Team

Our Team

AnaPath is recognized for the scientific competence in toxicologic pathology, high operational speed and reliability. The field of experience is surprisingly wide for a young company due to our history. Therefore we have the strength to support development of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agrochemicals, medical devices just to name a few areas. Furthermore, our work combines not only the core business of toxicological pathology but also neuropathology, inhalation pathology, bone marrow evaluations, immunological processes, pathology in unusual laboratory species (fish, amphibian, birds, and invertebrates), hard material techniques immunohistochemistry/TCR, foetal pathology and image analysis. Our clients benefit from the scientific excellence of our team in the areas of anatomy, toxicologic pathology, biomedical engineering, genetics or regulatory toxicology regardless if they need support in pathology re-evaluation of an unexpected finding or design a complex pre-clinical safety assessment package.

 

With more than 30 years professional experience, he started his career as DVM and later MS (biologist) at AWD Germed in East Germany, trained in human pathology in 1989/1990, before leaving in 1991 to join RCC Ltd Switzerland as a toxicologic pathologist. From 1992 onwards was Head of Pathology at RCC Ltd/Global Director Pathology Harlan Laboratories Ltd and from 1997 onwards as CSO of Harlan Inc. He joined AnaPath GmbH in 2005.

He is experienced in all laboratory species, including birds, fish and invertebrates, from short-term, long-term and oncogenicity studies with specialties in neuropathology, inhalation pathology, sperm and ovary staging and bone marrow evaluation.

She has more than 25 years professional experience. She started her career in human anatomy in 1990 at the Institute of Anatomy, Medizinische Akademie Dresden, Germany before leaving in 1992 to the Institute of Anatomy, University Bern, Switzerland and became in 2001 an independent consultant/teacher for anatomy. She founded AnaPath GmbH, Switzerland in 2005. In 2019 she completed further training as a Master of Advance Studies FHO in Information Science: museum work, archive and medical collections. 

Pathologist with more than 20 years professional experience in academia and pharmaceutic industry. After graduation form the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Bucharest Romania he started his career at the Institute for Diagnosis Animal Health in Bucharest Romania as DVM (Veterinary Specialist in Laboratory Diagnosis) and then worked as research scientist / molecular and veterinary pathologist at the Institute for Veterinary-Pathology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen Germany, at the Department of Pathology University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover Germany and further as molecular and discovery pathologist at Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland. He is holding a Dr. med. vet. title in Molecular Veterinary Medicine awarded with summa cum laude by the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany and the Graduate College “Veterinary Molecular Medicine” Giessen Germany and a PhD title in Pathology (molecular neuropathology) awarded by the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover Germany and the Center for Systems Neuroscience Hannover Germany. Robert Kreutzer is experienced in molecular and discovery pathology (i.e. evaluation of animal models), Neuroscience, Oncology and in advanced microscopy approaches (i.e. TEM, multispectral and confocal microscopy).

She started her career at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland and worked as pathologist at the Institute of Veterinary Pathology, University of Zurich before joining RCC Ltd Switzerland/Harlan Laboratories Ltd in 2006 as a toxicologic pathologist.

She joined AnaPath GmbH in 2011. She is experienced in rodents and non-rodents in short-term and long-term studies.

Dr. Yoshimasa Okazaki

DVM, PhD, Toxicologic Pathologist, Diplomate JSTP, Diplomate JCVP

Yoshimasa started his career as toxicologic pathologist in 1989 at the pharmaceutical company in Japan, Dainippon Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., after graduating from the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of Miyazaki University, Japan. From 1994 onwards, he gained experience in the field of toxicology and toxicologic pathology at “Astellas Pharma Inc.” and at the non-clinical Contract Research Organizations “Mitsubishi Chemical Safety Institute Ltd.”, “Harlan Laboratories Ltd.”, and the “Institute of Environmental Toxicology (IET)”.

Yoshimasa Okazaki returned to AnaPath GmbH in 2019 as toxicologic pathologist with more than 25 years of experience in rodents and non-rodents in short-term, long-term and oncogenicity studies. His specialty is in cardiovascular pathology and neurotoxicology.

Dr. Laura Polledo Ruiz

DVM, MVM, PhD, Dipl. ECVP

After completing her veterinary medicine studies in 2008 Laura undertook a PhD focusing on the neuropathology caused by an ovine retrovirus (a HIV animal model) at the University of Leon (Spain), where she was also involved in the diagnostic pathology service. In 2012 she founded a private pathology lab, “Micros”, which focussed on providing diagnostic and toxicologic pathology services to Northern Spain. Laura enrolled on a 3-year combined residency-research program at the University of Nottingham (UK) in 2015.

Laura joined AnaPath as toxicologic pathologist in 2019 after achieving the Board certification from the European College of Veterinary Pathology.

