Structure

Former Member of Nat. Council, former Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee for Science, Education and Culture

Rector University of Bern

Christian Leumann assumed the office of Rector of the University of Bern in August 2016. He has been a member of the Executive Board of the University of Bern since 2011 as Vice Rector for Research. Christian Leumann graduated in chemistry at the ETH Zurich. After a post doc at the University of California in Berkeley and five years of research at the ETH Zurich, Christian Leumann became Professor of Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Bern in 1993. His research focuses on the development of chemically modified nucleic acid analogues and their utilization in the treatment of genetic diseases. Christian Leumann has completed a number of sabbaticals, including at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and at Stanford University in Palo Alto. In addition to his teaching and research activities, Christian Leumann has also held a number of other positions including a post on the research council and as President of the Division for Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).

Co-chair of Interpharma Animal Welfare working group
Novartis Global Animal Welfare and Compliance 3Rs Leader
Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Birgit Ledermann has been working in biomedical research in academia and industry for 25 years. She completed an education as technical assistant in chemistry, received her degree in biology/molecular genetics from the University of Bielefeld and her PhD degree in cell biology from the University of Basel. She is qualified to give postdoctoral lectures in Laboratory Animal Science at the universities of Zurich and Basel and currently is a lecturer at the University of Basel. She previously worked at Sandoz/Novartis Pharma as lab head in the area of transgenic animals and at the University of Zurich's Institute for Laboratory Animal Science in the field of nuclear transfer (cloning). Since 2007, she served in various animal welfare positions for Novartis Pharma AG. In her current role, she is responsible for Novartis' global 3Rs programme and the implementation of 3Rs best practices.

She is President of Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association (SGV), Chair of Swiss Animal Welfare Officer network and acts as SGV representative for FELASA (Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations) Board. She also represents Novartis at EPAA (European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing) and is the Interpharma member of AAALAC (American Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care)'s Nomination Board.

Chief Executive Officer Interpharma

René P. Buholzer is CEO of Interpharma. He holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen, where he was a lecturer on democracy and foreign affairs until 2017. Prior to joining Interpharma, he has been for more than 10 years Global Head of Public Policy and Sustainability at Credit Suisse, where he led a global team in Zurich, London, Hong Kong and New York. Before joining Credit Suisse, René Buholzer was an executive in charge of environmental, ICT and regional policy at Swiss Business Federation economiesuisse. He also used to work as a management consultant in Prague and as a teaching assistant at the University of St. Gallen. He has published in the fields of public policy, economic policy and Swiss- EU relations. Within the University of St. Gallen René Buholzer currently also serves as President of the Board of Governors at the Swiss Institutes for International Economics and Applied Economic Research and as Supervisory Board member at the Institute of Economics. He is a board member of the Club politique de Berne, Advisory Board member of shiru advisors, board member of the Dr. Heinrich Wachter Stiftung, Councillor at the British Swiss Chamber of Commerce and board member of the Alumni Council of the Swiss American Foundation.

Laboratory of Virology and Genetics

After obtaining an MD from the University of Geneva and completing clinical training in pathology, internal medicine and infectious diseases in Geneva and at Massachusetts General Hospital, Didier Trono started a scientific career at the Whitehead Institute of MIT. In 1990, he joined the Salk Institute in San Diego to launch a centre for AIDS research.

Didier Trono moved back to Europe seven years later, before taking the reins of the newly created EPFL School of Life Sciences, which he directed from 2004 to 2012.

His research has long gravitated around interactions between viruses and their hosts and the development of tools for gene therapy. This led him to epigenetics, the current focus of his lab’s investigations.

Vice President for Research and Corporate Relations of ETH Zurich

Detlef Günther was appointed as Assistant Professor at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of ETH Zurich in 1998 and became associate professor in July 2003. Since February 2008 he is a full Professor for Trace Element and Micro Analysis and since January 2015 Vice President for Research and Corporate Relations of ETH Zurich.

