Project Team

Prof Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez

HEALIKICK Coordinator and Chair of Biomedical Engineering

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Manuel is an ERC investigator, a UK EPSRC Programme Grant holder on advanced functional materials and has been awarded two ERC Proof of Concept Grants (2015 & 2018). He also leads a translational grant funded by the charity Find a Better Way to move towards and carry out first-human trial of an umbilical cord-MSC therapy for bone repair to help landmine survivors. His work is recognised globally for the engineering of synergistic growth factor cellular microenvironments. He is the Chair of Biomedical Engineering at UGLA and co-Director of the Centre for the Cellular Microenvironment, leading a large multidisciplinary group with >20 PhD students/postdocs. He was visiting Professor in Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA) and Full Professor in Valencia, Spain, before moving to Glasgow in 2013. He has filed three patents and has authored over 150 papers (h-index 40, > 6000 cites) in major international journals including PNAS, Science Advances, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano and Biomaterials and a review in Nature Reviews Materials focussed on growth factor and physical approaches to cell engineering.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/engineering/staff/manuelsalmeron-sanchez/

Prof Matthew Dalby

Professor of Cell Engineering

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Obtaining a PhD in Biomedical Materials from Queen Mary, University of London on osteoblast response to the topography and composition of hydroxyapatite containing composite materials, Matt moved to Glasgow to join Cell Engineering as a PDRA on EU grant Nanomed. Here he researched how cells interacted with nanoscale features producing early literature on cellular ability to respond to nanotopography. During this time he became focussed on dissecting how cells processed nanoscale information through mechanotransductive processes. Together, these interests in bone, nanotopography and mechanotransduction led me to apply for a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in 2003. During this fellowship he focussed on how mesenchymal stem cells were directed to differentiate and to self-renew by nanotopography and this led to a lectureship in Cell Engineering  in 2008. Now, as Professor of Cell Engineering, he am still fascinated by the nanoscale and mechanotransductive processes, but his interests have broadened to include metabolomics-based research and a growing interest in how growth factors can be controlled at the nanoscale to direct stem cell fate.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/biology/staff/matthewdalby/

Dr Cristina Gonzalez Garcia

Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Cristina is Lecturer at the University of Glasgow since September 2016, with decisive work on the role of proteins in cell-material interactions, protein conformation and distribution at the material interface by Atomic Force Microscopy. She has published more than 20 papers in international peer-reviewed journals with landmark papers published in Science Advances and Biomaterials (h-index 14). She completed a degree as Chemical Engineer in 2008 at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) and was thereafter awarded a national four-year fellowship. Her PhD work received a best thesis of the year award at the Universitat Politècnica de València in 2012, and the Julia Polak European Doctorate Award by the European Society for Biomaterials in 2015. In 2012, she was awarded a postdoctoral International Outgoing Marie Curie Fellowship to explore microfluidics-based technologies for the control of protein delivery during processes of tissue regeneration and evaluate osseointegration, tissue regeneration and vascularization with several pre-clinical animal models, at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA (Prof Andres Garcia) and at the University of Glasgow in the UK. She has currently got a EPSRC New Investigator Award grant to develop new bioactive macro/micro hydrogels for growth factor delivery to promote tissue regeneration.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/engineering/staff/cristinagonzalezgarcia/

Dr Begoña Castro

Chief Scientific Officer

HISTOCELL

Begoña is a Founding Partner of Histocell SL in 2004, with extensive experience in the development of prototypes associated with tissue engineering. Dr Castro is currently the CSO of Histocell, responsible for the conduct of R&D projects in development, opening new lines of research, organizing the research staff of the company, managing patent generation and leading Histocell relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, collaborating in various projects in the field of regenerative medicine (cell therapy and tissue engineering biomaterials).

Dr Diana Martínez

Senior researcher

HISTOCELL

Since 2010, Diana has worked in the R&D Department of Histocell, S.L., as a researcher. She has wide experience on Cell Biology/Therapy, mainly in mesenchymal stem cells and has worked in several lines of regenerative medicine for bone and lung regeneration; conducting in vitro and in vivo efficacy and safety studies; translation of research products of R&D to GMP production area. She is in charge of managing HEALIKICK technical and scientific issues in Histocell.

