PhD MBA is a world-leading expert in vectorology with over 20 years of experience in developing and manufacturing viral vectors. He received his PhD from Cornell University / Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York and then continued…
Asst. Prof. Dr Duško Lainšček, DVM, PhD received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Medical Faculty, Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2017. He is employed as the Research Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana, leading the Laboratory for in vivo experiments and the Preclinical Research Department at the Center for the Technologies of Gene and Cell Therapies. His research interests focus on genome engineering, cancer immunotherapy, and gene therapy, emphasizing in vivo studies with clinical translation potential, with special importance in developing new mouse disease models and testing efficacy and safety aspects. During his work he obtained several awards and grants. He holds lectures in genome engineering, cell and gene therapy and in FELASA accredited courses.
Dr. Lainšček is actively involved in various roles related to animal welfare, genetics, and biotechnology. He serves on the Ethics Committee for animal experiments at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Food, and act as an animal welfare expert and veterinarian and a Member of Committee for inventions at the National Institute of Chemistry Slovenia. He participates in a COST Action focused on genome editing for treating human diseases, leading the delivery workgroup. Additionally, he works in the Scientific Committee for GMO work in contained use at the Ministry of the Environment in Slovenia.
Dr. Lainšček received additionally training at the Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, USA) in mouse general microsurgery, stereotactic surgery and brain cannulation procedures, utmost important in gene therapy. During his stay at iFREC (Immunology frontier research center; Department of Host defense, Osaka university, Osaka, Japan) he was studying the influence of innate immunity in different mouse disease models, whereas in Semmelweis University in Budapest he studies the role of natural compounds in heart disease mouse and rat models. During his stay at the Czech Center for Phenogenomics (Prague, Czech Republic) he specialized in histopathology, transgenesis-mouse development, in vivo imaging and in Good Laboratory Practice Procedures in vivo, crucial for new drug development and approval.
He is actively involved with the CTNNB1 Foundation, which developed AAV9 based therapy for CTNNB1 syndrome, where he participated in the preclinical part of the drug development, with special emphasis on in vivo efficacy, biodistribution and toxicology aspect of new drug development for the treatment of rare genetic disease.
