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 70 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.

Postdocs

Alessia Longoni

Alessia is an Italian postdoctoral researcher. She obtained her BSc and MSc at San Raffaele University in Milan (Italy). Afterwards, she performed her PhD at UMC Utrecht and a first postdoc at University of Otago (New Zealand), focusing on bone and vascular tissue engineering. Currently, she is part of the VOLUME-BIO project, where she is working on developing physiological-size bone marrow organoids that display near-physiological hematopoiesis.

Oksana Dudaryeva

Oksana is a postdoc within the ENLIGHT project. Her research focuses on creating a functional, living pancreatic construct applying a combination of organoid culture, material design and volumetric bioprinting. Oksana obtained her BSc and MSc at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. She performed an internship in the Kristi Anseth group at CU Boulder, USA, with focus on developing viscoelastic PEG hydrogels. She obtained her PhD from Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. During her PhD she designed single cell encapsulation platforms and worked on skin tissue engineering, biomaterials with dynamic mechanical properties, and on macroporous materials via controlled liquid-liquid phase separation.

Pere Català Quilis

Pere is a postdoctoral researcher within the ENLIGHT project. He performed his PhD training at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine and Maastricht UMC+ (the Netherlands) investigating (stem) cell replacement regenerative therapies for the cornea. Besides, Pere has research experience in other institutions such as IBEC (Spain), Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (Netherlands), Utrecht University (Netherlands), and Singapore Eye Research Institute (Singapore). His research will focus on the generation of iPSC-derived pancreatic cells and pseudo-islets as a source to bioprint pancreatic constructs.

Paulina Núñez Bernal

Paulina is originally from Mexico and has a master in regenerative medicine and technology (Utrecht University). She obtained her PhD in Regenerative Medicine under the supervision of Dr. Riccardo Levato, developing volumetric 3D printing for biomedical applications. She has experience with various 3D printing technologies, bio-ink development and 3D cell culture. Her research is primarily focused on the design of novel biofabrication approaches for the development of advanced in vitro models. Alongside her research work, she is coordinator for the Master of Science course in Biofabrication at Utrecht University.

PhD candidates

Sammy Florczak

Sammy is an Australian researcher from Brisbane. He holds a BSc in Physics from The University of Queensland; as well as a dual MSc in Biofabrication from both the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Wurzburg. With prior experience in experimental optics and extensive work with melt-electrowriting, his interests have now turned towards volumetric bioprinting. As such, his project is focused on improving this technique to enable for the fabrication of both accurate and highly complex multicellular tissue engineering scaffolds within a matter of seconds.

Marc Falandt

Marc is a Dutch synthetic chemist from Rotterdam; he holds a MSc in chemistry, with a specialisation in synthetic organic chemistry and research from the university of Leiden. He worked on the design of various stimuli responsive supramolecular polymers for hydrogel applications. He started his PhD in 2021 under the supervision of Riccardo Levato in Biofabrication and Regenerative Medicine. His project is focussed on the development of new materials for the volumetric bioprinting process and its applications. With the aim to build physiological-scale cell-laden constructs with his new materials replicating human functionality.

Davide Ribezzi

Davide is an Italian biomedical engineer from Milan; he holds a MSc in Biomechanics and Biomaterials from Politecnico di Milano. He is strongly engaged by med-tech sector and spurred by challenges related to biofabrication combined to cell bioengineering. With previous experiences in 3D bioprinters, bio-inks design and 3D cell cultures, he started a PhD in Biofabrication and Regenerative Medicine. His project focuses on a new volumetric bioprinting process, capable of optogenetic stimulation to instruct cell fate, with the aim to build physiological-scale pancreas organoids that replicate human organ-level functionality.

