Symposia Keynote Speakers
(in alphabetical order by last name)
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Ernesto Alfaro-Moreno
Ernesto Alfaro-Moreno is an European Registered Toxicologist (ERT) and Group Leader of the Nanosafety research area at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL). His work focuses on understanding the interactions between nanomaterials and biological systems, with particular emphasis on mechanisms of particle-induced toxicity, advanced in vitro models, and predictive approaches for human health risk assessment. He has contributed extensively to interdisciplinary efforts linking nanotechnology, toxicology, and materials science to support the development of safe-by-design nanomaterials and biomedical technologies. At INL, he leads collaborative projects addressing regulatory-relevant testing strategies and translational safety evaluation and during the last four years he has been coordinator of the iCare project, devoted to evaluate the neuronanosafety of advanced materials.
Dr. Jennifer Ashworth
Dr Jennifer Ashworth is a research group leader and Assistant Professor in Biomaterials and Complex Tissue Models at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her main research interest is designing tissue-mimetic biomaterials for 3D cell and organoid culture, with a particular focus on replicating extracellular matrix organisation. She completed her PhD in materials science at the University of Cambridge, UK, and now uses approaches from biomaterials science to characterise cell-matrix interactions in normal tissue and in disease progression. Her work developing animal-free peptide gels for 3D culture was recognised by a highly commended award from the International 3Rs Prize, and has now been commercialised through the University of Nottingham spin-out company PeptiMatrix, of which she is co-founder.
Dr. Ana Beloqui
Dr. Ana Beloqui is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work spans chemistry, enzymology, nanotechnology, and applied polymer chemistry. She leads the PolyZymes Lab at POLYMAT Institute (Spain), where she has pioneered a research line focused on combining proteins and polymers to create advanced functional materials. These hybrids are meticulously designed to enhance the stability of functional proteins and expand their use in applications such as sensing, therapeutics, and bioremediation. With more than 70 original peer-reviewed research works, her contributions to the field have been recognized with the “Best Young Group Leader” award by the Group of Chemical Biology of the Spanish Royal Chemical Society.
Dr. João Borges
Dr. João Borges is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Chemistry and CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. His research focuses on the molecular design, synthesis and development of chemically programmable and dynamic supramolecular multicomponent biomaterials to be used as bioinstructive matrices to control cell functions and as platforms for controlled drug/therapeutics/cell delivery. He currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry B (RSC) and as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Medical Technology. He is a member of the RSC Biomaterials Chemistry Group and several scientific societies. He is a Chemistry Europe Fellow (Class 2022/2023) and has been recognized as an Emerging Investigator by Biomaterials Science (RSC, 2025) and Journal of Materials Chemistry B (RSC, 2023). He has been also actively invested in science communication, outreach, policy and diplomacy as a member of the Global Young Academy, Young Academy of Europe, and Young Scientists Seminar of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Ruth Cameron
Professor Ruth Cameron FREng is Professor Materials Science at the University of Cambridge and was Joint Head of Department from 2020-2025. Together with Professor Serena Best she directs the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials and she is also a fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In recent years, she has been awarded the UK Society for Biomaterials President’s Prize, the IOM3 Griffith Medal and Prize, the IOP Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize, and the Suffrage Science Award. She has held an ERC Advanced Grant in 3D engineered environments for regenerative medicine and, with Serena Best, held the first jointly held £1.7 million EPSRC Established Career Fellowship.
Gianni Ciofani
Gianni Ciofani, Ph.D., is Senior Researcher Tenured at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia -Italian Institute of Technology, IIT- (Italy), where he is Principal Investigator of the Smart Bio-Interfaces Research Unit and Coordinator of the Center for Materials Interfaces. He has been Associate Professor at the Polytechnic University of Torino (Italy; 2015-2019) and Visiting Professor at Waseda University (Japan; 2021) and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil; 2024). His main research interests concern smart nanomaterials for nanomedicine, microphysiological systems, and nanomedicine in altered gravity conditions.
