Supervisor #1
Supervisor #2 ()
Student
Better labs-on-chips using biobased materials
Massimo Mastrangeli (EWI/ME)
Baris Kumru (AE/ASM)
To be recruited
Exploring a new way to study effects of psychedelics on the human brain
Angelo Accardo (ME/PME)
Daan Brinks (TNW/ImPhys)
To be recruited
Wearable ultrasound patches for targeted drug release in cancer therapy
Ignasi Simon Grau (TNW/ChemE)
Diogo Silvares Dias, and Samuel Desmarais (both EWI/ME)
Wietse Saalmink (MSc Chemical Engineering)
Predicting invasiveness of oral cancer by mechanistic computational modelling
Lisanne Rens (EWI/DIAM)
Hamed Abbasi (TNW/ImPhys)
To be recruited
Turning wind turbine blades into sustainable materials using bioinspired imaging
Hamed Abbasi (TNW/ImPhys)
Baris Kumru (LR/ASM)
To be recruited
Finding out more about the enzyme DERA - that may be used in medicine
Reuben Leveson-Gower (TNW/BT),
Nikolina Å o¨tarić (TNW/BN) and Sebastijan DumanÄić (EWI/ST)
Blue Schmitz (MSc Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, VU Amsterdam)
Improving bioreactors for cost-effective biobased bulk materials
Raquel Serial (ME/P&E)
Cees Haringa (TNW/BT)
To be recruited
Better labs-on-chips using biobased materials
Labs-on-chips are miniaturized devices that have significantly advanced biomedical research and in-vitro diagnostics. However, conventional platforms are fabricated using materials that have unwanted qualities, such as hydrophobicity, limiting the scope of cell-drug interactions that can be studied. Therefore, Massimo Mastrangeli (EWI/ME) and Baris Kumru (AE/ASM) join forces to develop lab-on-chips using biobased resin. Under their supervision, a MSc student will explore how this innovative material can be used to develop lab-on-chips that allow for studying a broad range of cell-drug interactions.Project: Smart Lab-on-Chip Platforms with Tuneable Stiffness and Chemical Affinity
BEI researchers: Massimo Mastrangeli (EWI/Microelectronics) and Baris Kumru (AE/Aerospace Structures and Materials)
Student: to be recruited
Exploring a new way to study effects of psychedelics on the human brain
Recent studies show that psychedelics such as psilocybin have beneficial effects on brain cells, indicating we could use them to treat neurodegenerative disorders. However, this research uses animal models, which is ethically disputable, but it’s also unclear if the effects on human brains are the same. This is why Angelo Accardo (ME/PME) and Daan Brinks (TNW/ImPhys) decided to combine their expertise. They will supervise a MSc student who will learn to combine light-assisted 3D manufacturing, neuromechanobiology and advanced imaging to understand the effect of the psilocybin on human neurons. Should this aspirational project succeed, it will pave the way for a new methodology to study a wide range of psychedelics in neural organoids models, and eventually lead to new treatments for human neurodegenerative disorders.Project: Assessing the influence of psychedelics on 3D engineered neuronal networks plasticity
BEI researchers: Angelo Accardo (ME/Precision and Microsystems Engineering) and Daan Brinks (TNW/Imaging Physics)
Student: to be recruited
Wearable ultrasound patches for targeted drug release in cancer therapy
Chemotherapy uses powerful chemicals to stop the growth of cancer cells, but it is hard to get the right amount of drugs to the tumour tissue. Liposomes can be used to encapsulate the drugs, which improves delivery and prolongs circulation, thereby reducing side effects. However, often liposomes still fail to let go of the drug exactly where it’s needed. To find a solution for this problem, Ignasi Simon Grau (TNW/ChemE), Diogo Silvares Dias , and Samuel Desmarais (both EWI/ME) have joined forces. Under their supervision, Wietse Saalmink will explore ultrasound as a non-invasive method to trigger drug release from liposomes. The aim of the graduation project is to develop a wearable ultrasound patch capable of safely and precisely triggering drug release from liposomal carriers.Project: Wearable ultrasound patches for targeted drug release in cancer therapy
BEI researchers: Ignasi Simon Grau (TNW/Chemical Engineering, PhD candidate under Alina Rwei), Diogo Silvares Dias and Samuel Desmarais (both EWI/Microelectronics, PhD students under Tiago Costa)
Student: Wietse Saalmink (MSc Chemical Engineering)
Predicting invasiveness of oral cancer by mechanistic computational modelling
