Dennis Plenker

Dennis Plenker, Ph.D. is the Senior Director of Research & Innovation at Xilis Inc. He earned his Ph.D. in Genetics at the Institute of Translational Genomics at the University of Cologne. Dennis is passionate about using ex vivo patient models for functional precision medicine, toxicology and to ultimately improve patient care and enable new biology. At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Dennis led the human 3D organoid platform, where he and his team established more than 100 organoids for the Human Cancer Model Initiative, contributing to a collection of more than 330 human organoids from various cancers, pre-cancerous lesions and normal tissue. His work included building and operating high-throughput screening platforms, developing optimized reagents for 3D cultures, and helping to initiate the PASS-01 clinical trial (NCT04469556) to evaluate the clinical feasibility of organoids. Since then, Dennis worked at the Organoid group at Loxo Oncology at Lilly before transitioning to Xili