Detlef Günther studied chemistry at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany (1982-1987) and completed his PhD in Analytical Chemistry in 1990. He joined the Institute of Plant Biochemistry working on analytical methods to characterize heavy metal-binding proteins using HPLC-ICP-MS. In 1994, he started as a post-doc at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in the group of H. Longerich. From 1995 until 1998, he worked in the group of C.A. Heinrich at the Institute of Isotope Geology and Mineral Resources at ETH Zurich.

Director School of Life Sciences
Chair of the Standing Committee Research
Chair Strategic Initiatives at FHNW

Falko Schlottig studied chemistry at Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg and completed his PhD in physical chemistry in 1996 at the TU Chemnitz. In 1996, he started as a postdoc at ETH in the group of Prof. Textor and at Alusuisse. Since then gained many years of experience in management positions in international life sciences companies. In addition to various positions as head of research and development departments in the industrial field, he completed an EMBA at the University of St. Gallen. He also advises young life sciences companies and acts as a start-up founder. He has been director of Life Sciences for the FHNW since 2015.

Head of the Animal Welfare Division

Kaspar Jörger studied veterinary medicine at the universities of Neuchâtel and Zürich, and obtained his doctorate at the University of Bern in 1987. Following assistantships in various large animal practices and at the Institute of Veterinary Pathology in Zürich, he became a partner in a private veterinary practice.

In 1990, he moved to the veterinary public health service, initially as an official veterinarian for the city of Chur working in meat and food inspection. He joined the Veterinary Office of the Canton of Graubünden in 1995 and became cantonal veterinarian in 1999. From 2005 to 2007, he was Head of the Graubünden Office for food safety and veterinary service.

In 2007, he assumed responsibility for Cantonal coordination at the Swiss Federal Veterinary Office (FVO). From 2010 to 2013, he was responsible for the Monitoring division and was a member of the FVO Executive board. Since 2014, he has been Head of the Animal Welfare Division of the Swiss Federal Office for Food Safety and Veterinary Affairs (FSVO) and a member of the Executive Board. In this role, his responsibilities include supervision of animal experimentation licensing and acting as an adviser to cantonal animal welfare offices and animal experimentation commissions. From 2014 until 2018, he was a member of the Administrative board of the 3R Research Foundation Switzerland.

Head of Animals in Research
Genetic Engineering & Veterinary Consulting Unit

Following her degree in veterinary medicine from the Ludwig- Maximilian-University Munich, Germany, in 1994 she worked as an assistant veterinarian in different animal veterinary practices and clinics, Switzerland and opened her own small animal veterinary practice in 1996. She received her PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Zurich in 2000.

Julika Fitzi-Rathgen used to work as consultant and investigator in clinical and preclinical research between 2000 and 2004. In 2014, she graduated with a master's degree in law from the University of Bern and in 2016; she completed studies in mediation and conflict resolution at the University of Fribourg.

Since 2008, she has acted as head of the unit Animals in Research & Genetic Technology as well as for the special animal welfare field of Dogs & Veterinary Consulting at Swiss Animal Protection SAP.

Rector’s delegate for research analysis

Prof. Benedetto Lepori holds a PhD in Communication Sciences with a thesis on the Swiss research and higher education policy from the University of Lugano in 2004. At the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), he is currently Titular Professor at the Faculty of Communication Science, Institute of Interdisciplinary Data Sciences. He is a senior researcher at the University of Paris- Est and invited researcher at the Department of Management of the University of Bath. He is a recognized expert in research policy and higher education studies.

Since 1996, Prof. Lepori is head of the Research Service of USI and of the Scuola Professionale della Svizzera italiana, in charge of the overall support and coordination of research support. Since 2017, he is also member of the rectorate of the Università della Svizzera italiana.

Department of Biomedicine

Prof. Rolf Zeller is Full Professor in Anatomy and Embryology in the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel. The main research topics of his group include genetic and systematic analysis of the signal-antagonist interactions and auto-regulatory feedback loops that control vertebrate organogenesis. He uses mouse molecular genetics in combination with cell biochemistry and databased simulations of complex regulatory system to study fundamental questions of embryonic development.

