ESR 6: Bioprinting of kidney rudiment for drug safety screening.

ESR6

Project Title: Bioprinting of kidney rudiment for drug safety screening.

Objectives: Upon the development of new drugs, nephrotoxicity is normally one of the assessments done in vitro with low relevance cell lines. Despite of the in vitro test, in some cases during the different stages of the clinical trials nephrotoxicity is still observed. To overcome this issue, the ESR will be trained on the generation of renal cells from pluripotent stem cells and bioprinting to create in vitro model with associated functional readouts.

The ESR training will be composed of cell culture and analysis, bioprinting, biomaterials and bioinks.

Expected Results: Identification of suitable bioprintable hydrogels for the maintenance of renal cells during and after bioprinting. In vitro models suitable for nephrotoxicity screening.

Host: Maastricht University (MU)

Main Supervisors: Carlos Mota (MU), Lorenzo Moroni (MU)

Duration: 36 months

Expected start date: 1 February 2020

Planned Secondment: Universitaetsklinikum Aachen (Germany). Universitat Basel (Switzerland).

Enrolment in Doctoral Degree: PhD in Regenerative Medicine at Maastricht University

Profile: An ideal ESR candidate must hold a Master’s degree and have excellent marks from his/her previous studies and courses along with experience in one or more of the relevant fields (e.g. Biology, Biotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, Technical Biology or equivalent title). Excellent written and oral communication skills in English are a must.

Furthermore, the candidate has/is:

• Knowledge and experience in working with pluripotent stem cells culture, maintenance and differentiation
• Knowledge and experience in working with bioprinting techniques and hydrogel formulations

For any specific requests on this project, please get in contact with Prof. Carlos Mota (c.mota@maastrichtuniversity.nl ) and add in the subject description “Application Sinergia project ESR6”