Dr. Jürgen Laufs

With over 30 years experience in life science, Jürgen has a broad scientific background from drug target discovery to pre-clinical safety assessment. As Program Manager for the former Harlan Ltd (Switzerland) he managed over 35 Phase I enabling safety packages, before being appointed as Strategic Alliance Manager for major clients. Based on his cross-functional experience he manages the Safety Alliance at AnaPath and takes care of commercial business aspects.

Susanne Paepke

In 2002, she started her career as a laboratory technician in the pathology department of Harlan Laboratories Ltd. From 2013 onwards she moved to AnaPath GmbH in the same position and took over the responsibility of the principal investigator for histology and the organization of the laboratory, one year later. After this many years of experience in the GLP environment and the organization of the histology laboratory, Susanne moved to the position of Test Facility Manager in October 2016.

Ing. BioMed. Nils Warfving

Nils is currently managing Special Technologies, Medical Devices and IT at AnaPath. Coming from the engineering disciplines, but with a lifelong passion for life science, Nils brings new perspectives to solve unusual challenges outside the scope of routine histopathology. He maintain and overview the IT systems and are currently involved in the set-up of a new LIMAS system. In the sector of Medical Devices he is leading both the commercial aspects and the study project management. Additionally, Nils is overviewing AnaPath’s internal and outsourced Special Technologies projects. At present, the capabilities of advanced artificial intelligence image analysis software is being explored and increased; opening up new possibilities for quantitative data evaluation at AnaPath.

Dipl. Biol. Abdallah Ben Abdeljelil

Ben Abdeljelil has university degrees in Biology and Biotechnology. He has more than 20 years of experience in pre-clinical CRO (e,g. Harlan Laboratories) where he held positions as study director, team leader and fetal pathologist. He has deep experience in the areas of reproductive toxicology, cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and molecular target localization and characterization. At AnaPath, in his role as Principal Investigator / Study Director, Mr Ben Abdeljelil is providing scientific support to client projects. Ben Abdeljelil is our fetal pathologist and is leading the immunohistochemistry/TCR laboratory.

Dr. Roman Schönauer

He is a cell biologist with a doctoral degree from ETH Zürich and with more than 15 years of experience in biomedical research. After his PhD in the field of muscle proteins, he moved on as a postdoctoral fellow to the University Hospital Zürich (Cardiovascular Surgery Research), where he focused on cellular/molecular alterations in cardiomyopathies as well as on cardiovascular tissue engineering. Starting from 2011, he was a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Anatomy, University of Bern, where he analyzed the role of several factors on membrane repair in human cells. He has a broad experience in cell and molecular biological research, immunohistochemistry, advanced microscopical techniques as well as image analysis. As principal investigator of studies in the field of immunohistochemistry and special technologies, he provides valuable scientific support to the client. He joined AnaPath in 2018.

Nina Häuselmann

After solid experience at the laboratory bench of the Swiss pharmaceutical industries, Nina moved into the field of Quality Assurance. In 2005 she took over responsibility in QA  at Harlan Laboratories Ltd. (former RCC Ltd) in Switzerland. Later, Nina founded the Häuselmann Consulting GmbH and today Nina serves with her team as external QA provider to AnaPath where they also have their offices. In addition she supports international clients as independent QA auditors and consultants.

Dr. Aléthéa Liens

Aléthéa has a Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering with a PhD on dental implantology materials from The National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of Lyon (France).vHer PhD was realized in close collaboration to a dental implant company for which she has been working closely for 5 years. Her research was mainly focused on the development and characterization of innovative materials for dental applications. After finishing her PhD, Aléthéavworked as a pre-clinical and translational research scientist in one of the dental implant company leaders on the market. Aléthéa has a strong and extensive expertise in metallurgy, mainly on biomedical grade titanium alloys and metallic glasses, advanced ceramics including zirconia, mechanical testing, dental implantology, dentistry, osseointegration of bone, pre-clinical evaluation and characterization techniques such as TEM, SEM, EDX, XRD or EBSD. Aléthéa works as a Principal Investigator and Project Manager in the Special Technologies and Medical Devices Department at Anapath since August 2020 for supporting, implementing and conducting complex investigations.

Dr. Olivia Richard

Dr. med. vet., Veterinary Pathologist, Diplomate ECVP

Olivia studied veterinary medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland. After her studies, she acquired her doctoral degree in the field of vaccine testing and optimization at the Institute of Animal Pathology (ITPA), Vetsuisse Faculty at the University of Bern. Based on her work, the recommended vaccination schema against Clostridium perfringens type C was optimized.

Olivia completed the residency program from the European College of Veterinary Pathology (ECVP) at the ITPA under the guidance of Prof. Horst Posthaus and Prof. Sven Rottenberg. In the residency program, Olivia focused on diagnostic necropsies and biopsies of companion animals, farm animals and wildlife.

Olivia joined AnaPath as a toxicologic pathologist in 2021.