Dirk Löffert, PhD
CEO & Co-Founder
Dirk is co-founder of DESIGN PHARMACEUTICALS and BIOMILLENIA. He brings more than 25 years of experience in product development and commercialisation in the Life Sciences industry. After obtaining his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Cologne, Germany, Dirk joined QIAGEN, a global leader in Life Sciences and Molecular Diagnostics products, where he held the positions at the German headquarter as VP, Global head of Product Development Life Sciences, and, in the US, as VP Research of Molecular Diagnostics. He has a proven track record in building high growth profitable product portfolios with >€660 mio organic revenues (1998-2019) and has authored numerous patents. He brings experience from having internationally managed product development teams and programs including integration of acquired businesses.
Guansheng Du, PhD
Head Of Microfluidics
Guansheng studied chemistry at Zhejiang University, China. He then obtained a joint PhD from Zhejiang University, China, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands and Philips Research on the topic of microfluidic platforms for cell analysis and high-throughput screening. Guansheng joined Biomillenia, leading the technology development on microfluidics engineering and ultrahigh-throughput screening, after his Postdoc at École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles (ESPCI, ParisTech) in Paris, France.
Alex Dajkovic, PhD
Senior Director of R&D, Head of Scientific Collaborations
Alex has more than 10 years research and project management experience in microbiology. After obtaining his PhD in Microbiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, USA his research projects were funded twice by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO, Heidelberg, Germany) and he has conducted microbiology research at several high-impact international institutions such as at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) at Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Paris, France, as well as at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and at University of California in Irvine, USA. He is currently attending a program at the medical school of Université Paris Diderot in Paris for a diploma to become a chief investigator for clinical trials. He leads the microbiology research and discovery activities at Biomillenia.
Maxence Desjonquères
Head of Business Development
Maxence is a professional of international business development in the healthcare sector with a wide vision of pharma BD: sales of finished products (drugs, dietary supplements, medical devices); sales of CDMO services and licensing of Intellectual Property. Beside his core BD skills and 10 years in marketing, working in medium size organizations gave him the opportunity to develop a good understanding of IP, regulatory, product development, contractual negotiation, management (teams and projects), finance, GMP manufacturing in a pharmaceutical environment.
Unai Escribano Vázquez
Team Lead Microbiology
Unai obtained his bachelor’s in biology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. He completed a master’s degree at the AgroParisTech engineering school and then continued to a PhD in microbiology and physiopathology at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He has more than five years of research and project management experience in microbiology and physiopathology, always in relation to intestinal microbiota. He coordinates all the activities of Biomillenia in the microbiological assays and the strain banking.
Céline Béranger
Head Of Administration
Céline begin her career assisting in the Immunology laboratory at the Institut Curie, where she gained her first experience of the R&D life science environment. A scientist in that lab created a start-up and asked her to join this newly formed team in charge of administrative organisation. Since then, her work in biotech has evolved, via companies including HiFiBiO, to her becoming the Head of Administration in Biomillenia, handling everything from accounting to HR to office management to scientist support.
Team Publications
Thai, H., Rangwala, S., Gay, T., Keating, K., McLeod, S., Nazarenko, I., O`Neil, D., Pfister, D., Loeffert. Journal of Clinical Virology 45(1): S93-S97, 2009.
Q Lou, Y Ma, SP Zhao, GS Du, Q Fang. Talanta 224, 121874.
A microfluidic droplet array system for cell-based drug combination screening
GS Du, JZ Pan, SP Zhao, Y Zhu, JMJ den Toonder, Q Fang. Cell-Based Microarrays, 203-211.
Application of nano-materials in phenol formaldehyde resin
Q Fang, G Du, H Cui. China Adhesives 17 (4), 44.
Cell-based drug combination screening with a microfluidic droplet array system
GS Du, JZ Pan, SP Zhao, Y Zhu, JMJ den Toonder, Q Fang. Analytical chemistry 85 (14), 6740-6747.