Rolf Zeller is also President of the Basel Declaration Society, which promotes ethically responsible research with animals and openness in communication and publication; member of the National Research Council of Switzerland (Division III: Biology and Medicine); elected Member of EMBO; and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK).

Dean, Fribourg Centre for Cognition

Gregor Rainer holds professor positions at the University of Fribourg and at EPFL. He is the recipient of the prestigious DFG Heisenberg award and was a group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen. He received his Master's Degree in Experimental Physics from the University of Vienna in 1994, a PhD in systems neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 and a habilitation in behavioural neurobiology from Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen in 2003.

His research interests centre on the study of cognitive functions in the tree shrew and primate visual system, with particular focus on short-term memory, attention and visual learning and the impact of neuromodulation on these processes.

Associate Professor at the Department of Pathology and Immunology

Vice-Rector for Equality, Diversity and Career

Liliane Michalik joined the University of Lausanne in 1994, after obtaining her PhD in Life Sciences from the University of Strasbourg, France. Since then, she has been active in biomedical research, with the overall goal of understanding skin responses to injuries and to UV-ray exposure. Liliane Michalik is also committed to education and public outreach. Between 2011 and 2021, she was vice-Director and then Director of the School of Biology of the Faculty of biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne. In August 2021, she joined the Rectorate of the University of Lausanne as Vice-Rector for "Equality, Diversity and Careers ».

Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

Prof. Hanns Ulrich Zeilhofer is a Medical Doctor by training and Full Professor of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Zurich. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of Pharmacology at ETH Zürich. His research focuses on spinal pain processing and on central mechanisms of chronic pain and itch conditions. His group uses mouse genetic engineering together with methods of cellular electrophysiology, advanced imaging, and optogenetics, in combination with behavioral analyses to discover basic mechanisms of pathological pain processing in the CNS. Prof. Zeilhofer has been a member of the National Research Council of Switzerland (Division III: Biology and Medicine) between 2011 and 2019. Since August 2021, he serves as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Dean, Head of Department Life Sciences and Facility Management

Urs Hilber conducted studies of biology (botany, zoology and chemistry) at Uni. Basel, ETHZ und UK. He obtained a PhD at Uni. Basel in collaboration with Agroscope, Ciba-Geigy, and conducted a post doc at Cornell University NY, in the United States. At the Swiss Society for the Chemical Industry (SGCI, today scienceindustries) he supervised the agricultural section and its subgroups and also acted as Vice Director and Director of Agroscope. Since 2007, he is on the management board of ZHAW where he has been Head of R&D from 2011 to 2017. He is currently the Dean of the School Life Sciences and Facility Management.

Member of the National Council since 2019.

Member of the Committee for Science, Education and Culture and of the delegation for the relations with the French Parliament.

Simone de Montmollin began her career in the medical field, working for the European Society of Cardiology before founding her own medical communications company, Götz & Cie Cardio Diffusion, in 1991. De Montmollin left the medical field to become an oenologist, and served as the director of the Swiss Union of Oenologists, worked as a communications specialist at Agroscope, and served as chairwoman for the 42nd World Congress of Vine and Wine in Geneva. In 2008 she was elected, as an Independent, to the Geneva Constituent Assembly. She later joined FDP The Liberals and was elected to the Grand Council of Geneva, serving from 2013 to 2018. In her last year on the council, she was the president of the Committee for Environment, Agriculture, and Management. In 2019, de Montmollin was elected to the National Council, where she is a member of the Committee for Science, Education and Culture and the Delegation for Relations with the French Parliament. She has served as a member of the 3RCC Strategic Board representing the members of federal councils since May 2021.

MAS MTEC ETH
3R coordinator, Animal Welfare Department
University of Zurich

Paulin Jirkof studied biology in Göttingen, Germany. She obtained her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Zurich and her Master’s in Management, Technology, and Economics at the ETH Zurich. She has worked as a junior group leader at the Division for Surgical Research, University Hospital Zurich. Her scientific field of interest lies in the evaluation of severity assessment tools and the reliable assessment and treatment of pain and distress in laboratory rodents. She is lecturing on pain assessment, analgesia, surgery, and the 3Rs at the University of Zurich and at RWTH, Aachen, Germany. She is Deputy Editor of the Journal Laboratory Animals. Since 2018 she is 3R coordinator of the University of Zurich.

