Partners
Prof. Dr. Ralph Müller, Project coordinator
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Institute for Biomechanics (IfB) Department of Health Sciences and Technology
Ralph Müller is a Full Professor of Biomechanics and the Head of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich.
Born on May 5, 1964, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, he studied electrical engineering at ETH Zurich, where he also received his doctoral degree in 1994. Subsequently, he served as a project manager for the micro-computed tomography project of the European Union Concerted Action BIOMED1. In 1996, he moved to Boston, where before his return to Switzerland he served as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Associate Director of the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory. Between 2000 and 2011, he was first an SNF Professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering and then Associate and Full Professor of Biomechanics at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich.
The research he has completed and is currently pursuing employs state-of-the-art biomechanical testing and simulation techniques as well as novel bioimaging and visualization strategies for musculoskeletal tissues. Today, these techniques are successfully employed for the quantitative assessment and monitoring of structure function relationships in tissue regeneration, growth and adaptation. His approaches are now often used for precise phenotypic characterization of tissue response in mammalian genetics, mechanobiology as well as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Sandra Hofmann
external page Sandra Hofmann is an assistant professor in the Orthopaedic Biomechanics group at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology since 2013.
She was born 1977 in Switzerland and obtained her degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2002. After a scientific visit to Prof. D. Kaplan’s lab at Tufts University in Boston, she completed her PhD (with distinction) at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Sciences of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich in 2007 working on "Silk fibroin as a biomaterial for drug delivery and tissue engineering". Subsequently, she moved to the group of Prof. R. Müller at the Institute for Biomechanics to advise students and to focus her research on imaging methods and bioreactor design. Between 2010 and 2015, she was the Head of the Skeletal Tissue Engineering Group at the Institute for Biomechanics. Currently, she works for ETH Zürich on a project basis.
She is involved in various EU and Swiss National Science Foundation founded research collaborations and was recently awarded and ERC starting grant (2013), a Marie Curie Career Integration grant (2013) as well as a Women in Science grant (2014). Sandra is also a core member of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) at the TU/e and still has an appointment as a lecturer at ETH Zürich.
Research Area
Current research topics are tissue engineering of skeletal tissues with a particular interest on mechano-biological questions, such as how mechanical loads are applied to and sensed by cells in a 3D environment and how the cells react to these in terms of matrix production. Within that context, her group investigates into bioreactor design, the application of mechanical loads, longitudinal monitoring approaches (especially micro-computed tomography) and the interaction between bone forming and bone resorbing cells.
Marija Vukomanović
Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), Slovenia Advanced Materials Department Biomaterials Group
Marija Vukomanović (née Jevtić) graduated from the Faculty of Physical Chemistry, University of Belgrade, in 2005 with the thesis entitled “Molecular Mechanics and its Application to Organic Molecules”. In 2006 she started her research career as employee at the Institute of Technical Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ITN SASA) where she was working as a young researcher enrolled in post-graduate studies at the Faculty for Physical Chemistry. In June 2008 she defended master thesis entitled “Sonochemical synthesis and characterization of hydroxyapatite and poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide)/hydroxyapatite composite material” at Faculty of Physical Chemistry of University of Belgrade and received title Master of Physicochemical Sciences. After finishing her MSc she started work on her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Physical Chemistry (University of Belgrade) related to the development of novel drug delivery systems. In 2009 she received a scholarship from the Slovene Human Resources Development and Scholarship Fund for the period 2009-2011 and started with her second PhD thesis at the International Postgraduate School of Jožef Stefan Institute related to the development of novel antibacterial agents based on the application of nanoscience and nanotechnology. In March 2011 she defended first doctoral dissertation entitled “Controlled release of an antibiotic from PLGA/HAp nanospheres synthesised in an ultrasonic field” at Faculty of Physical Chemistry of University of Belgrade and received title Doctor of Sciences. In June 2012 she defended second doctoral dissertation entitled “Sonochemical synthesis and characterization of hydroxyapatite/metal-based composite materials for biomedical applications” at International Postgraduate School of Jožef Stefan Institute and received her second title Doctor of Sciences.
Currently she is employed at the Advanced Materials Department of the Jožef Stefan Institute where she is responsible for organization and leading of the scientific research within Biomaterials group. Special emphasis of her work is on development of novel type of antibacterial agents, bioactive materials and smart drug delivery systems. She is responsible for establishment of a novel laboratory equipped for the synthesis, processing, and characterization of biomaterials as well as for investigation of in vitro characteristics of biomaterials and their interactions with bacterial and mammalian cells.
Assoc. Prof. Dr Simonida Tomić
University of Belgrade, Serbia , Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy (TMF) Department of Organic Chemical Technology
Received bachelor of science, and master of science, and PhD degree at Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade. Recipient of a Ministry of Science and Technology of Republic of Serbia scholarship for M.Sc. studies. Employed at Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade. Current position as Associate Professor.
Subjects of interest: Polymeric biomaterials natural and synthetic origin: development and structure-property relationship studies of polymer systems for biomedical applications, such as biodegradable polymers, bioactive polymer materials and "intelligent" polymeric systems-environmentally sensitive hydrogels (pH and temperature sensitive hydrogels). Biomimetic materials: development of novel synthetic materials inspired by natural materials. Antimicrobial hybrid polymeric biomaterials, containing biological active agents, for reconstructive surgery. Nanohybrid biomaterials for controlled release of drugs and bioactive agents. Biocompatibility and hemocompatibility.