Lucia Micutkova is currently leading the Gene Therapy Upstream Process Development team at Takeda at the facility Orth in Austria. Together with her team she focuses on cell line and upstream process development, as well as exploration of innovative upstream process solutions focused on automation and digitalization. Lucia joined Takeda in 2012, where she started as a scientist working on cell line development and establishment of cell culture processes for diverse cell types and products. During her time with the company, she was active in various positions and gained a lot of expertise in process development of gene therapy and recombinant products. Prior to joining Takeda, she has pursued scientific career in the field of stress response pathways at the Institute for Experimental Endocrinology in Bratislava and aging-related mechanisms at the Institute for Biomedical Aging Research in Innsbruck. Lucia holds a Masters degree in Molecular Biology and PhD in Biochemistry.