Meet the Speakers

Karissa Cottier, PhD, Manager of R&D, BioIVT

Dr. Cottier earned her PhD in medical pharmacology at University of Arizona where she focused on drug delivery in migraine headache model. In her post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University Karissa utilized molecular and histology-based assays in an in vitro model to study cerebral malaria. We at BioIVT were pleased that Karissa decided to join our team in our lab in Baltimore Maryland following her post-doc. She has contributed to numerous projects, and importantly led our program to develop high-purity Kupffer cells as well as investigate new applications for our HEPATOPAC and HEPATOMUNE cultures.

Jeannemarie Gaffney, Sr. Manager of Manufacturing and Process Development, BioIVT

Ms. Gaffney’s research efforts have focused on the development of tissue engineered products and cell based in vitro models with a focus on primary mammalian cell culture. In 2009, she joined Dr. Salmon Khetani’s team at Ascendance BioTechnology when they were in the early stages of developing micropatterned co-cultures including human, rat, monkey, mouse, and dog hepatocyte models – a system later known as HEPATOPAC. As the product was commercialized Ms. Gaffney supported all aspects of producing HEPATATOPC kits to meet growing customer demand.

Ms. Gaffney continued to support production of HEPATOPAC products after BioIVT acquired the technology in 2018. At BioIVT she also provides technical assistance to our clients who are using HEPATOPAC cultures in their drug discovery and development programs.

Sara Geriesh, PhD Student, University of Maryland

Sara Geriesh is a Ph.D. student in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, working in Dr. Hongbing Wang’s lab. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Clinical Pharmacy and a master’s degree in Pharmacology from Georgetown University. Her research focuses on drug-induced liver injury (DILI) and metabolism-based drug-drug interactions using advanced human-relevant liver models. Her current work integrates functional assays and transcriptomic profiling to uncover hepatotoxicity mechanisms and biomarkers, contributing to FDA-funded efforts aimed at improving preclinical drug safety evaluation.

John Griffith, Scientist I, BioIVT

John has a BS in Microbiology from Tennessee Tech University with a background in mycology. After college, he worked in an immune cell isolation lab for Physicians Plasma Alliance for three years. After they were acquired by BioIVT, he moved to the Long Term Culture group in Baltimore that manufactures HEPATOPAC where he is now the Lead Scientist in the lab and has been an active contributor to the development of BioIVT's siRNA work in the model.

Dipen Vyas, PhD, Study Director, BioIVT

Dr. Vyas is currently a Study Director at BioIVT for IP-Driven ADME Services including HEPATOPAC, C-DILI™, B-CLEAR® and custom metabolism and toxicity studies. Dr. Vyas has worked extensively for 15+ years on various in vitro hepatocyte models such as sandwich cultures, co-cultures, spheroids and organoids and their applications in ADME-Tox. Prior to joining BioIVT, Dr. Vyas led the development of multicellular liver organoids (HepaOrg), an in vitro platform for drug testing and disease research at Biorg. Dr. Vyas obtained his Ph.D. in Integrative Physiology and Pharmacology from Wake Forest University. His doctoral training was focused on the development of tissue engineered liver organoid using stem cells for disease research and organ transplant applications at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.