In the Netherlands, every year about 1600 people are diagnosed with oral cancer. In over 90% of these cases, the very aggressive tumour oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) accounts for it. Primary treatment for OSCC patient is surgery, often followed by for example radiotherapy. To decide which postoperative treatment to choose, clinicians currently use a manually assessed classification model, which unfortunately shows high interand intra-observer variability. In order to help clinicians make well informed decisions, Lisanne Rens (EWI/DIAM) and Hamed Abbasi (TNW/ImPhys) join forces to complement histopathological findings with advanced microscopic imaging (Computational Scattered Light Imaging) and combine them with computational models (Cellular Potts Model) to predict the invasiveness of oral cancer.Project: Predicting Invasiveness of Oral Cancer by Mechanistic Computational Modelling
BEI researchers: Lisanne Rens (EWI/DIAM) and Hamed Abbasi (TNW/Imaging Physics, postdoctoral researcher at the Miriam Menzel lab)
Student: to be recruited
Turning wind turbine blades into sustainable materials using bioinspired imaging
Wind turbine blade waste is a rapidly growing environmental challenge. Using recycled short glass fibres (SGFs) from end-of-life blades is a promising strategy to close the loop in composite materials. However, reusing these fibres effectively depends on understanding how they reorient in new thermosetting and thermoplastic matrices, which is an aspect that critically affects mechanical performance but remains poorly understood due to a lack of fast and reliable imaging data. Therefore, Hamed Abbasi (TNW/ImPhys) and Baris Kumru (LR/ASM) have joined forces to investigate the correlation between average fibre orientation (measured by Computational Scattered Light Imaging) and mechanical strength in recycled SGF composites, and to see if bioinspired imaging data can be used to predict the performance of such circular composite materials.Project: Bioinspired Imaging for Fibre Orientation Analysis in Recycled Composite Materials
BEI Researchers: Hamed Abbasi (TNW/Imaging Physics, postdoctoral researcher at the Miriam Menzel lab) and Baris Kumru (LR/Aerospace Structures and Materials)
Student: to be recruited
Finding out more about the enzyme DERA - that may be used in medicine
Enzymes produce all the molecules life requires. Because of their efficiency, we see an increasing interest in applying them in industrial chemical synthesis. The enzyme 2-deoxyribose-5-phosphate aldolase (DERA) for example, is of interest both as a drug target and for the biocatalytic synthesis of valuable small molecules. However, enzymes exhibit complex phenomena, and we need to know more about how they exactly operate to effectively make use of them. Therefore, in this project, Reuben Leveson-Gower (TNW/BT), Nikolina Å o¨tarić (TNW/BN) and Sebastijan DumanÄić (EWI/ST) combine forces to supervise MSc student Blue Schmitz , who will conduct wet-lab experiments, dry-lab simulations and analysis using an explainable AI model. With this project, they intend to expand possibilities for rational engineering of dynamics motions to modulate this enzyme.Project: Watching Enzymes Wiggle: Understanding DERA Dynamics
BEI Researchers: Reuben Leveson-Gower (TNW/Biotechnology), Nikolina Å o¨tarić (TNW/Bionanoscience) and Sebastijan DumanÄić (EWI/Software Technology)
Student: Blue Schmitz (MSc Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, VU Amsterdam)
Improving bioreactors for cost-effective biobased bulk materials
If companies want to use bioreactors for producing for example chemical building blocks or food proteins at a competitive price, they need to reduce production costs by increasing the volume, without loss of performance. This requires quantifying the ever-changing local environment microbes are exposed to in large bioreactors, and whether these changes affect their productivity. Detailed computer simulations can provide such insights, but they require experimental validation. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has the potential to measure local concentrations of chemicals and can thereby provide such validation data. In this project, Raquel Serial (ME/P&E) and Cees Haringa (TNW/BT) will join forces to supervise a MSc student who will explore MRI-s capabilities to quantify chemical gradients in a scaled-down bioreactor and compare the results with simulation data.Project: Quantifying gradients in (bio)chemical reactors using MRI
BEI Researchers: Raquel Serial (ME/Process & Energy) and Cees Haringa (TNW/Biotechnology)
Student: to be recruited
