Masayo Takahashi received her M.D. in 1986, and her Ph.D. in 1992, from Kyoto University. After an assistant professorship in the Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto University Hospital, she moved to the Salk Institute in 1996, where she discovered the potential of stem cells as a tool for retinal therapy. She returned to Kyoto University Hospital in 1998, and was appointed associate professor at the Translational Research Center in the same hospital in 2001. She joined the RIKEN CDB (currently RIKEN BDR) as a Team Leader of the Lab for Retinal Regeneration in 2006. In 2013, her team launched a pilot clinical study of autologous iPS cell-derived RPE cell sheets for exudative aged-related macular degeneration (AMD), and performed the first RPE cell sheet graft transplantation in September 2014. In August 2019, she started a new career as a president of start-up company; Vision Care Inc. (VC’), which will collaborate with RIKEN and Kobe Eye Center. Her aim is to understand these diseases at a fundamental level and develop retinal therapies.

After successfully completing his master´s degree in biochemistry with focus on molecular biology at the Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Mr. Philipp Müller started as a specialist manager for molecular biology at Labor LS in October 2021. He is the in-house contact for all molecular biological tests, such as testing for mycoplasma, testing for DNase/RNase freedom and sequencing.

Started with Boehringer Mannheim in 1991. Degree in Chemistry and Biotechnology. During the last 30 years at Roche I worked in the Enzyme Production, R&D for Software testing of the Light Cycler Systems, Training and support Roche Sequencing instruments and since 2010 as an International Product Manager in CustomBiotech. In the last 12 years responsible for different portfolios in CB. Since 2016 for Pharma QC and since 2017 also for the Protease portfolio.

Anne Lee joined Roche Diagnostics Korea in 2008 as an application specialist and has been the product manager of Custom Biotech since 2012. She graduated from Kyunghee University in 2012 and obtained a master's degree in biochemistry from Ulsan University, College of Medicine. She is responsible for applications and marketing at Roche CustomBiotech, which focuses on the supply of raw materials to diagnostic manufacturers and biopharma reagents and instruments to biopharmaceutical companies.