Dr. Sophie Cox
Dr Sophie Cox is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Her research team, the Centre for Custom Medical Devices, focuses on the exploitation of additive manufacturing technologies for skeletal implants. Through developing new fundamental understanding of metal additive manufacturing technologies, the team apply this knowledge to refine design and process parameters specifically for skeletal devices. Beyond this they aim to improve patient outcomes by creating novel metabiomaterials achieved by aligning novel material functionalities with high quality production of intricate porous device designs.
Paul Delrot
Paul Delrot is CEO and co-founder of Readily3D. Paul co-invented the volumetric bioprinting technology at the end of his PhD studies in 2017 at EPFL, Switzerland. After transferring what was a lab experiment into a standalone and user-friendly 3D printer, Paul co-founded Readily3D in 2020. Since then, Paul has focused on demonstrating the wide range of applications enabled by volumetric bioprinting while leading product development at Readily3D.
Rui Domingues
Rui M. A. Domingues is a Research Group Leader at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Portugal, where he leads an interdisciplinary research program at the interface of nanotechnology, biomaterials, biofabrication, and microphysiological systems. Trained as a chemist, he received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Aveiro and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Minho and as a visiting researcher at The University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on nanostructured biomaterials and human microphysiological tendon models to study disease mechanisms and develop regenerative strategies. He is an ERC Consolidator Grant recipient (FORTIFy) and actively contributes to the European regenerative medicine community through TERMIS-EU Strategic Alliance Committee and the TENET – Tendon Regeneration Network.
Dr. Christophe Drouet
Drouet is a CNRS Senior Scientist (eq. Full Professor), Deputy Director of the CIRIMAT laboratory at the University of Toulouse, France. PhD in (bio)Materials Sciences, he develops his research on the “Phosphates, Pharmacotechnics, Biomaterials” theme. A special focus in C. Drouet’s research relates to the development of bioactive calcium phosphate-based systems (e.g. with antimicrobial, hemostatic, anticancer or prohealing features) and their processing into actual multifunctional medical devices. In particular, bone-biomimetic nanocrystalline apatites are especially studied, as such or in association with (bio)organic components to yield smart hybrid biomaterials for use in activated bone regeneration and nanomedicine (in dermatology, oncology, hematology…). Cited each year in the 2% most Highly-Cited Researchers from the Stanford surveys, C. Drouet received two international awards, the honorary Racquel Legeros Award in June 2013 and the ISCM Excellence Award in 2016, for his contribution to the field of calcium phosphates research.
Prof. Dr. Laura De Laporte
Laura De Laporte combines engineering, chemistry and biology to design biomaterials that control and direct the interaction with cells. She is a Chemical Engineer from Ghent, where she got the tissue engineering microbe. To follow her dream, she did her PhD with Lonnie Shea at Northwestern University and engineered guiding implants for nerve regeneration. At EPFL, she learned about hydrogels in Jeffrey Hubbell’s group during her post-doctoral research. Since 2018, she is a Leibniz Professor at the RWTH University in Aachen, Germany, where she works on Macromolecular Materials for Medicine at the DWI-Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials. Her team designs injectable polymeric hydrogel precursors, consisting of nano –and micron-scale building blocks that interlink to form macroporous 3D cell scaffolds and organoids, orient after injection to grow anisotropic tissues, and actuate to include movement into the growing tissues.
Dr. Mohamed Elsawy
‘Dr Mohamed Elsawy is Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK. He obtained his PhD from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University of Belfast, UK. Following PhD, he did a postdoctoral training at the Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologie at University of Bordeaux (France) funded by the Campus France & at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester funded by the EPSRC. In 2017, he started the Peptide BioNanomaterials Group, with a research focus on understanding the fundamentals behind molecular self-assembly of peptides into bio-inspired nanostructures for the rational design of responsive and functional novel biomaterials. Dr Elsawy has authored >54 peer-reviewed and conference publications, secured >£2.4 M from UKRI and Charities, mentored >23 early-career researchers (both PhDs and PDRAs), and plays an active leadership role in the international biomaterials community through the European Society of Biomaterials and the Royal Society of Chemistry.’
