Dr. Laura Rijns was born in the Netherlands (1996) and received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering (2023) “cum laude” from Eindhoven University of Technology under guidance of prof. Patricia Dankers and prof. E.W. (Bert) Meijer. Supramolecular hydrogels as mimics of the extracellular matrix for culturing cells were developed. She was awarded the Materials-Driven Regeneration Young Talent Award 2021. Currently, Laura is pursuing her postdoc as a Niels Stensen Fellow at Stanford University with prof. Zhenan Bao, focused on soft bio-electronics.

2024 CME NASA Symposium Abstract

Polymeric biomaterials are increasingly being used as extracellular matrix (ECM) mimics to grow cells into functional tissue. Current materials lack orthogonal control over properties across different length scales. Therefore, we developed supramolecular hydrogels as ECM mimics which allow for orthogonally tunable properties at the nano- and macroscale. Design principles are proposed to control cell-material interactions. These guidelines can be utilized to grow complex living tissue in a controlled, synthetic manner for tissue engineering applications, but also to advance bio-electronics.