Assistant to 3R Coordinator

Homare Yamahachi finished his Biology degree at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina before obtaining his PhD in Charles Gilbert lab at The Rockefeller University in New York City. During his doctoral studies, Homare discovered that changes in sensory experience alter neuronal structural plasticity in vivo using viral vectors and two-photon microscopy. During his postdoc at the Moser lab in Norway, Homare studied how the brain computes space to navigate the world. He then studied social communication in birds with an emphasis on animal welfare in the Hahnloser lab at the University of Zurich and ETHZ. Homare is currently involved in implementing the 3Rs Principle of Animal Experimentation (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) within the University of Bern.

After a master’s degree in biochemistry and graduation as a veterinarian at the University of Helsinki, Annamari Alitalo obtained a doctorate in Pharmacology at the ETH Zurich and worked as an Animal Facility Veterinarian at the ETH Zurich. She completed additional advanced studies in applied statistics at the ETH Zurich. Since 2015, Annamari Alitalo is the lead Animal Welfare Officer at the ETH Zurich. Annamari is member of the Swiss Animal Facilities Network and of Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association.

dipl. SVLAS
Head of the education at the Institute of
Laboratory Animal Science, University of Zurich

Philippe Bugnon studied veterinary medicine and obtained a doctorate at the University Bern on the topic of rabies vaccination evaluation and eradication of rabies in Switzerland. He worked in different academics positions performing research and animal experimentation in skin wound healing and liver regeneration and was responsible for rodent facilities at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Since 2010 he is the head of the education in laboratory animal science at the Institute for Laboratory Animal Science at the University of Zurich. Additionally he is involved in several associations and foundations in the laboratory animal science field. He is also the current president of the Federal Committee on Animal Testing EKTV-CFEA.

Coordination, Réseau des animaleries lémaniques

Christelle Cadilhac studied animal physiology and received her PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Montpellier (France), where she studied cerebellum development in mice. She continued research as a postdoc at the University of Geneva where she combined multiple transgenic mouse lines and transcriptomic approaches to highlight neuronal diversity. Since September 2021, Christelle Cadilhac is the coordinator of the Lemanic Animal Facilities Network that aims at coordinating and optimizing all the activities related to animal experimentation such as education and communication regarding the five main lemanic institutions (UNIL, CHUV, EPFL, UNIGE and HUG).

3R coordinator, Dean Office
Faculty of Biology and Medicine, Lausanne

Stéphanie Claudinot was trained as a marine and invertebrate biologist and obtained her PhD in Developmental Biology from the University Paris VI with a thesis on hair follicle stem cells in rats. After 15 years of post-doctoral fellowships on epithelial stem cells in the rodents at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), she now studies skin parasitology and inflammation in mice. She joined the 3RCC in August 2018.

Head of the Infection and Immunity Laboratory
Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB)
Università della Svizzera italiana

Santiago González graduated from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in the specialty of Marine Biology. He holds two PhD degrees, one in immunology from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and one in microbiology from the University of Santiago de Compostela. He continued his postdoctoral research in the Harvard Medical School, in Boston (USA) studying the immune response to vaccines. During this period, he was awarded the most prestigious European and Swiss grant (Marie Curie, Ambizione). In 2013 he joined the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona as a group leader studying pathogen-host interaction.

Head Vivarium Operations
Novartis Pharma AG

Boris Jerchow studied chemistry and received his PhD in genetics from Humboldt University Berlin. After joining a CRO, where he headed their transgenics department, he held various positions in academia, including animal welfare officer and research animal core facility manager. In the summer of 2019, he moved to Novartis Pharma AG to head their vivaria in Basel.