Prof. Julien Gautrot
Julien Gautrot is Professor of Biomaterials and Biointerfaces in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary, University of London. After a PhD at Manchester University and postdoctoral research, first at the Universite de Montreal, then at the University of Cambridge, he joined QMUL as a lecturer in 2011. His research focuses on the development of biointerfaces and engineered biomaterials for stem cell technologies, gene delivery and regenerative medicine. In particular, his group has been exploring cross-talks between the physico-chemistry and biochemistry of soft biointerfaces (polymer brushes, hydrogels and protein assemblies) and the mechanical properties and microstructure of the cell microenvironment, and their impact on the regulation of cell adhesion and stem cell phenotype. Some of this work has led to the design of microfabricated platforms to investigate processes regulating cell phenotype and the engineering of organ-on-chip systems. These advanced in vitro models allow us to study more complex stem cell microenvironments such as the bone marrow and microvascular tissues, for example to investigate cancer progression and resistance to therapy. The Gautrot lab also pioneered novel approaches to investigate the impact of physico-chemical properties of gene delivery vectors on the complexation and release profile of RNA therapeutics and the impact such processes have on gene therapies.
Prof. Manuela E. Gomes
Manuela E. Gomes is a Professor and Codirector of the Bioengineering Program at the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS) of the University of Porto and Leader of the Research Group on Regenerative Medicine and 3D Tissue Modelling.
Her research interests focus on tissue engineering strategies using magnetic stimulus for the development of anisotropic scaffold materials and bioinks to trigger stem cells differentiation and/or to modulate inflammation, particularly for tendon regeneration. She has led several projects in these topics, including 2 ERC Grants. Currently her team is exploring similar concepts in the development of advanced 3D musculoskeletal tumours and models.
As a result of her research, she has a total of 350 indexed publications, that have received over 12.000 citations (web of Science).
Manuela Gomes is a Fellow of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (FTERM) and Fellow of International Orthopaedic Research (FIOR). She is the present Chair of the TERMIS- EU and Ambassador to Portugal of the EORS
Kunio Ishikawa
Kunio Ishikawa, PhD, is Chairman and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Biomaterials, Faculty of Dental Science, Kyushu University, Japan. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Osaka University in 1990. Following industrial experience at Toray Co., Ltd., he pursued an academic career in biomaterials and has led the Department of Biomaterials at Kyushu University since 2001. His research focuses on biomaterials for bone regeneration, implant materials, antibacterial biomaterials, and stem cell research using carbonate apatite. Professor Ishikawa has played leading roles in international and national biomaterials communities, serving as President of the Japanese Society for Biomaterials and the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine. He has received numerous awards, including the Medal with Purple Ribbon (2024) and the Commendation for Science and Technology from the Japanese Government.
Prof. Daniel Kelly
Professor Daniel Kelly holds the Chair of Tissue Engineering at Trinity College Dublin. The goal of his laboratory is to develop novel tissue engineering and 3D bioprinting strategies to regenerate damaged and diseased musculoskeletal tissues. To date he has published over 220 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and has successfully supervised over 25 PhD students to completion. He is the recipient of five European Research Council awards (Starter grant 2010; Consolidator grant 2015; Proof of Concept grant 2017, 2023; Advanced grant 2021), which have led to the development of new single stage strategies for bone and cartilage repair and innovations in 3D (bio)printing for the regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues. He is also a co-founder of Altach Biomedical (https://altach.health/), which is pioneering the development of extracellular matrix derived scaffolds to regenerate damaged knee joints.
Dr. Soohong Lee
Dr. Soo-Hong Lee is a Professor in the Department of Medical Biotechnology at Dongguk University. He earned his B.S. (1994), M.S. (1997), and Ph.D. (2002) degrees in Chemistry from Hanyang University and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Rice University. Dr. Lee began his academic career as a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Science at CHA University (2006–2018) and moved to Department of Biomedical Engineering at Dongguk University in 2018. His research focuses on biomaterials, tissue engineering, stem cell engineering, and cell therapy. He has published over 180 scientific papers, which have been cited more than 11,156 times (H-index = 51). Additionally, he holds more than 60 granted or pending patents. Dr. Lee has received numerous prestigious awards including Award Certificate from Ministry of Health and Welfare (2025), IUSBSE Fellow (2024), Grand Prize from the Korean Society for Biomaterials (2023).
