ddPCR WORLD 2023: Plenary Session

Join us for ddPCR World 2023, on-demand.

Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity! The virtual event is dedicated to showcasing the incredible advancements and achievements powered by Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR) across various fields and industries. From molecular diagnostics to biopharmaceutical manufacturing, this event will unveil the latest breakthroughs and provide valuable insights to drive your own work forward.

By attending this on-demand event, you'll have the chance to:

• Leverage insights and techniques from ddPCR pioneers
• Discover emerging applications of ddPCR in your specific field
• Explore advancements that can enhance your research and workflows

New Applications of Droplet Digital PCR: Where is the Lucrative Battlefield?

Professor Allen Chan has more than 20‑year experience on developing new applications of circulating nucleic acids. With Professor Dennis Lo and Rossa Chiu, he developed the noninvasive prenatal tests for detecting fetal Down syndrome and other chromosomal aneuploidies. The test has become a standard in prenatal testing and over ten million tests are performed each year across the world.

Professor Chan pioneered the use of circulating DNA analysis for cancer detection, an approach usually known as "liquid biopsy". In 2009, he demonstrated that digital PCR could enhance the sensitivity and specificity for detecting EGFR mutations in the plasma of lung cancer patients.

Professor Chan is a co‑inventor of over 150 patent families and was named one of the "Top 20 Translational Researchers of 2020" by the renowned scientific journal, Nature Biotechnology. He is a co‑founder of five biotechnology companies. One of his companies, Cirina, had a merger with Grail in 2017.

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About the speaker:
Dr Allen Chan
Professor of Chemical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Quantifying ctDNA to Guide Precision Medicine Drug Development

Dr. Paweletz is head of the Translational Research Laboratory (TRL) of the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at Dana Faber Cancer Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He joined from Merck & Co., Inc., where he most recently served as principal scientist, externalization lead, and proteomics site lead for the Department of Molecular Biomarkers at the Merck Research Laboratory in Boston.

At Merck, Dr. Paweletz successfully built platforms to look at disease biomarkers in body fluids and oversaw research activities spanning the spectrum from early‑stage discovery to the clinic. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland and a research fellow in the Laboratory of Pathology at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Paweletz earned his PhD with honors from Georgetown University and his Bachelor of Science Degree from Baldwin Wallace College.

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About the speaker:
Dr Cloud Paweletz
Head of Research at Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science
Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Utilizing ddPCR for Genome Editing in Human iPS Cells

Dr. Miyaoka is a Project Leader of Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science. He is also an Affiliated Associate Professor of Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Japan. Yuichiro holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He trained as a post‑doctoral fellow at Gladstone Institutes, USA. Dr. Miyaoka has made a particular contribution to development of a method to quantify genome editing outcomes in a sensitive and quantitative manner. He also combines the genome editing technology and the human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology to study and cure diseases.

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About the speaker:
Dr Yuichiro Miyaoka
Principal Investigator
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science

Absolute Quantification and Variant Detection of SARS‑CoV‑2 in Wastewater using ddPCR

Dr. Masaaki Kitajima is an Associate Professor of environmental engineering at Hokkaido University. He earned his Doctor of Engineering degree in the field of urban environmental engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2011. After receiving the doctoral degree, he worked at the University of Arizona in the US as a Post‑Doc through the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad from 2011 to 2013.

Since 2016, he has been a faculty member at Hokkaido University in Japan, where he works on environmental virology with a current emphasis on wastewater-based epidemiology of COVID‑19. Dr. Kitajima has published 125 peer‑reviewed journal papers with 9,300+ citations and an h‑index of 48. He has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher 2022 by Clarivate for the impact of his work demonstrating significant and broad influence reflected in the publication of multiple highly cited papers. His research area covers broad aspects of health‑related water microbiology from an environmental engineering perspective, represented by molecular epidemiological analysis of viral pathogens in natural and engineered water systems.

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About the speaker:
Dr Masaaki Kitajima
Associate Professor, Division of Environmental Engineering
Hokkaido University

sc‑ddPCR Vector Tracing ADA‑SCID Stem Cell Gene Therapy

Dr Uchiyama is the Chief of the Division of Molecular Pathogenesis, the Department of Human Genetics, and the Director of the R&D of the Gene & Cell Therapy Promotion Center at the National Center for Child Health and Development (NICHD) in Japan. He received his M.D. from Tohoku University in 2005 and moved to the U.S. in 2007 to work as a research fellow at the NIH. After returning to Japan, he returned to Tohoku University as an Assistant Professor. Since 2013, he has worked as the Director of the Division of Developmental Genetics at NICHD. He has been engaged in research on gene therapy for primary immunodeficiency diseases for more than 10 years and is devoted to research every day to contribute to the development of gene therapy in Japan.

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About the speaker:
Dr Toru Uchiyama, MD
Chief, Department of Human Genetics
National Center for Child Health and Developmentg