Westbury, NY – Dec. 9, 2019 – BioIVT, a leading provider of research models and services for drug and diagnostic development, today announced that it is hosting a drug discovery webinar that will discuss how small interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules can be used to selectively suppress hepatic genes in an in vitro liver model and advance the development of small molecule and nucleic acid therapies.

BioIVT’s HEPATOPAC® Technology is used to form a micro-patterned co-culture of primary hepatocytes and non-parenchymal stromal cells which maintain in vivo-like liver function and metabolic activity for up to four weeks.

Liliana Mancio Silva, PharmD, PhD, research associate at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) will present the webinar, entitled “Improving Drug Discovery by Nucleic Acid Delivery in Micropatterned Co-cultured Hepatocytes,” at 11 a.m. ET on Dec. 11.

Prior to joining INSERM, Dr. Silva was a research scientist in Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia’s laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked on nucleic acid delivery systems to target hepatocytes and impact human liver genetic and infectious diseases.

Dr. Silva will discuss the use of several nucleic acid delivery systems in the HEPATOPAC model. She will also describe how to achieve robust, long-lasting gene silencing via siRNA molecules, deliver siRNA-mediated modification of hepatocyte drug metabolism, and assess hepatic-targeted nucleic acid therapies.

Dr. Silva’s presentation was so well received at BioIVT’s recent HEPATOPAC User Group Meeting that the team asked her to share it with the broader research community.

Interested persons can register for this complimentary, one-hour webinar at https://info.bioivt.com/sirna-wbr-reg.