Prof. Geetha Manivasagam
Prof. Geetha Manivasagam, PhD, is the Dean of the School of Healthcare Sciences and Engineering (SHINE) at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, and the founding Director of VIT’s Center for Biomaterials, Cellular and Molecular Theranostics (CBCMT), established in 2016 to translate healthcare products and innovations across diagnostics, therapeutics, and theranostics. She has published 150+ papers, with research spanning on biotribocorrosion, surface engineering of biomedical implants, additive manufacturing of novel alloys and biomimetic orthopaedic devices, and functionalization/coating of implant materials. She leads collaborative projects and product development with universities and industry, supported by a global network across 20+ countries. She has secured over €500k in research funding from major national granting bodies in India. Her honours include the Fulbright–Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship and recognition as the No. 1 scientist in Materials Science by the Government of India’s MHRD (2016), among other accolades. She also serves as Vice President of the Society for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine India (STERMI) and is an elected Fellow of the Society of Biomaterials and Artificial Organs India (SBAOI).
João F. Mano
João F. Mano is a Full Professor at the Chemistry Department of University of Aveiro, Portugal. He combines advanced biomaterials and cells towards multidisciplinary concepts in the field of regenerative and personalized medicine. Specifically, he utilizes biomimetic and nano/micro-technology approaches to develop polymer-based biomaterials for the creation of biomedical devices with enhanced structural and multi-functional properties. He also engineers microenvironments to regulate cell behavior and organization, with the goal of clinically applying these technologies in advanced therapies or in the bioengineering of disease models. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Materials Today Bio (Elsevier). He has been coordinating multiple research projects, including 2 Advanced Grants, 1 Synergy Grant, and 3 Proof-of-Concept Grants from the European Research Council. He received different honours, including two honoris causa doctorates (Univ. of Lorraine and Univ. Utrecht), the George Winter Award 2020 from the ESB and he was elected fellow FEurASc, FBSE and FAIMBE.
Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Moroni
Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Moroni received his Ph.D. cum laude in 2006 at University of Twente on 3D scaffolds for osteochondral regeneration, for which he was awarded the European doctorate award in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering from the European Society of Biomaterials (ESB).
Since 2014 he works at Maastricht University, where he is a founding member of the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine. In 2016, he became full professor in biofabrication for regenerative medicine. Since 2019, he is chair of the Complex Tissue Regeneration department. He was vice-director of MERLN from 2019 till 2022. Since 2022, he is director of MERLN.
In 2014, he received the Jean Leray award from the ESB and an ERC starting grant. In 2016, he also received the Robert Brown Award from TERMIS. In 2017, he was elected as faculty of the Young Academy of Europe and in the top 100 Italian scientists within 40 worldwide by the European Institute of Italian Culture. He was elected at the European Young Academy of Science in 2017, and at the European Academy of Science in 2022. He received the Merck Materials Science lecture award in 2023, the mid-term career TERMIS and ISBF awards in 2024. He was also elected in 2024 as Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering as well as Fellow of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.
He already guided more than 20 PhD students through their theses as (co-)promoter, and 15 postdocs through their next career steps as professional leaders either in academia or industry. His research group interests aim at developing biofabrication technologies to generate libraries of 3D biological constructs and scaffolds able to control cell fate, with applications spanning from skeletal to vascular, neural, and organ regeneration. From his research efforts, 3 products have already reached commercial translation.
Dr. Irina Negut
Dr. Irina Neguț is a Senior Scientific Researcher at the National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics in Măgurele, Romania, and a Lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics. With a Ph.D. in Physics (Optics, Spectroscopy, Plasma, Lasers), her research focuses on laser-based synthesis of thin films for biomedical, environmental, and industrial applications. She has extensive expertise in pulsed laser deposition, bioglass coatings, and smart biomaterials for implants and drug delivery systems.
