Help on center’s Strategy and Vision; Coordinate Projects and Programs;Build up Community and Alliance

Annual Community Day; annual PhD course

Project coordination | Stakeholder management | Website construction

I have initiated the organization of "Lab volunteer" and has been the leader of this organization. This organization is working as a function of a medium between the lab manager and lab users (more than 100 people) with the goal of improving the organization in the lab, and has the following tasks:- organize the monthly lab meeting for lab users- collect feedback from lab users and make actional suggestions to the lab manager- organize presentations that benefit the lab users and/or improve the quality when working in the lab- setup and give the prize to good lab users- other daily help in the lab

Regenerative medicine| Organ (kidney)-on-a-chip | Artificial kidney | Biomedical engineering| Microfluidics| Cell culturing| Cellular charac.| Hydrogel charac.| Microfabrication | 3D printing | Cell/Organ function charac.| Report | Presentation | SOPs | Equipment introductionProjects:• “Kidney-on-a-chip” by 3D sugar printing to mimic the structure and study the function of the kidney -- Towards an artificial kidney• 2-photon ablation in hydrogel to fabricate fine structures for organ-on-a-chipBesides the scientific tasks:- supervising students on project and thesis- group construction on group event and lab organization

The project has resulted in a thesis titled as "Literature comparison of laser-based methods for fabricating "kidney-on-chips"" with me as the supervisor.To stop the global and growing health problem of kidney diseases, new research methods have to be developed. A kidney-on-a-chip can be an accurate predictive model that in the end can replicate the entire structure and function of a kidney. Due to the blood filtration function of the kidney, one of the causes of kidney failure is drug-induced. While studying the mechanisms present in a kidney, a kidney-on-a-chip can play a role in the prevention and treatment of kidney failure, but also in the fields of disease modeling and regenerative medicine.One of the first steps in the development of a kidney-on-a-chip is the creation of the complex renal structure in a hydrogel. For the hydrogel, GelMA has been chosen based on its similarity to the Extra Cellular Matrix (ECM), biocompatibility and cell adhesion properties. The fabrication of two parallel microchannels, reproducing the minimal phenomena present at organ-level, in the hydrogel will be done by using femtosecond laser ablation. Compared to other fabrication techniques, this technique is promising because of its ability to create complex, circular 3D structures with tubule diameters matching in vivo. In order to provide the possibility to do experiments, the capacity of an available femtosecond laser is investigated. By looking at the ablation mechanism and the operating parameters, it is found that the intensity parameter can be used to compare different lasers. Using the results of a previous experiment and an experiment out of the literature the possibilities of the different lasers are compared. Depending on the range of several operating parameters of the available femtosecond laser, it is concluded that it is possible to use this laser to replicate the results obtained by the previous experiment.

The project has resulted in a thesis titled as "3D sugar printing of an artificial renal tubule" with me as the supervisor.In this project, a novel fabrication method based on 3D sugar printing has been developed for the fabrication of an artificial renal tubule for kidney-on-a-chip devices. This method allows to mimic the geometrical structure of the renal tubule in a fast, cheap and accessible way. For the production of the device, Madin-Darby canine kidney cells were seeded through an optimized protocol on the outer surface of 3D printed sugar fibers. These fibers were then casted in a hydrogel and afterwards dissolved, creating hollow channels lined with kidney cells, which can then be perfused, mimicking the in vivo renal tubule. By performing preliminary experiments and optimization steps, a detailed protocol for the fabrication of an artificial renal tubule by 3D sugar printing has been developed.

The project has resulted in a thesis: "Design of an organ-on-chip nephron model" with me as the supervisor.This project focuses on the functional unit of the kidney, the nephron, and aims to create a geometric design of a nephron-on-chip containing the renal tubule and the surrounding blood vessels. The in vivo physiological structure, as well as the function of the kidney and the nephron system, have been reviewed; the in vivo dimensions of different segments of the nephron have been investigated based on the available resources. Different fabrication techniques, which have been used for the nephron-on-chip, are summarized and compared to the fabrication technique - laser induced hydrogel degradation, that has been proposed in this project. The main benefit of using laser induced hydrogel degradation is the ability to create fine and complex structures; Furthermore, different hydrogels (which serve as the extra cellular matrix representing the micro-environment of the nephron) , which are best suitable to the nephron-on-chip, have been compared. The results show that GelMA could be a good candidate. Two models have been designed and illustrated based on the in vivo dimensions. Both of them consist of the complete segments of the renal tubule all having different lengths and diameters. The difference between the models is model A is a straight channel model and model B includes a U-turn in the segment of the loop of Henle. Finally, the flow characterization has been done and the pressure difference required to mimic the flow rate in vivo has been calculated for the designed models.

I have learned:- Legislation on the website of “Bureau GGO” including “Besluit GGO” and “Regeling GGO” - Safety Microbiological Techniques and Risk-assessment - Lentivirus and cases - Auditing in the lab

Human sample preparation; Mass Spectrometry Imaging; Big data analysis; Statistical Analysis; Basic oncology and pathology training; Patient Survival Analysis; Basic programming (R, MATLAB); Tumor biology; Tissue microarray analysis; Skilled writing and oral presentation

A gold nanoparticle-based immunochromatographic assay: The influence of nanoparticulate size• Gold nanoparticle preparation and characterization• Antibody conjugated gold nanoparticle preparation and characterization • Gold nanoparticle-based immunochromatographic assayBesides the project research, was responsible for group (website) construction, lab maintenance and chemicals/materials ordering.

• Prior art search• Patentability report• Interface with different clients