"Engineering and materials science help us to understand how stem cells behave. We translate this knowledge to build lab-made 3D tissues for regenerative medicine and personalized disease models."
Our lab focuses on the development of novel biofabrication technologies and cell-instructive biomaterials to create bioprinted, lab-made tissue models and transplantable engineered grafts, particularly for the regeneration of the musculoskeletal system, mainly bone, bone marrow and and cartilage. Through collaborations within the Utrecht campus and international partners, we apply our technologies also for the engineering of soft tissues.
We develop different classes of cell-instructive hydrogels (water-rich biocompatible materials), based both on natural materials, derived from proteins and polysaccharides, and on synthetic polymers. These materials are engineered to provide signals that guide cell behavior, mimicking what naturally happens when cells interact with native extracellular matrices. Together with conventional extrusion printing techniques, we introduce high resolution and ultra-fast light-based bioprinting technologies, in order to assemble these cells and smart materials into organized 3D architectures that mimic the native composition of tissues. Notably, we develop ultra-fast volumetric bioprinting techniques, able to produce centimeter-sized biological structures of clinically relevant size in less than a minute of time.
Integrating expertise in engineering, materials science and stem cell biology, these efforts aim both to understand and mimic the multifaceted architectural and biochemical structure of living tissues in order to develop effective treatments for human and veterinary healthcare.