Workshops
The CRISPRMED25 workshops co-organised with GenE-HumDi COST Action offer students an interactive opportunity to acquire critical applied knowledge and skills that will expand their profile in the gene-editing field.
With a limited number of 30 places per workshop, we focus on delivering high-quality, interactive workshops in which you can learn by doing instead of just listening.
The CRISPRMED25/GenE-HumDi COST Action workshops will be facilitated by scientific leaders from the GenE-HumDi consortium. These experts will share their knowledge and experience in a practical, case-based setting that will allow you to apply what you learn directly to your professional career.
All you need to bring is a laptop!
Register for the workshops here.
Please contact us at info@crisprmedicineconference.com if you would like to be added to the waitlist.
CRISPRMED25 workshops
The CRISPRMED25 workshops will be held from 9:00-13:30 CET on the 8th April 2025.
Each workshop will last 1 hour and 25 minutes.
Workshop facilitators:
Professor Francisco Martín, Principal Investigator of the Gene and Cell therapy group at GENYO, Spain
Dr. Julián Cerón Madrigal, The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Spain
Dr. Yonglun Luo, Aarhus University, Denmark
Amalie Lykke Olsen, MEng, PhD student at the Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, Denmark
Dr. Carla Fuster, University of Freiburg, Germany
Dr. Laura Torella, CIMA, University of Navarra, Spain
This workshop will be faciliated by: Professor Francisco Martin, GENYO. Universidad de Granada, Spain and Julián Cerón Madrigal, The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Spain
The workshop will start with an introduction to various genome-editing technologies that generate double-strand breaks (DSBs), such as ZFNs, TALENs, and CRISPR-Cas9, highlighting their mechanisms, advantages, and limitations.
We will also discuss recent developments in genome-editing tools, focusing on those DSB-free and with demonstrated therapeutic potential, such as base- and prime editing. Next, we will cover criteria for selecting the appropriate genome-editing tool based on the targeted disease and present case studies of therapeutic applications.
We will emphasise that different diseases require distinct genome-editing strategies depending on the aim, such as gene replacement, gene restoration, or gene insertion.
The workshop will include a hands-on session with practical demonstrations and group activities to design genome-editing experiments. Finally, we will address ethical and safety considerations, emphasising regulatory guidelines and best practices.
The workshop will be highly interactive, with Q&A sessions throughout, pausing at key points for discussion.
This workshop will be faciliated by: Professor Yonglun Luo, Aarhus University, Denmark and Amalie Lykke Olsen, MEng, PhD student at the Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, Denmark.
This workshop will focus on navigating the current landscape of viral- and non-viral delivery methods for CRISPR gene-editing tools.
The session will provide the participants a broad and comparative introduction on the various delivery methods available for the different CRSPR gene-editing tools, their advantages and disadvantages.
Importantly, the workshop will try to achieve a comprehensive understanding on how to select the right delivery tool for a specific CRISPR gene editing in cells to achieve high efficacy, the so-called “CRISPR-Delivery-Cell, CDC” match-making procedure.
This workshop will be faciliated by: Dr. Carla Fuster, University of Freiburg, Germany and Dr. Laura Torella, CIMA, University of Navarra, Spain.
This workshop will focus on the side effects derived from the use of genome editors. The session will address the risks associated with the unspecific activity of CRISPR-based platforms, which can impact both the safety and efficacy of gene-editing approaches. Participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of the different types of potential genotoxic events and of the different methods available to monitor unintended genomic modifications, including those aligned with regulatory guidelines:
- Off-target activity of genome editors
- Genotoxicity: on- and off-target aberrations
- Off-target evaluation methods
- Mitigation strategies
- Hands-on basic training on specificity prediction
Workshop faciliators
Dr. Francisco Martin is a professor in the Department of Immunology at the University of Granada and principal investigator of the Gene and Cell Therapy Group at GENYO.
Dr Martin is the main founder and principal scientific advisor of LentiStem Biotech. Over the past 25 years, his work has focused on developing more efficient and safer gene modification tools for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) targeting cancer and rare diseases.
Dr. Martin's research includes ex vivo approaches using lentiviral vectors and genome-editing tools (CRISPR) for the genetic modification of haematopoietic stem cells and T cells. His group is developing new therapeutic strategies for treating Pompe disease, refractory type B leukaemia, and solid tumours (CAR-T cells) using these technologies.
He has supervised more than eight projects focused on developing new genome-editing tools and their application in generating GE-ATMPs. He is currently president-elect of the Spanish Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (SETGyC), coordinator of the gene therapy program of the TerAv+ network and coordinator of the work packages of the COST GenHumDi network.
