Professor in iPSC cell therapy, with experience (15+ years) in iPSC biology, bioprocess development, analytical assays, genome editing, laboratory automation, and drug discovery and safety. Background in biopharmaceutical industry and academic sectors, with publication record of 30+ papers, cited >6,000 times. Driven to lead and facilitate development of preclinical research programs, including translational biology, bioprocess development and scaled manufacturing of cell therapies, disease model development and mechanism investigation, assay development, target identification and validation, and lead generation and optimization.

Professor Elena Matsa was previously a postdoctoral fellow and Instructor at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, where she studied human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to model cardiovascular disease and cardiomyocyte-drug interactions. Since 2017, Professor Matsa has held several roles in industry, including a Director position at Ncardia - a company focusing on iPSC-based drug discovery and safety assessment. Through this role, she used state-of-the-art technologies for next-generation sequencing, genome editing, high throughput automated characterisation of hiPSC-derivatives such as skeletal muscle cells, neurons, macrophages and hematopoietic stem cells, and high throughout screening to advance new therapeutic products towards the clinic. In her most recent industry role as Senior Vice President in Cell Therapy Research at Cellistic- a company specialising in process development and large-scale manufacture of cell therapies based on iPSC technology, Professor Matsa strengthened the leadership team providing expertise and strategic guidance on bioreactor-based hiPSC specification towards immune cell types, such as T-regulatory cells (Treg), Natural Killer (NK) cells, and T-cells.

Professor Matsa has expertise and experience in a broad array of functions essential to successful allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing, and her work has been published in Cell Stem Cell, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine and the European Heart Journal, among others. Her current research at UCC and NIBRT focuses on improvements in purity, yield, and reproducibility of iPSC-based cell therapy manufacturing.

The lab's current research aims to enhance cell identity, purity, yield, reproducibility, and cost-effectiveness in the manufacturing of iPSC-based cell therapies for immune cell applications. Research interests include:

· Modulating key lymphoid lineage developmental pathways

· Developing cryopreservation formulations

· Creating cost-effective media formulations

· Advancing process development systems and sensors

· Integrating AI into process development

· Exploiting single-cell in-process analytics

· Developing disease-relevant in vitro organoid models