APPLIED STEM CELL TECHNOLOGIES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor
- Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Science
Dr. Andries D. van der Meer is an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Twente, The Netherlands. He leads the research on microfluidic organs-on-chips within the Applied Stem Cell Technologies department of the Bioengineering Technologies cluster, supervising multiple Ph.D. candidates and post-docs and coordinating various national and European research projects.
Before joining AST in 2015, Dr. Van der Meer worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. He actively developed organ-on-chip models of the blood-brain barrier and the lung alveolus for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Microphysiological Systems program and coordinated a collaborative project between the Wyss Institute organ-on-chip start-up company Emulate, Inc. and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Before joining Harvard University, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Prof. Albert van den Berg's BIOS/Lab-on-a-Chip group of the University of Twente, The Netherlands. During that time, he also served as an Assistant Coordinator for the project ‘Beyond Borders: Organs-on-Chips' of the Dutch Royal Academy (KNAW). This project led to the founding of the Dutch Human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT) Organ-on-Chip consortium, for which Dr. Van der Meer is the representative of the University of Twente, as well as the vice-chair of its general assembly. Van der Meer is currently the vice-chair of the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS).
Dr. Van der Meer obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Twente, The Netherlands in 2010, and received his M.Sc. degree in Medical Biology from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands in 2005.
Carla holds a bachelor's degree in Biotechnology from University of Barcelona (Spain) and a Master's degree in Bioengineering from IQS - University Ramon Llull (Spain). During her master's thesis at Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia she gain expertise in tissue engineering and 3D-bioprinting. In 2018, she joined the AST group as a PhD candidate, where her main goal is to identify new key molecular pathways and regulatory elements for cardiac subtype specification and enhance its maturation in a heart-on-chip model in order to improve the procedures to generate and culture cardiac cells for disease modeling and therapeutic applications.
Job Titles:
- Guest Researcher
- Project Manager from Leiden University Medical Center
Ellen Thomassen is a Project Manager from Leiden University Medical Center and a guest in the AST Group at University of Twente. As Project Manager she works for several Organ-on-Chip related projects e.g. the Netherlands Organ-on-Chip Initiative (NOCI), the Dutch Organ-on-Chip Consortium (hDMT), the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS), and the Standardized open Modular Approach to Recapitulate Tissues (SMART OoC) project.
Ellen obtained her Ph.D. in Biophysical Structural Chemistry from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands in 2005. Thesis title: "The application of X-ray crystallography and site-directed mutagenesis to the study of protein structures".
Joshua Loessberg-Zahl is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in Organ-on-Chip and Bio-Microfluidics. His past work focused on development of devices for precise control of concentration landscapes and flow profiles within 3D cell cultures. More recently he has worked on translating these devices to solve challenges in plant cell culture. He has industry experience developing microfluidic research pipelines that answer real biological questions.
His current work focuses on adapting the Organ-on-Chip technologies developed at University of Twente to ensure seamless integration into biological research laboratories. He also helps supervise a project on mechanobiology of plant cells.
Dr. ir. José Manuel Rivera Arbeláez received his BSc in Biomedical Engineering from Autónoma de Occidente University, Colombia. He did his MSc in Advance Therapies and Biomedicine in Madrid, Spain at the Francisco de Vitoria University, and obtained his PhD from the University of Twente, the Netherlands; under the supervision of Prof. Albert van den Berg and Prof. Robert Passier, working on developing a heart-on-chip model for drug discovery and disease modeling.
From February 2023 onwards he works at the BIOS Lab on a chip group and Applied Stem Cell Technologies (AST), as a postdoctoral researcher. His work focuses mainly on developing a 3D cardiac in vitro model for drug discovery and disease modeling.
