SLAS Welcomes Three New Board Members

Oak Brook, IL – The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) welcomed three industry professionals to its Board of Directors beginning January 22, 2021.

Manuela Beil-Peter is Director of Business Sector Liquid Handling and Automation at Analytik Jena GmbH (Jena, Germany). She joined SLAS’s European Industry Advisory Committee in 2012 and helped form the Sample Management Special Interest Group (SIG) and the annual European Sample Management Symposium. Beil-Peter was instrumental in the planning of the first SLAS European Conference and Exhibition in Brussels in 2018 and will work to enhance the transfer of knowledge and education around the world.

Jan Lichtenberg, Ph.D., is CEO and co-founder of InSphero AG (Schlieren, Switzerland). Lichtenberg is a microfluidics engineer working on 3D cell-based, automated in-vitro assays and is also a start-up entrepreneur. With InSphero based in the center of Europe, he will support SLAS’s efforts to expand its membership in the region. Lichtenberg will serve as secretary on the SLAS Board of Directors.

Jonathan O’Connell, Ph.D., is Vice President of Early Discovery and Technology, at Valo Health (Boston, MA, USA), a technology company uniting human and machine intelligence aimed at accelerating the creation of life-changing medical treatments. An active member of the SLAS community for many years, O’Connell has chaired the SLAS Knowledge Content and Delivery Council (KCDC) and Scientific Program Advisory Committee (SPAC). He was co-chair of the SLAS 2013 International Conference and Exhibition and has presented at and led multiple SLAS conferences over the years. O’Connell’s career has been focused on a number of core aspects of SLAS, from screening, automation and compound management to assay design, drug discovery, informatics and target validation.

SLAS board members are representative of the diverse SLAS membership, which includes academic, industry and government researchers as well as developers and providers of laboratory automation technologies. The board is responsible for strategic leadership of the society and advises on the future direction of the society and its programs.

Beil-Peter, Lichtenberg and O’Connell join current board members:

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SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.

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