KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
8 PLENARIES.
INSPIRATIONAL. THOUGHT-PROVOKING. FORWARD-THINKING.
To address challenges, opportunities, and the way forward in NAM science/innovation, regulatory acceptance, next-gen education, and ethics.
PLEASE NOTE - Keynote Titles are not final at this time. Continue to monitor website for updates.
RISK ASSESSMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Dr. Krewski is Professor and Director of the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa, where he is involved in a number of activities in population health risk assessment within the new Institute of Population Health. Prior to joining the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Krewski was Director, Risk Management in the Health Protection Branch of Health Canada. While with Health Canada, he also served as Acting Director of the Bureau of Chemical Hazards and as Chief of the Biostatistics Division in the Environmental Health Directorate. Dr. Krewski has held a Natural Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Chair in Risk Science, focusing on risk assessment and management of a wide range of risk issues of national and international importance. Dr. Krewski is a Lifetime National Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences where he served as the Chair of the Committee on Toxicity Testing and Assessment of Environmental Agents that developed the landmark report, Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy in 2007. Early in his career, Dr. Krewski developed an interest in risk science – even before risk sciences became a well-established discipline with broad applications in diverse areas. We are honoured to have Dr. Krewski deliver the opening keynote to set the stage for WC12!
REGULATORY ACCEPTANCE THEME - FUTURE OUTLOOK ON NAMs
Dr. Maurice Whelan is the Head, EU Reference Laboratory, European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (EURL ECVAM), at the EU Joint Research Centre located in Ispra, Italy. He leads the Chemical Safety and Alternative Methods Unit of the Directorate for Health and is the EU co-chair of the OECD Advisory Group on Molecular Screening and Toxicogenomics which is responsible for the OECD programme on Adverse Outcome Pathways. Dr. Whelan is a member of the Steering Committee of the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) and holds external appointments of visiting Professor of Bioengineering at the School of Engineering, University of Liverpool (UK), and adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Limerick (Ireland). With over 200 scientific publication and decades of expertise in alternatives to animal testing, Dr. Whelan is a prominent player in the global NAMs arena.
PREDICTIVE TOXICOLOGY THEME - INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES ON NAMs IN PRACTICE
Dr. Gladys Ouédraogo is a Scientific Officer at L’Oréal Research & Innovation where she leads various research initiatives, including those with external partners from academia and industry. She has over 20 years of experience in developing predictive methods for toxicity, with a primary focus on repeated dose systemic toxicity and genotoxicity. Before joining L’Oréal, Dr. Ouédraogo spent two years as a research fellow at the Wellman Center for medicine/Harvard Medical School in Boston. Her pH.D in photobiology was led in France within a European framework project aiming at developing new approach methodologies for photogenotoxicity. Her experience in genotoxicity started with her thesis on the photogenotoxicity of furoquinolones for her doctorate degree in Pharmacy earned at the University of Padova in Italy. Dr. Ouédraogo serves on numerous committees, including HESI (Genetic Toxicology Technical Committee), International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety (Genotoxicity, Systemic effects, safety decision group, education group), OECD (Extended Advisory Group on Molecular Screening and Toxicogenomics), AFSA (Animal free safety assessment collaboration), ESTIV, and SOT.
BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH THEME - BEYOND ANIMAL MODELS IN DISEASE RESEARCH
Dr. Alysson Muotri is a professor in the Departments of Cellular & Molecular Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the Director of the Stem Cell Program and the Archealization Center and serves as an Associate Director of Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). His research interests and expertise revolve around the human brain—from understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving neurological complex disorders such as autism and epilepsy to studying the social brain from an unconventional evolutionary and developmental perspectives. His latest disease-in-a-dish models involve human stem cell-based brain organoids to study autism to discover novel therapeutic approaches—described in his acclaimed New York Times article, Organoids Are Not Brains. How Are They Making Brain Waves? - The New York Times (nytimes.com).
NEXT-GEN EDUCATION PLENARY - TO BE DELIVERED BY NEXT-GEN RESEARCHERS
One of the key themes of WC12 is Next-Gen Education—to acknowledge the paramount responsibility of educating the next generation to carry on the ground-breaking advances currently being made in NAMs. We need these next-gen scientists to be on grant review panels to defend NAMs; to be journal editors and reviewers to accept manuscript based solely on human data; to conduct only animal free research; to be regulators to make crucial decisions on human health risks using NAMs; and to develop new guidelines for animal welfare and bioethics. In this plenary, we are giving the opportunity to 4 young minds at different stages in their academic journey to tell us about what they want to see in their future. This plenary will be followed immediately by the World Cafe Mentoring Event hosted by our Diamond Sponsor, Unilever.
ETHICS & WELFARE THEME - INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES ON ANIMAL SENTIENCE AND WELFARE
This is a plenary that will introduce Indigenous perspectives on animals, to be delivered by a Canadian Indigenous Elder. We are excited to facilitate a dialogue to obtain Indigenous insight and knowledge to address Western concepts of animal sentience and welfare. For Indigenous peoples, the natural world (environment) is interconnected—the earth, elements, and animals are not separate, but connected as a whole. Indigenous view of animals as equitable partners in an interconnected social network “equates to a moral responsibility to care for, live in harmony with, and respect the natural world.”
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION & HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: HOW TO EMBRACE CULTURE CHANGE
Rachel A. Ankeny is an interdisciplinary scholar who is a Professor of History and Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Her research interests are diverse and include historical and philosophical approaches to choice and use of experimental animal models, bioethics including stem cell research and genomics, and understanding changing scientific practices in biological and biomedical research in the 20th and 21st centuries. She was a co-founder of the international Society of Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP), and was the President of the International Society of History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB). For more information, please see https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/rachel.ankeny.
60+ YEARS OF THE 3Rs: WHAT'S NEXT?
Dr. Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is a renowned author and bioethicist, and a humanitarian—bestowed the “world’s most influential living philosopher” by journalists. Through his written works, he advocates for animal welfare, inspiring others to reduce the suffering we inflict on animals, especially with the timeless impactful book 1975 Animal Liberation. Dr. Singer was awarded the 2021 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, a $1 million award given annually to "thinkers whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world” for his “widely influential and intellectually rigorous work in reinvigorating utilitarianism as part of academic philosophy and as a force for change in the world."