Prof. Dr. Kerensa Broersen is working in the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group as an associate professor where she is head of a subgroup of researchers interested in the molecular aspects of the microbiome-intestine-brain connection. She was trained as a biochemist and obtained a PhD in food chemistry from Wageningen University in The Netherlands. After this she moved to the Medical Research Council - Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, to work for two years as a postdoc with Bazbek Davletov and Michel Goedert on the aggregation of alpha-synuclein, a protein involved in Parkinson's disease. After this, she worked for three and a half years, first as a postdoc, later as an assistant professor after obtaining an FWO Odysseus research award, in the Switch Laboratory, headed by Frederic Rousseau and Joost Schymkowitz, at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). Since 2011, she worked in the Nanobiophysics Group at the Science and Technology faculty at the University of Twente. This group was first headed by Vinod Subramaniam and since 2013 by Mireille Claessens. In 2018 she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to facilitate a 6-month sabbatical research-stay in the laboratory of Randy Schekman, Nobel laureate at the University of California - Berkeley. Here, she investigated non-conventional secretion pathways of Alzheimer-implicated tau protein from neuronal cells. Since 2019, she is a member of the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group headed by Robert Passier. Her current work is financially supported by grants from Alzheimer Nederland and an NWO Vici award.
Nuno earned a BSc. degree in Biology and a MSc. degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Aveiro (Portugal). His introduction to the field of Biomedical Engineering occurred in 2014 when started a Ph.D. at the University Jaume I of Castellón (Spain). His research focused on investigating the discrepancy between in vivo and in vitro studies in the characterization of dental implant coatings.
In 2019, Nuno transitioned to the Developmental Bioengineering (DBE) department at the University of Twente, assuming the role of a postdoctoral fellow. During this period, under a JDRF grant-funded project, Nuno worked on microencapsulation of ß-cells as a replacement therapy for type I diabetes. Concurrently, Nuno engaged in research supported by a TKI-LSH grant, concentrating on the incorporation of bioluminescence into organ-on-chip devices as a biosensor technology.
From 2023, Nuno is working as a post-doctoral researcher for a Applied Stem Cell Technologies (AST) department within the hDMT consortium, with the goal of develop, qualify, and standardize Organ-on-chip models to facilitate their valorization, qualification, and implementation.
Eric's interests lie in the areas of microfluidics, polymers and hydrogels, and organ-on-chip technologies. He graduated with Bachelor degrees in Chemical-biological Engineering and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After obtaining translational research experience at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard investigating HIV and Cholera disease progressions, Eric pursued a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineer at the Technical University, Delft (TU Delft). His master's thesis was completed at Bi/ond, B.V., where the thesis focus was directed at using optical coherence tomography (OCT) to characterize organ-on-chip fluidic parameters.
Currently, Eric is advancing his BioMEMS specialization and expertise in organ-on-chip technologies as a PhD candidate at the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group at the University of Twente under the guidance of Dr. Andries van der Meer. His project aims to further develop the Translational Organ-on-chip Platform (TOP) by introducing individually addressable PDMS-hydrogel valves to the already highly multiplexed system. Alongside this, Eric is also playing a facilitating role in SMART (Standardized open Modular Approach to Recapitulate Tissues) Organ-on-chip. This consortium of academics and industry - leaders in the organ on chip field - will collaborate to design organ on chip platforms that are more easily accessible across commercial and academic platforms.
Iris obtained her bachelor's and master's degree Biomedical Sciences at the Radboudumc University in Nijmegen, where she primarily focused on disease-related molecular biology, with a special interest in immunology and stem cell technology.
After her final internship, where she worked on the development of a cerebral organoid model to study a neurodevelopmental disorder, she started working as a scientific researchers in the field of rheumatology, and completed a project on a molecular marker for innate immune cells in osteoarthritis.
In 2023, she joined the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group as a PhD candidate to work on the Heart Engine project, where she is focussing on the development of multi-layered cardiac organoids using a high-throughput microfluidic system.