Cell-based schedule dependent drug combination screening with a droplet-based microfluidic system
G Du, JMJ den Toonder, Q Fang. 16th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life.
G Du, A Ravetto, Q Fang, JMJ den Toonder. Biomedical microdevices 13 (1), 29-40.
Chromatographic analysis device employing multi-function integrated probe, and use method
F Qun, JIN Di Qiong, JZ Pan, GS DU. US Patent App. 17/273,181.
Construction of a Sequencing Library from Circulating Cell-Free DNA.
Fang N, Loeffert D, Akinci-Tolun R, Heitz K, Wolf A. Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. 2016; 114:7.25.1-7.25.13.
Cross-linking FtsZ polymers into coherent Z rings.
Dajkovic A, Pichoff S, Lutkenhaus J, Wirtz D. Mol Microbiol. 2010 Nov;78(3):651-68. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2010.07352.x.
Distribution of Human papillomavirus load in clinical specimens.
Lowe, B., O`Neil, D., Loeffert, D., Nazarenko, I. Journal of Virological Methods 173(1): 150-152, 2011.
Droplet array-based 3D coculture system for high-throughput tumor angiogenesis assay
X Du, W Li, G Du, H Cho, M Yu, Q Fang, LP Lee, J Fang. Analytical chemistry 90 (5), 3253-3261.
LF Cai, Y Zhu, GS Du, Q Fang. Analytical chemistry 84 (1), 446-452.
Dynamic Organization of SecA and SecY Secretion Complexes in the B. subtilis Membrane.
Dajkovic A, Hinde E, MacKichan C, Carballido-Lopez R. PLoS One. 2016 Jun 23;11(6):e0157899. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157899. eCollection 2016.
Early B cell development in the mouse: Insights from mutations introduced by gene targeting
Loeffert, D., Schaal, S., Ehlich, A., Hardy, R.R., Zou, Y.-R., Müller, W. and Rajewsky, K. Immunol. Rev. 137: 135-153, 1994.
FtsZ-Dependent Elongation of a Coccoid Bacterium.
Pereira AR, Hsin J, Król E, Tavares AC, Flores P, Hoiczyk E, Ng N, Dajkovic A, Brun YV, VanNieuwenhze MS, Roemer T, Carballido-Lopez R, Scheffers DJ, Huang KC, Pinho MG. mBio. 2016 Sep 6;7(5):e00908-16. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00908-16.
Dajkovic A, Tesson B, Chauhan S, Courtin P, Keary R, Flores P, Marlière C, Filipe SR, Chapot-Chartier MP, Carballido-Lopez R. Mol Microbiol. 2017 Jun;104(6):972-988. doi: 10.1111/mmi.13673. Epub 2017 Apr 24.
Dajkovic A, Mukherjee A, Lutkenhaus J. J Bacteriol. 2008 Apr;190(7):2513-26. doi: 10.1128/JB.01612-07. Epub 2008 Feb 1.
Tesson B, Dajkovic A, Keary R, Marlière C, Dupont-Gillain CC, Carballido-López R. Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 21;12(1):1137. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-04294-5.
Microfluidic cytometer based on dual photodiode detection for cell size and deformability analysis
QQ Ji, GS Du, MJ van Uden, Q Fang, JMJ den Toonder. Talanta 111, 178-182.
Microfluidics for cell-based high throughput screening platforms—A review
G Du, Q Fang, JMJ den Toonder. Analytica chimica acta 903, 36-50.
Microfluidic droplet-array liquid–liquid chromatography based on droplet trapping technique
Y Zhu, H Chen, GS Du, Q Fang. Lab on a Chip 12 (21), 4350-4354.
MinC and FtsZ mutant analysis provides insight into MinC/MinD-mediated Z ring disassembly.
Park KT, Dajkovic A, Wissel M, Du S, Lutkenhaus J. J Biol Chem. 2018 Apr 20;293(16):5834-5846. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.815894. Epub 2018 Feb 2.
MinC spatially controls bacterial cytokinesis by antagonizing the scaffolding function of FtsZ.
