2022 from 11:00AM-2:00PM ET/8:00AM-11:00AM PT.

This engaging workshop will examine the translational value of different approaches, immune involvement in NASH, and applications of the preclinical models toward discovery and development of targeted therapies. 

We encourage you to pose questions and share your own experiences during this interactive event. There will be a brief Q&A segment following each speaking session, and the workshop will conclude with a roundtable discussion.

Complete the form to register for this upcoming workshop. 

Workshop Agenda

11:00-11:10 AM | Welcome and Introduction to NASH Preclinical Modeling

Presented by Fred Beasley, PhD, Field Applications Scientist, Taconic Biosciences

11:10-11:35 AM | Dietary Considerations to Optimize NASH in Rodent Models

Presented by Sridhar Radhakrishnan, PhD, Senior Scientist, Research Diets, Inc

11:35-12:00 PM | Identification of Antigens in Diet Induced Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis

Presented by Arion Kennedy, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, North Carolina State University

12:00-12:25 PM | Bioactive Lipids in NASH Pathogenesis

Presented by Harmeet Malhi, MBBS, Professor of Medicine and Physiology, Mayo Clinic

12:25-12:35PM | Break

12:35-1:20PM | Is There a Murine Model That Fully Recapitulates Human NASH? An Unbiased Bioinformatics Approach Proposed by the EU IMI2 LITMUS Consortium to Rank Pre-clinical Models Based on Proximity to Human Disease

Presented, on behalf of the EU-IMI2 LITMUS consortium and the University of Cambridge (UK), by Michele Vacca, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Bari (IT) and Principal Investigator at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology (UK)

1:20-1:50PM | Panel Discussion

1:50-2:00PM | Closing Remarks

Presented by Fred Beasley, PhD, Field Applications Scientist, Taconic Biosciences

 

 

Register for the Workshop

Sridhar Radhakrishnan headshot

Sridhar Radhakrishnan, PhD

Senior Scientist, Research Diets

Sri’s background is in Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals and he received his PhD in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Colorado State University. Before joining Research Diets, Sri was a Post-doctoral Scholar in the Department of Food Science, Pennsylvania State University. He has worked with both in vitro and in vivo (mouse and pig) models to screen, evaluate toxicity, study efficacy, and potency of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer phytochemicals. His background provides him strong credentials and a unique perspective to assist researchers with their laboratory animal diet formulation needs and he has thoroughly enjoyed helping and collaborating with researchers on different diet induced phenotypes in the last seven years at Research Diets, Inc.
Arion Kennedy official headshot

Arion Kennedy, PhD

Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University

Dr. Arion Kennedy is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry at North Carolina State University. She earned her PhD in nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and completed her postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University where she researched immunometabolism in adipose tissue and liver. By using genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, her research examines the impact of carbohydrates and lipids on macrophage function and explores antigen driven pathways responsible for T cell activation in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in animal models and humans. Areas of expertise include immunology, obesity, diabetes, inflammation, and lipid metabolism.
Harmeet Malhi official headshot

Harmeet Malhi, MBBS

Professor of Medicine and Physiology, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Harmeet Malhi is Professor of Medicine and Physiology at Mayo Clinic. She attended medical school at the University College of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. Her research interest is in mechanisms of liver injury and inflammation with a specific focus on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis pathogenesis, including biomarker development in nonalcoholic and alcoholic steatohepatitis. Dr. Malhi currently serves as a deputy editor for Hepatology and on the editorial board of Hepatology Communications. She has published over 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts, editorials and book chapters and has served as a reviewer for numerous journals, including Hepatology and the Journal of Lipid Research.Dr. Malhi is the principal investigator of two NIH grants and several foundation grants. She is on study section for the American Liver Foundation, AGA, AASLD, and a standing member of Hepatobiliary Pathophysiology study section of the Center for Scientific Review, NIH. Intramurally, she serves as Associate Chair for Research in the Division.
Michele Vacca official headshot

Michele Vacca, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor at the University of Bari (IT) and Principal Investigator at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology (UK), and member of the LITMUS European consortium

Trained as a Medical Doctor and Specialist in Internal Medicine at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Dr. Vacca underwent a PhD in molecular biology in the Lab of Antonio Moschetta (Mario Negri Sud) and University of Chieti-Pescara. Dr. Vacca was therefore appointed at the MRC Human Nutrition Research and the University of Cambridge as Clinician Scientist, working also as a Consultant at the Cambridge University Hospitals in the Lipids/NASH Services, where he joined teams led by world-leading experts in obesity/lipotoxicity (Antonio Vidal-Puig) and nutrition/metabolomics (Jules Griffin). He is currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine at the University of Bari (IT) and Principal Investigator at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology (London, UK).Dr. Vacca’s track record falls in the field of systemic/hepatic metabolism in the context of obesity/NASH/HCC with expertise in pre-clinical and translational studies, functional genomics, and systems biology. In the last years, he has made significant accomplishments in the field of obesity/lipotoxicity as drivers of liver disease, as well as in describing the rewiring of cellular metabolism in cancer. Most of his findings have great translational potential for obesity-associated complications including NAFLD, and have been published in highly reputed journals including Nature Metabolism, Gastroenterology, J Hepatology, Hepatology, Cardiovascular Research, Molecular Metabolism and BBA. MV co-leads with Prof Vidal-Puig (Cambridge) and James Perfield (Lilly) the LITMUS pre-clinical group, which has generated a large collection of preclinical NASH models to generate a consensus and develop a coherent preclinical pipeline for reverse translation of novel NASH biomarkers.
Fred Beasley official headshot

Fred Beasley, PhD

Field Applications Scientist, Taconic Biosciences

Dr. Beasley’s academic training is in environmental microbiology, bacterial diseases, and host pathogen responses. He completed his Ph.D. at Canada’s Western University, researching iron uptake during invasive Staphylococcus aureus infection. He relocated to Southern California for postdoctoral work. At UC San Diego, he developed animal models to evaluate boosting the innate immune system by modulating the host hypoxic response, toward combating blood and urinary tract bacterial infection. At Calibr/The Scripps Research Institute, he ran the in vivo program for early pipeline validation of small molecule drugs against parasitic diseases including malaria, cryptosporidiosis, and filarial nematode diseases. Dr. Beasley forayed into metabolic disease research as an in vivo biologist with the inflammation and NASH startup biotech Jecure Therapeutics, and later served as the Director of Scientific Engagement for cardiovascular and metabolic disease at Crown Bioscience. Fred joined Taconic in 2020 as the Field Application Scientist servicing the Western regions of the USA and Canada.

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