Phd Student
Enschede, Overijssel, Netherlands
The main aim of this PhD project, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. D. Stamatialis and Dr. A. Poot, was to develop a new kind of membrane which is made of a material that is more suitable for cell culturing and transplantation. Furthermore, the membranes made in this project can contain microstructures which resemble the alveoli. This better mimics the situation in the human lung and thus should improve reliability of the cell behaviour and the results of the chip. In this project, I learned to synthesise a polymer, process it to a porous membrane, prepare polymer moulds to include microstructures in the membranes, as well as culture cells on the membranes to create a lung-blood barrier model. Moreover, I determined both characteristics of the membranes and the cells, and integrated the model into organs-on-chips from Micronit B.V. This PhD project is part of a larger consortium of Dutch universities and university medical centres. It is funded by Het Longfonds. The main objective of the consortium was to develop microengineered 3D analogues of alveolar tissue for lung regeneration.