High-throughput ultrasound-based volumetric 3D printing for tissue engineering
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Prof. Dr. Josep Puigmartí-Luis
Prof. Dr. Josep Puigmartí-Luis is a chemist who completed a master in Chemistry and Food Engineering at “Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS)” (2003) and did a PhD in materials science at Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB). His work in supramolecular and flow chemistry, has been awarded with “Premi Antoni de Martí i Franquès de Ciències Químiques”, award from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (2009), St. Jordi award from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Societat Catalana de Química (2006) and an ETH fellowship in 2008.
In 2012, he was appointed a Ramon Y Cajal (RyC) researcher, but after two years as a RyC, he decided to move back to Switzerland where in 2015 was awarded an ERC starting grant to study and control self-assembly processes of metal-organic based crystalline materials. In 2019, he was appointed as an ICREA Research Professor, and since 2020, his group is located at the University of Barcelona (UB).
His research interests include the synthesis and controlled design of functional materials in solution and on surfaces, as well as the development of microfluidic technologies to command and understand the formation and function of unprecedented out-of-equilibrium assemblies (a key aspect to unveil structure-properties correlations of new functional matter).
Dr. Maria Guix Noguera
Dr. Maria Guix received her PhD in Chemistry, M.S. degree in Nanotechnology and B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
During her PhD she worked in the Prof. Merkoçi’s group at Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), working on the integration of nanomaterials in biosensing platforms. As a PhD candidate, she did two short internships related to the development of catalytic nanomotors, first in EMPA (Switzerland) and then in the University of California San Diego (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Wang.
She later joined Prof. Oliver Schmidt’s group as a postdoctoral researcher at IFW Dresden, developing biocompatible micromotors for biomedical applications. Afterwards, she moved to Purdue University to work on the automation of magnetic microrobots for safe manipulation tasks by using visual-based control methods. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) for 4 years under the supervision of Prof. Samuel Sánchez’ group, focusing her research line on the development of advanced functional living robots. She recently moved to the University of Barcelona at Prof. Josep Puigmartí group as Ramon y Cajal senior researcher
Dr. James Nicholas
James received his B.A. from the University of Cambridge in 2017, where he studied Natural Sciences, with a focus on chemistry. He then completed an M.Sc. by research at the University of York in 2018, supervised by Dr. Victor Chechik. In 2019 he started his doctoral studies at ETH Zürich, as part of the deMello group, in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences in the lab of Dr. Josep Puigmarti-Luis. In August 2020, he moved to the University of Barcelona as part of the ChemInFlow group to continue his research, remaining a doctoral candidate at ETH, and co-supervised by Prof. Andrew deMello, Prof. Josep Puigmartí-Luis and Dr. Alessandro Sorrenti. He completed his doctorate in December 2023, and began working as a postdoc in the ChemInFlow group in 2024.
During his MSc project, his work focussed on studying the host–guest chemistry of coordination cages using EPR spectroscopy. By introducing stable nitroxide radical species as guests inside the cages and observing differences between the EPR signals of bound and unbound guest molecules, information about the binding environment of the cages, and the host-guest interactions between the cages and radical species, could be determined.
His doctoral research involved the investigation and development of non-equilibrium approaches to control the self-assembly of functional supramolecular systems. This work involved a combination of synthetic chemistry and chemical engineering – designing and synthesising building blocks for hierachical self-assembly, and fabricating and building microfluidic devices and setups to enable controlled addition of chemical fuels and reagents to supramolecular systems.
As a postdoctoral researcher, James’ current work is focussed on developing and using microfluidic devices and techniques to gain control over the self-assembly of molecular building blocks, and for triggering crystallisation processes.
Ms. Thao Nguyen
Thao received her B.S in 2019 from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea, where she studied Biomedical Engineering (major) and Design (minor). At the same university, she completed her M.S degree in TMB lab, under Prof. Joo Hun Kang. She then briefly worked as a researcher in Gryzbowski group before moving to University of Illinois at Chicago in August 2021. In June 2022, she started her PhD at the University of Barcelona under supervision of Prof. Josep Puigmarti Luis.
Her main research focus was on microfluidic device fabrication, especially towards improvement of cytotoxicity testing reliability for drugs. She worked directly with chip development processes such as chip machining, bonding, evaluating as well as in-chip culturing of primary and stem cells. For biology applications, Thao used her compartmentalized microfluidic platforms to mimic blood-brain-barrier (BBB) microenvironment for effective in-vitro drug testing and drug delivery. She also used her chips for co-culture of liver or heart cells, magnetic separation of bacteria as well as pressure driven gradient formation through 3D gels. For chemistry applications, she used her droplet generator device to form crystals, which could then be manipulated using laser for advanced manipulation. Her doctoral research will be an extension of her latest work and more.