In 2022, Dr. Martin was appointed coordinator of the Genomic Medicine area and was recently appointed deputy scientific director of GENYO.
Dr. Julián Cerón is the Principal Investigator of the group '¨Modelling diseases in C. elegans'¨ at Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Barcelona.
His team uses CRISPR-Cas9 technology to mimic human mutations in nematodes, and to tag endogenous genes in vivo. His group developed the NESTED CRISPR methodology to insert large fragments of DNA efficiently into the genome (Vicencio et al., Genetics, 2019).
Dr. Cerón's lab contributed to demonstrating the suitability of minimal PAM Cas9 variants for genome editing in animals (Vicencio et al, Nature Comm 2021), and promotes the use of C. elegans as an animal model to characterise novel Cas nucleases (Vicencio Ceron and Morena-Mateos, CRISPR Journal, 2022).
Dr. Ceron´s present research is focused in developing novel Cas9 nucleases with distinct features to expand the CRISPR-Cas toolbox. He is a co-inventor on two patents recently filed on novel Cas9 nucleases isolated from metagenomes of the Deep Ocean.
Dr. Yonglun Luo is a geneticist specialised in genome technology and regenerative medicine, and a full professor at the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University and the Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.
His research interests encompass gene transcription control, single-cell and spatial RNA sequencing, cancer biology, genetics, epigenetics, stem cell biology, CRISPR gene editing and gene therapy.
Within the CRISPR field, his research focuses on the discovery of alternative CRISPR gene-editing systems with high activity and specificity, design of CRISPR with high throughput profiling and deep learning modelling, development and improvement of CRISPR delivery using lipid nanoparticles, and the application of CRISPR gene editing as therapy for neuromuscular diseases.
Throughout his career, Professor Luo has been involving several significant CRISPR research projects from the Innovation Fund Denmark, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, and Horizon 2020. He has also led the delivery technology working group for the GenE-HumDi COST-Action. Professor Luo’s research aims to make CRISPR more effective, safer, affordable, and reachable for all patients.
Amalie Lykke Olsen, MEng, is a PhD student at the Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University in Denmark. She has been working on the development of lipid nanoparticle formulations to improve the in vivo delivery efficiency and specificity of CRISPR-Cas9 RNA components for a novel Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapy.
Dr. Carla Fuster is a biologist with a PhD in Biotechnology from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) and with over a decade of experience in CRISPR technology. Her interdisciplinary background spans rare diseases to cancer cell therapy.
Currently at the Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Dr. Fuster’s research focuses on two interconnected topics: optimising gene-editing strategies in the context of immunotherapies and, more strongly, understanding and identifying the potential genotoxic consequences derived from off-target editing activity.
She is the leader of the Safety Issues Working Group for GenE-HumDi, a COST-Action consortium represented by researchers from over 40 countries dedicated to advancing gene editing approaches for human diseases.
Dr. Fuster’s research aims to ensure the safety and reliability of CRISPR platforms to accelerate their translation into clinical applications.
Dr. Laura Torella is a Biologist and Biotechnologist with a Ph.D. in Applied Medicine and Biomedicine from the University of Navarra. Her expertise lies in in vivo gene therapy, genome editing, and rare diseases, with a strong focus on optimising CRISPR-based strategies for safer and more precise gene-editing approaches.
During her first postdoctoral experience, she explored the mechanisms of unexpected AAV integration at CRISPR-Cas-induced DNA breaks, aiming to understand the role of DNA repair pathways in determining insertion frequency.
Dr. Torella is an active member of the scientific community; she has served as a Student Board Member of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and is the Young Researcher and Innovator Committee Coordinator for the COST Action GenE-HumDi. She also moderates Genome Editing Chat, an educational webinar series supported by GenE-HumDi in collaboration with CRISPR Medicine News.
Her research aims to advance genome editing technologies for more reliable and precise editing outcomes, a crucial requirement for therapeutic applications.
About GenE-HumDi - Genome Editing for the Treatment of Human Disease Network
The principal aim of the GenE-HumDi Action is to bring together pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, science and regulatory agencies, biotechnology firms, patient advocacy associations and information technology, in order to tackle knowledge fragmentation with the aim to accelerate the translation of gene-editing technologies for the treatment of human diseases.
GenE-HumDi is supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), which is a funding organisation for research and innovation networks operating in Europe since 1971. In their organisation, GenE-HumDi nourishes from the idea exchange of Management Committee (MC) members from over 24 EU Countries. MC and other members are organised into Working Groups (WG) to distribute GenE-HumDi's workload and allocate specific questions to dedicated experts in each field.
Dr Karim BENABDELLAH
Action Chair
0034958 715 500
Dr Alessia CAVAZZA
Action Vice Chair
02079052787