Dr. Thanh D. Nguyen
Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, joined with the Biomedical Engineering department at the University of Connecticut (UConn). His research is highly interdisciplinary and at the interface of biomedicine, materials and nano/micro technology. Specifically, his research focuses on the science and technology to transform biodegradable and biocompatible materials (e.g surgical-suture polymers and amino acids) into special forms, shapes, or structures with “smart” functions at nano/micro-scales for diverse applications in vaccine/drug delivery, regenerative engineering and electrical implants. He developed a platform technology, so-called SEAL (StampEd Assembly of polymer Layer) to create 3-dimensional microstructures of biodegradable polymers and advanced the SEAL method to create a novel single-administration self-boosting skin microneedle patch for vaccines and other therapeutics. Besides, his research group at UConn has extensively studied biodegradable piezoelectric materials, derived from safe medical polymers and natural amino acids, to develop novel biodegradable implanted force-sensor and ultrasound transducer for monitoring vital intra-organ pressures and delivering medicines through the blood-brain barrier, respectively. The biodegradable piezoelectric materials were also used as a tissue scaffold which can be remotely activated to produce electrical cues for stimulating tissue regeneration. Dr. Nguyen’s works have been published in prestigious journals including Science, Science Translational medicine, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communication, Advanced Materials, PNAS etc. and highlighted in major media such as The New York Times, BBC News, the Guardian, NIH research matter etc. He was elected as the senior member of National Academy of Inventor – NAI (2024). He is the associate editor of the journal of Biomaterials and serving as a standing review member for National Institute of Health (NIH). He received several awards/honors including the MRS Early Career Distinguished Presenter (2025), the Young Investigator Award from the journal of Biomaterials (2022), ACell Young Investigator Award (2020), MIT top innovator under 35 for Asia Pacific (2019), NIH Trailblazer Award for Young and Early Investigators (2018), SPIE Rising Researcher Award (2019), Young Investigator Award in Biosciences and Bioengineering of Applied Sciences (2019), and the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2018) etc.
Dr. Guy Patchornik
Dr. Patchornik earned a PhD in biochemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel in 2002, studying the structure of: Na,K-ATPase. He then held a postdoctoral fellow position at UCLA, while unsuccessfully attempting to crystallize a membrane protein, lactose permease. In 2009, he joined the Department of Chemical Sciences at Ariel University, also in Israel. Currently, his research group focuses on the development of a potentially general and simple-to-implement mechanism based on divalent cation conjugation by His-tags, and capable of directing protein monomers & dimers to assemble into nanofibers and 2D sheets. To date, this mechanism has been successfully applied to five unrelated proteins: (1) human ubiquitin; (2) Cas9; (3) red fluorescent protein mCherry; (4) alkaline phosphatase; and (5) the Z-domain of Protein A.
Prof. Leonardo Ricotti
Leonardo Ricotti is a Full Professor of Bioengineering and head of the Regenerative Technologies Lab (www.regenerativelab.it) at the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy). His research interests include biophysical stimulation tools (e.g., ultrasound), functional biomaterials, smart nanomaterials, and other technologies for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He also coordinates the PhD Program in Biorobotics at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, which involves ~ 150 PhD students working on bioengineering- and robotics-related topics. He has co-authored ~ 190 scientific publications, contributed six book chapters on biomedical technologies, and is the inventor of 24 patents. He has co-founded the spin-off company Relief s.r.l., where he currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer
Fredrik Schaufelberger
Fredrik Schaufelberger is assistant professor of synthetic chemistry at the University of Warwick and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His group studies the use of the mechanical bond for applications in biomaterials and in chemical biology. Fredrik obtained his undergraduate degree from KTH (2007-2012), followed by PhD studies at the same university in the area of supramolecular and dynamic covalent chemistry with Olof Ramström. Following his dissertation, he moved to the group of David A. Leigh at the University of Manchester with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (2017-2020), where he studied functional molecular knots and chemically fuelled molecular assemblies such as rotaxanes. He then moved to the group of Molly M. Stevens at Imperial College London (2020-2021), working on biosensing and drug delivery. He started his independent career at KTH in 2021, and moved to Warwick in 2024.
