MIMIC started with its kick-off meeting in Leiden, Netherlands where the partners came together to discuss the recruitment strategy and other organisational matters. The first training event for the fellows was a fellow-own meeting organised by the fellows themselves. This meeting took place in Sheffield/York, UK. The fellows invited two external speakers and MIMIC logo, Facebook and Twitter account were established. Annual meetings of MIMIC were held in Leiden, Netherlands, where fellows reported on their individual project progress and further collaborations between partners were outlined. MIMIC fellows have also attended a workshop I: ‘Bioethics and Advanced Communication skills’ and performed at least three experimental training stations to acquire expertise in certain techniques provided by the consortium. MIMIC has organised a total of four workshops as well as a MIMIC school and a final scientific meeting. Workshop II (Project Management, Innovation & Creativity for Research) was run in January 2018 in Sheffield. The purpose of this workshop was to provide fellows with the opportunity to learn about the process of creativity and innovation. A MIMIC school was organised as an event comprising “Organ-on-a-Chip Technologies Network Learning and Collaborative Event 2019” and the ITN-MIMIC school “Mimicking organs on chips for high throughput drug screening and basic research” in April 2019 in London. Workshop III (Mini-MBA) was run in two parts, where the first part was prepared and run as webinars. All MIMIC ESRs took also part in the BioYES (Biotechnology YES) business plan competition 2018. BioYES (Biotechnology YES) is an innovative competition designed to develop business awareness and an understanding of entrepreneurship in postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Our MIMIC fellows won the price for best intellectual property strategy. Workshop IV – Career Development was run in August 2019 in Leiden, the Netherlands. The final scientific conference, which took place in June 2019 in de Doelen Conference Center in Rotterdam in the Netherlands allowed MIMIC fellows to present their scientific data to a broad scientific community.
Overview of results and dissemination:
MIMIC has established successfully novel 3D in vitro models for inflammatory bowel disease and Lowe syndrome suitable for drug and drug target screening. A gut on chip model and a variation of this model mimicking the inflamed gut have been published in peer reviewed journals. Fellows have presented their research at a total of six international meetings in the form of posters. Furthermore, there are currently three additional publications with MIMIC fellows as first author in preparation.