Director of the Competence Center for Tissue Engineering (TEDD)
at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)

Michael Raghunath studied medicine in Mainz, Germany. He received training in immunology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and as a postdoc in matrix biology and wound healing at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In 1997, he received his habilitation in Physiological Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry at the University of Münster, Germany, and did a clinical residency in dermatology there. After a stint in industry as R&D director, he became an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Biochemistry in 2003 at the National University of Singapore. He was member of IACUC there for several years. In 2016, he joined ZHAW as Professor and Head, Center of Cell Biology & Tissue Engineering; he is member of the EU Council for TERMIS and in the editorial board of Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering, Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, and International Journal of Bioprinting. As Director of the Competence Center for Tissue Engineering (TEDD) he has a strong interest in 3D tissue models to replace animal experimentation.

Coordinator of the Swiss Animal Facility Network (SAFN)

Since September 2018 Anne Planche is the coordinator of the Swiss Animal Facilities Network (SAFN), a network of universities with animal facilities. SAFN deals with issues related to animal experimentation, animal husbandry and animal welfare. It supports universities’ communication in animal experimentation, it takes position on legislation and regulation concerning animal experimentation, and it is a partner of the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) and the cantonal authorities. SAFN will provide the Executive Board of the 3RCC with its expertise in animal husbandry and wishes to contribute in particular to the strategy for reduction.

Coordinator 3R, Animal Facilities, University of Basel

Anke Rohlfs holds a veterinary and PhD degree from the Veterinary School Hanover, Germany. Following two postdocs in neuropharmacology at the Battelle Institute, Geneva, and Novartis Pharma, Basel, Anke has gained over 20 years of experience in animal experimentation in the pharmaceutical industry, with six years as study director and 20 years as animal welfare officer, regionally and globally. Her special expertise is in international regulations and standards for animal welfare in animal-based research; establishment, and promotion of AW & 3R programmes; ensuring compliance and risk management. Anke Rohlfs joined the Animal Facilities & Welfare team of the University Basel in October 2017. Since 2018 she is the Coordinator 3R at the university.

Directeur de l’expérimentation animale

In his current role, Daniele Roppolo is responsible for the supervision of the various facets of animal experimentation at the University of Geneva including education, infrastructure, legislation, communication and promotion of the 3Rs. He works in close collaboration with the Animal Welfare Officer, the Vice-rector for animal experimentation, the Academic Director of animal experimentation and the many laboratories dealing with 3Rs and animal experimentation. As 3RCC node coordinator, he contributes to the proposals of projects, collection of data and implementation within the University of Geneva. Daniele Roppolo holds a PhD in biology and has long experience in research.

Professor at Applied Sciences University Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW)

Laura Suter-Dick is a European Registered Toxicologist (ERT) and holds a PhD in biology. She acquired more than 20 years of research experience in the pharmaceutical industry before moving to academia in 2012. Her research focus on molecular toxicology, toxicity biomarkers and advanced cell culture systems such as microphysiological systems. Her teaching activities focus on in vitro pharmacology and toxicology. She is president of biotechnet and an active member of ESTIV, the Swiss Society of Toxicology and SCAHT. She has always been strongly involved in supporting the 3Rs and promoting alternatives to animal experimentation.

3RCC Coordinator, Center of Phenogenomics
Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Alexandre Widmer studied biology in Neuchâtel, then obtained a PhD in Physiology and Biophysics at Dalhousie University, Canada, where he worked on electrophysiological characterization of spider mechanosensory neurons. With support from the SNF, he furthered his expertise in invertebrate sensory physiology, genetics and behaviour during his postdoctoral training at the IMP, Vienna, working on Drosophila courtship. He finally trained on a mouse model of olfaction at the University of Geneva, funded by a Marie Curie fellowship for advanced researchers.

After a scientific support role in a commercial setting, he joined the EPFL Center of Phenogenomics in 2020 as 3RCC coordinator.

Professor for Animal Welfare
Veterinary Public Health Institute
Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern

Hanno Würbel studied biology at the University of Bern in Switzerland and graduated with a PhD from the ETH Zurich. He continued research as a postdoc at Bristol University, ETH Zurich, and University of Zurich before being appointed Professor of Animal Welfare and Ethology at the University of Giessen in Germany in 2002. In 2011, Hanno Würbel moved back to his alma mater to take up to the new Chair for Animal Welfare at the University of Bern. His research focuses on the plasticity of the brain and behavior and its implications for the welfare of animals in captivity and for the scientific validity of animal research. For his research on refinement of animal experiments he obtained several research awards and funding from the European Research Council.

