Our Team
Meet the multidisciplinary research team of biologists, engineers, chemists, physicists and biomedical specialists that make possible the development of novel biofabrication strategies and cell-instructive biomaterials to create bioprinted, lab-made tissue models and transplantable engineered grafts.
RICCARDO LEVATO
Associate Professor of Translational Bioengineering and Biomaterials at the Department of Clinical Sciences (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University), and at the Department of Orthopaedics of the University Medical Center Utrecht. Principal Investigator at the Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht. Prior to moving to Utrecht, he worked in several research groups across Europe: 3Bs, University of Minho (Portugal); BioMatLab, Technical University of Milan (Italy), Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, Spain), and he holds a cum laude PhD in Biomedical Engineering from IBEC and from the Technical University of Catalonia. Since 2020 he was awarded a Starting grant from the European Research Council on the development of a novel volumetric bioprinting technology for organoid research and to engineer functional bone marrow analogues in vitro. Since 2021, he is coordinator of a European consortium (ENLIGHT, Future and Emerging Technologies scheme, European Innovation Council pilot), aiming at developing biofabricated pancreas to study treatments for diabetes.
He published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles international journals, and he was conferred several awards including the 2016 Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Young Investigator Award, the 2021 Jean Leray award from the European Society for Biomaterials, the 2022 Robert Brown award from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, and the 2023 Mid-career Investigator Award from the International Society for Biofabrication (ISBF). Riccardo is also serving on the Board of Directors of ISBF.