iL-CURRENT
April 8, 2025
Roman Zantl from ibidi: "Cocktail of exciting ingredients"
Dr. Roman Zantl and his partner Dr. Valentin Kahl founded a company in the basement of the University of Munich while he was still working on his doctorate. To be precise: ibidi GmbH was founded in 2001 as a spin-off from TUM and the Center for Nanoscience at LMU Munich. Today, the successful company from Gräfelfing is one of the leading national and international providers of systems that make it possible to analyze cells under almost life-like conditions. Ibidi therefore supplies tools for biotech solutions.
At the LIFE SCIENCE TECH DAY on April 29 in Heidelberg, Roman Zantl will shed light on the role of microfluidics in organ-on-chip applications in his presentation. iL conducted the following expert interview with him in advance.
Mr. Zantl, as the founder and CEO of ibidi GmbH, what motivated you to be one of the speakers at the "Organ-on-Chip" InnovationLab workshop in Heidelberg?
Roman Zantl: Ibidi is based on enthusiasm for technology and the topic of organ-on-chip is a cocktail of exciting ingredients: novel biomaterials, high-end microscopy techniques, innovative fluidic solutions for long-term cell cultures and corresponding sample carriers. This is exactly the environment in which we feel technologically at home.
Why Ibidi analyzed cells under realistic conditions. Why is the topic OoC from the perspective of a trained physicist and biophysicist so topical and important?
Zantl: One of our most important goals is to make biological experiments more precisely quantifiable and reproducible. Linked to this is the question of where the sometimes strong scatter in biological experiments comes from: from inaccurate cell behavior or from inaccurately defined environmental variables. I believe that biologists, chemists and physicists should work together to improve the quality and reproducibility of bioscientific experiments.
Dr. Roman Zantl states: "One of the main technical challenges is to make the samples relevant." Image: ibidi
"Search for meaningful models"
Which technological challenges must in the research and corporate sector solved be solved, to serious diseases better to understand and treat to be able to treat?
Zantl: The combination of image recognition using machine learning with the range of microscopy techniques will make it possible in the next few years to collect unlimited high-quality data from biological samples and to parameterize and evaluate them quantitatively. In my view, one of the main technical challenges is to make the samples relevant, in the sense that the observed effects are actually typical of the physiological environment.
Are is there tangible examples of OoCtechnologies in the industry? How decisive are decisive then reliable market analysis?
Zantl: Cerebral endothelial cells can be seen as an organoid model for the blood-brain barrier. I am also aware of specific applications with organoids from cartilage cells, lung cells and skin cells. On the other hand, it is not yet clear to me in what form organoid cultures will make the most progress in drug development. In fact, I consider the search for sufficiently simple and at the same time meaningful models to be a very exciting topic of our time.
The two founders of ibidi GmbH once started out in the basement of the University of Munich: Dr. Valentin Kahl (l.) and Dr. Roman Zantl (r.). Picture: ibidi
What is your personal view on the broad subject area OoC and to the opportunities of personalized medicine?
Zantl: I think it is very likely that cell cultures derived from patients will contribute to the progress of personalized medicine. However, we are still at the beginning when it comes to understanding organoids. Huge efforts will still be needed in science and industry to make cell behavior in vitro cell cultures sufficiently comparable with living organisms in order to derive therapeutic guidelines on a large scale or even to reimplant autologous material.
How arrange do you Expectation horizon, network requirements and conceivable results from and for ibidi at the iL-workshop one?
Zantl: I am looking forward to introducing ibidi in an environment that is new to me. We are always looking for groups that have expertise in biological systems and interesting questions that we can tackle with our technologies. We are just as happy to work with partners from academia and industry if the technologies complement each other well and joint projects could be promising for interesting products, naturally also in the form of funded projects.
About the person
Roman Zantl founded ibidi with three colleagues during his doctorate at the Technical University of Munich in 2001 and has been responsible for research and development as well as sales ever since. Together with his team, he developed a number of now widely used tools for cell-based microscopy assays, such as culture inserts for excluded-area assays for wound healing, a perfusion system for long-term shear stress experiments on endothelial cells and a range of different flow chambers.
Together with his colleagues at ibidi and his co-CEO Valentin Kahl, he succeeded in turning ibidi into a well-known life science supplier whose products have been used to publish over 45,000 peer-reviewed publications.
About ibidi GmbH
Gräfelfing-based ibidi GmbH is a leading provider of functional cell-based assays and products for cell microscopy. The extensive product range offers solutions for classic cell culture as well as for complex assays such as angiogenesis, chemotaxis or wound healing.
ibidi's products facilitate the understanding of the development and treatment of various diseases. ibidi's customers work worldwide in research institutions, in the research-based pharmaceutical industry and in biotechnology. The products are distributed worldwide.
Information about the LIFE SCIENCE TECH DAY
Further information on the procedure and registration can be found on our website at
https://www.innovationlab.de/life‒science‒tech‒day‒2025
Registration ends on April 22, one week before the workshop on April 29. Catering will be provided at InnovationLab's "iL.Connect.Space" premises.
Joachim Klaehn
Head of Communications
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