Dajkovic A, Lan G, Sun SX, Wirtz D, Lutkenhaus J. Curr Biol. 2008 Feb 26;18(4):235-44. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.042.
Molecular screening tools and personalized healthcare: Determining success early in drug development.
Loeffert, D. Drug Discovery News, (5) 5, 2011.
Multi-dimensional on-particle detection technology for multi-category disease classification
J Tan, X Chen, G Du, Q Luo, X Li, Y Liu, X Liang, J Wu. Chemical Communications 52 (17), 3490-3493.
Paradigms of Lung Microbiota Functions in Health and Disease, Particularly, in Asthma
Mathieu Elliot, Escribano-Vazquez Unai, Descamps Delphyne, Cherbuy Claire, Langella Philippe, Riffault Sabine, Remot Aude, Thomas Muriel. Front. Physiol., 21 August 2018
Polymerization and bundling kinetics of FtsZ filaments.
Lan G, Dajkovic A, Wirtz D, Sun SX. Biophys J. 2008 Oct;95(8):4045-56. doi: 10.1529/biophysj.108.132837. Epub 2008 Jul 11.
Probing viscoelastic properties of cells using a microfluidic device
G Du, Q Fang, JMJ den Toonder
Quantitative, high-resolution CpG methylation assays on the Pyrosequencing platform.
Loeffert, D., Peist, R., Ruetjes, T., Hochstein, N., Honsel, D., Narz, F., Andreou, A., Kroon, R., Missel, A., Linnemann-Florl, A., Suckau, L., Schock, G. Chapter in: Epigenomics: From Chromatin Biology to Therapeutics. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
RNAi: A robust tool for target identification and validation.
Yerramilli, S., Lader, E., Loeffert, D., Wilmer, F., Hahn, P., Scanlan, E. Pharmaceutical Discovery 5(6): 20-28, 2005.
Simulation of cell deformation in a microfluidic cross-slot device
G Du, Q Fang, JMJ den Toonder. Mate Poster Award 2008: 13th Annual Poster Contest.
Storage of serum peptide information in nanoporous silicon microparticles
J Tan, X Li, G Du, A Pan, J Wu. Chemical Communications 50 (18), 2334-2337.
Engel, H., Kueppers, C., Loeffert, D. Biotechniques 43(2):230-231, 2007.
Loeffert, D., Ehlich, A., Müller, W. & Rajewsky. Immunity 4: 133-144, 1996.
Unai Escribano-Vazquez 1,Claudia Beimfohr 2,Deborah Bellet 1ORCID,Muriel Thomas 1ORCID,Kurt Zimmermann 3,4,Philippe Langella 1 and Claire Cherbuy 1. Microorganisms 2020, 8(4), 512
Unai Escribano-Vazquez, Sophie Verstraeten, Rebeca Martin, Florian Chain, Philippe Langella, Muriel Thomas & Claire Cherbuy. Sci Rep 9, 11431 (2019).
Rebeca Martín, Celia Chamignon, Nadia Mhedbi-Hajri, Florian Chain, Muriel Derrien, Unai Escribano-Vázquez, Peggy Garault, Aurélie Cotillard, Hang Phuong Pham, Christian Chervaux, Luis G. Bermúdez-Humarán, Tamara Smokvina & Philippe Langella. Sci Rep 9, 5398 (2019).
Unbegrenzte DNA Analysen durch Multiple Displacement Amplification.
Schock, G., Gildehaus, N., Lubenow, H., Loeffert, D. and Christian Korfhage. Biospektrum 6: 781-782, 2005.
Whole-Genome Amplification of Single-Cell Genomes for Next-Generation Sequencing.
Korfhage, C., Fisch, E., Fricke, E., Baedker, S. and Loeffert, D. Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. 2013; 104:7.14.1–7.14.11.
Z ring as executor of bacterial cell division.
Dajkovic A, Lutkenhaus J. J Mol Microbiol Biotechnol. 2006;11(3-5):140-51. doi: 10.1159/000094050