Animal Welfare Officer at University of Fribourg

Andrina Zbinden is a veterinarian and did her doctoral thesis in the Division of Animal Housing and Welfare at the Vetsuisse Faculty in Bern, she promoted in behaviour and housing of golden hamsters. After a PostDoc position in the same Division she left the dedicated animal welfare area. In 2011 she started as Animal Welfare Officer at the University of Fribourg. Since 2017 she is member of the SGV Board, Schweizer Gesellschaft für Versuchstierkunde.

Emeritus Professor Newcastle
University Newcastle, United Kingdom

Paul Flecknell is a graduate of Cambridge Veterinary School and has specialist qualifications in veterinary anaesthesia and analgesia and in laboratory animal medicine, and a PhD in Physiology. He managed the research animal facilities at Newcastle for over 30 years until his retirement in 2017. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at Newcastle University.

He has been working in the field of laboratory animal science and animal welfare since 1977. He has been developing teaching and training resources to promote best practice in animal anaesthesia and analgesia for over 30 years, and he is currently co-developing a series of e-learning programmes. He has extensive knowledge and experience of all aspects of the use of animals in biomedical research. He has worked with many professional and public bodies including the U.K. NC3Rs, the Swedish 3Rs funding panel, the Doerenkamp-Zbinden foundation and other groups to promote the 3Rs nationally and internationally. He now works as a freelance consultant, and his company (FLAIRE consultants) provides training and training resources for all those involved in in vivo research.

Professor and group leader at the Laboratory Animal Science
Instituto de investgação e inovação em saúde University of Porto
Porto, Portugal

Anna Olsson's background is in animal science, ethology and animal welfare. She has been a full-time researcher since 1996, working with farm animals, laboratory animals and recently also companion animals. Since 2005, she coordinates a research group at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (now part of i3S – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health) at the University of Porto.

Her research focuses on behaviour and welfare of animals used in research and on animal research ethics. She is engaged in the international animal welfare research community in a number of ways, as co-editor for the textbook Animal Welfare, as academic editor for the journal PLOS ONE, as Trustee for Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and Humane Slaughter Association and now also as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Swiss 3R Competence Center. This engagement reflects her strong belief in that human and non-human animals can live together in mutual benefit, and in the importance of knowledge to improve the way we keep animals. Finally, she is the author of the science communication blog Animalogues about animal welfare and animal ethics research.

Head of Experimental Design and Reporting, National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals

Global Head of Comparative Medicine Roche
Basel, Switzerland

Tobias studied Veterinary Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany, where he also did his thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology. He joined Roche Diagnostics in 1997 and in 1998 transferred to Roche's Pharmaceuticals Division. From 1998 to 2007, he worked in Discovery Oncology as preclinical pharmacologist on several research projects. In 2007, Tobias moved to Large Molecule Research, heading the department of Immune Biology, overseeing the generation of new therapeutic proteins for all disease areas. In 2013, he transferred to Roche's Pharmaceutical Sciences organization and took over the role as Global Head of Comparative Pharmacology and Toxicology. In this role, he and his team are in charge of running Roche's animal facilities including the veterinary programmes and preclinical in vivo safety assessment in in-house in vivo studies. Tobias is representing Roche on several national and international animal welfare and 3Rs bodies e.g. at the Vfa and Interpharma. Since 2002, he serves on the Ethical Review Committee for Animal Experimentation at the Government of Upper Bavaria, since 2017, he has been appointed as member of the Swiss Federal Commission on Animal Experimentation. Tobias is a certified veterinarian in both pharmacology and toxicology and in laboratory animal science.