Prof. Ángel Serrano-Aroca
Serrano-Aroca is a Full Professor at the Universidad Católica de Valencia (UCV) and Principal Investigator of the Biomaterials and Bioengineering Lab (Serrano BBlab). He studied Chemical Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and received his European PhD after a long stay at Université Paris-Saclay with a Marie Curie Fellowship. His research focuses on antimicrobial materials for biomedical applications, with 5 patents and over 150 publications. He was postdoctoral researcher at the King’s College London and Visiting Professor at NTNU Nowegian University of Science and Technology and at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He was co-founding member of the spin-off company Metis Biomaterials SL and has received multiple research awards. He has been included in the Stanford University’s “World Ranking of Top 2% Scientists” database for the past five years (2021-2025).
Prof. Sabine van Rijt
Sabine van Rijt is Professor and Chair of the Instructive Biomaterials Engineering (IBE) department at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine, Maastricht University (The Netherlands). Her research is rooted in the chemical design of inorganic nanomaterials and nanocomposite biomaterials that actively instruct biological systems. She develops multifunctional nanoparticles and nanocomposite matrices that are used as tracers, surface coatings, and building blocks within hydrogels to control nano–bio interactions. These platforms are designed to steer stem cell differentiation, promote tissue regeneration, or induce cancer cell death. Sabine is active in several national and international consortia, including the NWO Gravitation program Materials Driven Regeneration, SUMMIT grant (drive-RM) and co-applicant on multiple EU-funded projects (Premstem and Jointpromise). In 2023, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant focusing on responsive biomaterials for hard tissue regeneration and osteosarcoma treatment.
Dr. Verónica I. Dodero
Verónica I. Dodero is an Argentine-Spanish researcher whose work bridges chemistry, biophysics, and cell biochemistry. She studies the self-assembly and function of small molecules and peptides using organic and peptide synthesis, physicochemical characterization, and cellular studies, contributing to biomimetic systems and molecular and peptide self-assembly. She was a visiting scholar and Humboldt fellow at the Faculty of Chemistry at Bielefeld University and has been an independent scientist since 2019. Previously, she served as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina and, more recently,as Deputy W3 Professor of Physical Chemistry at Paderborn University in the summer semester 2025. Her research focuses on how peptides self-assemble into supramolecular structures in water and their biological implications, particularly in transport and immune responses, including contributions to understanding gluten-related disorders and their inflammatory mechanisms.
Prof. Zarah Walsh-Korb
Zarah Walsh-Korb is Associate Professor for Sustainable Functional Materials at University College Dublin with a joint affiliation at the University of Basel. A major focus of her research is the development of animal-free stimuli-responsive biomaterials for 3D culture of in vitro models and biofabrication. Her research group uses biophysical and computational approaches to investigate how the molecular behaviour of recombinantly produced stimuli-responsive proteins and peptides can be rationally engineered into adaptable macroscale systems for in vitro model culture, as well as disease modeling and tissue regeneration. With the help of interdisciplinary collaborations ranging from fluid mechanics to medicine, her research aims to reduce reliance on animal-derived materials in biomedical research, while simultaneously advancing the functionality and tuneability of biomaterials to create more physiologically relevant in vitro models, particularly for the intestines and liver.
Prof. Dr. Regine Willumeit-Römer
Willumeit-Römer started her career as physicist specialized on ribosomal structure research. After her PhD in physics she habilitated in biochemistry and moved from the ribosome towards membrane active molecules such as peptide antibiotics. This was also the link to become interested in antibacterial implant surfaces and biomaterials as such. As Director of the Institute for Metallic Biomaterials, Helmholtz Center Hereon, and Professor at the faculty of Engineering, Kiel University, she is now responsible for the development of degradable Mg-based implant materials. Her institute covers material design as well as complex cell culture studies and animal trials.