Dr Eva González

R&D Manager

HISTOCELL

For the last 15 years, Eva has worked on the management of National and European collaborative projects of FPVI, FPVII and Horizon 2020 programs, leading the administrative, IPR, exploitation and dissemination tasks. Administrative and Relationship contact for HEALIKICK project.

Dr Itxaso Gartzia

Cell Therapy Production Manager

HISTOCELL

Since 2008, Itxaso has worked as a researcher in the R&D Department of Histocell. Responsible of the Clean Room Production Area since 2016, she is on charge of manufacturing cell therapy medicinal products in sterile conditions. She coordinates, monitors and, if necessary, performs all operations involved in the production and manufacturing of cell therapy, in compliance with GMP requirements.

Jone Herrero

Quality Assurance Manager

HISTOCELL

Since 2010, Jone has been the Deputy Qualified Person, responsible for overseeing the GMP manufacture of products, management quality system QMS and general laboratory processes, ensuring coordination between all departments involved in the GMP manufacturing process. During the last 10 years, she has been in charge of the manufacturing and control of medicinal products for advanced therapies based on Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Chondrocytes included in 9 clinical trials. Furthermore, she has extensive experience in cell cultures and aseptic processes.

Prof Stuart Reid

Royal Society Industry Fellow and Head of Biomedical Engineering

UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE

Stuart is a Royal Society Industry Fellow and Head of Biomedical Engineering at UoS, leading a multidisciplinary team working across astrophysics and stem cell research.  He has spent the last 18 years developing technology for gravitational wave detectors, and is co-inventor of ‘nanokicking’, to control the behaviour of adult stem cells. Reid’s lab pioneered the first high-energy ECR ion beam deposition process for manufacturing optical coatings, holding the world-record in low IR absorption sputtered amorphous silicon. Reid was awarded the RSE Presidents Medal (2016), RS Wolfson Research Award (2017), is the elected co-chair of Optics for both the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Einstein Telescope project, and has an h-Index >100.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/reidstuartdr/

Dr Peter Childs

Chancellor’s Fellow

UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE

Peter is a Chancellor’s Fellow and previously a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow having worked on the Nanaokick project since his PhD. His research interests include the control of cell function/fate through applied mechanical stimulation and clinical/commercial translation of cell engineering technologies.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/childspeterdr/

Dr Amaia Cipitria

Emmy-Noether research group leader

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF COLLOIDS AND INTERFACES

Amaia got her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2008. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and at the Charité University Hospital Berlin, Germany. In 2011 she became a principal investigator at the Charité University Hospital Berlin, investigating the effect of biomaterial physical properties, such as stiffness, geometry or degradation properties, on cell response and in vivo bone regeneration, using small and large animal models. She applies advanced materials characterization techniques to investigate tissue hierarchical structure at different length scales and its biological function. In 2017 she moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany, as an Emmy Noether group leader. Her current research is focused on how biophysical mechanisms regulate cell-matrix interaction in tissue regeneration, cancer dormancy and bone metastasis.

http://www.mpikg.mpg.de/5861592/extracellular-matrix-in-disease-and-regeneration

Dr Froilán Granero-Moltó

Director Experimental Orthopaedics Laboratory

UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRA

Froilán’s laboratory has interest in the development of cellular, biological and tissue engineering therapies for the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases. In addition, they are interested in the development of animal models of disease to validate these strategies.

UNAV profile

Gloria Abizanda

Veterinarian

UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRA

Gloria is an experienced veterinarian with more than 10 years in the field of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal field developing models of disease in large animals (sheep, pig) and rodents.

Juan Antonio Romero-Torrecilla

PhD student

UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRA

Juan Antonio works in the optimization of polymeric scaffolds for the delivery of biological and cellular therapies for the regeneration of osteochondral tissues.