Director of the 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Sciences
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Utrecht
University Utrecht, the Netherlands

Jan van der Valk is trained in biomedical sciences. He was involved in establishing the Netherlands Centre for Alternatives to Animal experiments in 1994 and has been involved in stimulating the development, acceptation and implementation of 3Rs models ever since. Since 2010, he coordinates the 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Sciences (www.uu.nl/3rsCentreULS) at Utrecht Life Sciences, which include Utrecht University and University Medical Centre Utrecht. He is involved in several 3Rs education and training programs. The 3Rs-Centre ULS supports the 3Rs, among other activities, by the 3Rs-database program (https://www.uu.nl/en/3rsdatabases). He is also member of the project team of U-AIM (Utrecht Advanced In Vitro Models), a hub aimed to replace animal experimentation with advanced in vitro and in silico methods. There is a close collaboration from the 3Rs-Centre ULS with the Utrecht Animal Welfare Body.

Prof. Robert Hindges is the Head of the Neural Connectivity and Visual Function Laboratory at King’s College London. He graduated from the University of Zürich Switzerland, where he also obtained his Doctoral Degree in Molecular Biology. He subsequently joined the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, USA, before moving to King’s College London in 2006. He has made fundamental contributions on molecular mechanisms underlying axon guidance, topographic maps and function-specific circuit formation in the vertebrate visual system, using mice, chick and zebrafish as in vivo models.

His current work at the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology focuses on genes underlying the establishment of neural connectivity and synaptic specificity. He is a member of the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders where his projects concentrate on zebrafish models relevant to Major Depressive Disorder, Autism, Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder.

He has long-standing experience on 3Rs-related issues, including offering services to the local Animal Welfare and Ethics Committee and the NC3Rs.  

In addition to his role as Principal Investigator, Prof. Hindges is the Academic Director of the Genome Editing and Embryology Core Facility at King’s, providing leadership in the application and development of state-of-the-art genome editing methods for the scientific community. He has extensive experience in these technologies and his team produced so far more than 150 different genetically altered in vivo models for basic and pre-clinical research using ZFN, TALEN and CRISPR approaches.

Katja Schenke-Layland is the Professor of Medical Technologies and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University Tübingen (MFT). She is the Director of the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute in Reutlingen, the CEO of the NMI-TT GmbH, Study Dean of Medical Technologies at the University of Tübingen, and Project Scientist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Dept. of Medicine/ Cardiology, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Katja is currently the Co-Editor-In-Chief of Tissue Engineering Part B (Mary Ann Liebert) and Executive Editor of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews (Elsevier), as well as on several editorial boards such as Matrix Biology (Elsevier), Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering (Elsevier), and Journal of 3D Printing in Medicine (Future Medicine). Katja is a fellow/ board member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), German Central Ethics Committee for Stem Cell Research (ZES), International and German Societies of Matrix Biology, and the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (EAMBES). She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, has an h-index of 45 Scopus and has been granted 4 patents.

Katja graduated in 2004 in the area of heart valve tissue engineering and non-invasive imaging under the supervision of Dr. Ulrich A. Stock at the University of Jena, Germany. Another field of interest was how tissue processing (e.g. cryopreservation) impacts extracellular matrix (ECM) structures and cells. She helped pioneer the use of multiphoton laser-based confocal microscopy and second harmonic generation as non-invasive tissue imaging tools. For her post-doctoral work, she joined 2005 the Dr. Robb MacLellan lab at UCLA with a focused on cardiac stem cell biology. Here, her seminal work was to be the first scientist to demonstrate that induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) differentiate towards the cardiovascular and hematopoietic lineages, showing that beating cardiomyocytes could be derived from iPSCs. She then returned 2010 to Germany to join the Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart, Germany as a group leader, which was then followed by her appointment as Professor at the MFT and promotion to Department Head and later Director of the Fraunhofer IGB. She remained focused on cardiovascular tissue engineering and move into the areas of in vitro test systems and Raman microspectroscopy, with a focus on ECM proteins. Currently, her research lab at the MFT focuses on the translation of human development into clinically relevant biomaterials and regenerative therapies, and the development of diagnostic tools to assess (stem) cell states and fates, discover therapeutic candidates and diagnose diseases. She leverages her appointments to bridge the gaps between science and industry to drive viable health care solutions, particularly at the NMI, where they focus on supporting local Star-Ups and SMEs.