Marième Gueye

Marième is a Senegalese biotechnology engineer, with a MSc in Synthetic Biotechnology from the École Supérieure de Biotechnologies de Strasbourg (France). She is enthusiastic about translational research and has experience with organ-on-chips platforms and cancer organoids. In 2021, she started her PhD in Biofabrication and Regenerative Medicine, within the VOLUME-BIO project. She is working on using a new volumetric bioprinting process to develop physiological-size bone marrow organoids that display near-physiological hematopoiesis.

Gabriel Größbacher

Gabriel is an Austrian computer scientist; he holds an MSc in Biofabrication (Utrecht University). He started his PhD in 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Riccardo Levato. He has a background in software engineering and ample experience with different 3D printing systems. His PhD focuses on the convergence of printing technologies with a focus on machine learning as a tool to automate and enhance state of the art approaches in regenerative medicine.

Núria Ginés Rodriguez

Núria is originally from Barcelona where she obtained a BSc in Biotechnology with a specialization in Biomaterials where she developed novel ECM-like materials for electrospinning. Once graduated, Núria moved to Business Development in collaboration with the European Commission writing project proposals and building consortia for Horizon 2020, ERC and EiTHealth initiatives. During that stage, she obtained a post-graduate degree in IP protection and technology transfer. Núria holds an MSc in Biofabrication (Utrecht University) and started her PhD in 2022 in the development of smart Organs on Chip. Her expertise ranges from the development of printing technologies to tissue engineering and micro-perfused systems.

Estée Grandidier

Estée Grandidier is a French PhD student, with a background in biomedical engineering (MSc from École Polytechnique de Lausanne) and in biology (MSc from École Normale Supérieure de Lyon). She has research experience in the Lafont’s lab (Pasteur Institute), Schneeberger’s lab (Hospital of Innsbruck), Haase lab (EMBL Barcelona), Moser’s lab (EPFL) and Lewis lab (Harvard). Her project, in collaboration with the group of Roel Deckers (UMCU) involves the development of a three-dimensional bioprinted vascularized cancer model, for use in ultrasound-microbubble therapies. Over the course of her PhD, she aims to combine bioprinting techniques, engineering strategies and biological mechanisms to design a comprehensive in vitro tumor tissue.

Maj-Britt Bucholz

Maj is a German Bioengineer with a MSc in Biofabrication. She started her PhD in 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Anne Rios (Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology( and Dr. Riccardo Levato. She has a background in different 3D printing /bioprinting techniques and experience in organoid culture for different healthy and diseased tissues. Her PhD focusses on bioprinting of healthy human breast models using volumetric bioprinting and mammary gland organoids.

Camille Bonhomme

Camille is a French PhD student holding a MSc in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Rouen (INSA Rouen Normandie). She has research experience in supramolecular chemistry in the Pilgrim's Lab (Nottingham) and in hydrogel and microgel synthesis and cell culture in the De Laporte's lab (DWI, Aachen). In 2024, she started her PhD at Utrecht University in Biofabrication and Regenerative Medicine. Her project focuses on the development of smart hydrogels for the volumetric bioprinting process to culture liver organoids.

Research Support

Kristine Stickney

Kristine is a Project Manager at UMC Utrecht in the Research Support Office. She graduated with an MSc in Neurosciences from Vrije Universiteit, cum laude. She has 8 years of experience in life sciences project management for both CROs and non-profit academic research organizations. She has managed a diverse portfolio of projects and has worked in a wide-variety of academic and commercial settings.

Student Interns

TBA

Dr. Aitor Tejo Otero - Postdoc -> Assistant Professor, University of the Basque Country, Spain
Project: Light-based 3D printing of mechanically strong resins

Dr. Jan-Philip Zegwaart - Postdoc -> R&D engineer, Henco Industries, Belgium
Project: Development of photoresponsive bioresins for pancreas tissue engineering

Simone Gugliandolo - visiting PhD -> Bioengineer, Galeazzi Research Hospital, Italy
Project: Metrology and AI in 3D printing

Dr. Marisa Assunção - Postdoc -> European Medicines Agency
Project: Vascularization in Engineered Bone Marrow Models