Kim obtained her BASc Biomedical laboratory research at Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede. Her thesis was performed at the clinical laboratory of the Medisch Spectrum Twente hospital, Enschede and was focused on measuring the effect of several anticancer drugs on different cancer cell lines. After graduating, she worked as a technician at the University of Twente and Sanquin Research Amsterdam. Before coming back to the University of Twente, Kim worked in Boston (US) as a Research associate at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School.
Starting in 2015, Kim works as a research technician within the group of Professor Robert Passier at the department of Applied Stem Cell Technologies.
Responsibilities:
- General laboratory management
Laura obtained her bachelor Biomedical Engineering at the University of Twente. Her bachelor thesis was performed at the BIOS Lab-on-a-Chip group and was focused on creating engineered vascularized micro-tissues. She continued with her master's in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Twente, where she further specialized in the master track Bionanotechnology and Advanced Biomanufacturing. For three months, she went to the NanoBiomaterials for Targeted Therapies group, at i3S, in Porto, Portugal, where she did her internship on dendriplexes for neuroprotective therapies using microfluidics. Her master thesis was conducted at the BIOS Lab-on-a-Chip group and was focused on developing a hydrogel-based blood brain barrier on chip with integrated electrodes for trans-endothelial electrical resistance (TEER) measurements.
Currently, she started as a PhD candidate at the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group at the University of Twente, where she works on developing a microfluidic pulmonary arterial hypertension model, as part of the PHAEDRA-IMPACT consortium.
Lena Sophie Koch is a 4th year PhD candidate at AST. Her project is to implement a microbiome-gut-brain axis on a microfluidic chip to investigate the connection in health and especially neurodegenerative diseases. The project is headed by Prof. Dr. Kerensa Broersen. Originally, She is from Bavaria, Germany. She did her Bachelor of Applied Science in ‘Biology and laboratory research' at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede. She obtained her Master's degree in biomedical sciences form the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany. Her graduation thesis work focused on super-resolution visualization of synapses via DNA-PAINT.
Outside her work, she is a passionate hobby-cook and have been for most of my life. She also enjoy crafting, like woodworking or sewing, traveling and archery.
Mariel holds a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Physics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). During several internships, she gained experience on microfabrication technologies, microfluidics, hydrogel patterning and electrical impedance biosensing. She next pursued a Master's degree in Nanobiotechnology at Université Grenoble Alpes, France. She completed her master's thesis at the Cytomorpho Lab, where she used protein micropatterns and microfluidic devices to study the dynamics of actin assembly and the role of the actin cytoskeleton in cell chirality. In 2021, she joined the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group as a PhD candidate, where she is curently developing a miniature pumping heart chamber and a cardiac pacemaker organ-on-chip model. Mariel aims to explore emerging technologies for tissue engineering, disease modelling and regenerative medicine applications.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Head of the Department
- Professor
Prof.dr. Robert Passier is head of the department of Applied Stem Cell Technologies at the University of Twente since 2015 and professor at the LUMC (2017). His group aims to build highly advanced human "heart-on-chip" systems and cardiac organoid-like tissues for modelling cardiac disease, drug screening and regenerative medicine.
Passier studied Biology and Health Sciences at the University of Maastricht, followed by a PhD in 1995 at the same University. He worked as a postdoc for 3,5 years on molecular regulation of heart development and disease in the lab of Eric Olson at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, USA). After that he joined Crucell as a postdoc/group leader with the aim to search for new drug targets in the cardiovascular field. In 2002 he returned to academia as a senior postdoc in the group of Christine Mummery at the Hubrecht Institute. Here, he worked on cardiac differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. In 2008 he was appointed as associate professor at the Leiden University Medical Center at the department of Anatomy and Embryology, heading the group "Molecular regulation of cardiac development and disease". Passier is chair of the research theme "heart-on-chip" of the Institute for Human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT). Furthermore, he is a co-founder of Pluriomics (2011) and River BioMedics (2018). In 2019 Passier was appointed as visiting professor at the Jiao Tong University, School of Medicine, Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai in China.
Job Titles:
- Software Developer @ Sqills