In this webinar, Dr Virginia Castilla Llorente and Christopher Smith of Evox Therapeutics Ltd will provide an overview of ddPCR and its applications in the context of exosome-based RNA therapeutics.
The main areas of discussion will focus on the advantages of the ddPCR technology for RNA quantification, challenges Evox have overcome by using the technology and how Evox is utilising it, from assay design to analysis, for absolute quantification of RNA therapeutics.
Christopher Smith,
Senior Research Associate, Evox Therapeutics Limited, Oxford Science Park, UK
Chris is a Senior Research Associate at Evox Therapeutics, a privately held, Oxford-based biotechnology company focused on the development of exosome therapeutics by engineering exosomes to deliver protein and nucleic-acid therapeutics to treat life threatening rare diseases. Training initially as an Osteopath, Chris worked in a clinical setting in Melbourne, Australia where he developed a keen interest in neuro-musculo-skeletal-pathology research. Chris returned to the UK to pursue a research career, completing a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the University of Kent where he was exposed to the rapidly developing field of exosome research. Today Chris is a member of the RNA Engineering team where he has been involved in the development of new RNA-loaded exosome therapeutics aimed toward the treatment of diseases involving muscle damage.
Virginia Castilla Llorente, PhD,
Group Leader, Exosome Engineering, Evox Therapeutics Limited, Oxford Science Park, UK
Virginia is a Group leader at Evox Therapeutics, a privately held, Oxford-based biotechnology company focused on the development of exosome therapeutics by engineering exosomes to deliver protein and nucleic-acid therapeutics to treat life threatening rare diseases. Virginia performed her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in the Centre for Molecular Biology (CBM-Severo Ochoa) Madrid and soon after joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre (New York) as a postdoc, where she studied the molecular basis of miRNA mediated silencing. She then joined the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology (ISMB) at UCL (London) to focus on understanding RNA binding proteins and the molecular and structural biology basis of their interaction with RNA. Virginia has a solid and remarkable experience in RNA biology and Molecular Biology, she joined Evox in 2017 and leading the development of a new mRNA-loaded exosome therapeutics platform as part of the Exosome Engineering team.
Kelly Sillence, PhD,
Field Application Specialist North UK, Bio-Rad Laboratories UK
Kelly obtained her PhD in Medical Genetics from Plymouth University in 2016. She has wide-range experience in assay design, genotyping, cell-free DNA and PCR (conventional, real-time and digital). During this time, she successfully managed to co-author multiple peer review publications, with two first author publication on the application of Digital PCR for Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT). After completing a one-year Postdoctoral Research position on Blood Group Genotyping, Kelly joined the Bio-Rad team in June of 2017 to become the North UK Genomics Field Application Specialist. In this role she works closely with customers to help to develop Real-Time PCR and Digital PCR applications.