Laura Rijns is a Biomedical Engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology and is passionate about supramolecular biomaterials to advance human healthcare. During her doctoral studies, she utilized supramolecular hydrogels as mimics of the extracellular matrix to culture complex living tissue in a synthetic, controlled fashion. Based on our most important findings, design rules were extracted that control the cell-material communication.

As a Niels Stensen Fellow, Laura Rijns will conduct research on bio-electronic materials at Stanford University with prof. Zhenan Bao. Bio-electronic materials are very promising for monitoring physiological function but also to repair diseased neuronal tissue (e.g. Alzheimer’s). Today’s bio-electronic materials however lack cellular specificity. Our aim is to introduce a strong and specific communication between the electronic material and living tissue, allowing the local modulation of diseased neuronal tissue down to single-cell precision. This will potentially allow to repair diseases like Alzheimer’s, electrically.