DC11

Project:  develop an  in vitro organ on chip model of cardiac fibrosis for drug screening and advanced therapies testing

PhD position at  BiomimX

BiomimX Srl is looking for a PhD student / Doctoral Candidate (DC11). This DC will develop an innovative miniaturized cell culture platform to build a model of cardiac fibrosis able to recapitulate the diverse features of the pathology and to elucidate the contribution of different cells (eg, cardiac fibroblasts, monocytes and macrophages) into the pathology onset and progression . This technology will offer a high-throughput tool to identify new targets and to investigate the efficacy of anti-fibrotic drugs or advanced therapies in preventing or reverting heart failure with preserve ejection fraction (HFpEF) pathogenesis.

The PhD student will be enrolled in the PhD program in Bioengineering of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering ( DEIB ) of Politecnico di Milano . 

This PhD student will work on the development of an in vitro organ on chip model of cardiac fibrosis for drug screening and advanced therapies testing. The DC11 will develop an innovative microscale platform enabling to provide pro-fibrotic stimulation (eg, mechanical, chemical cues) to a cardiac microtissue to recapitulate the diverse features of the pathology and elucidate the contribution of different cells (eg, cardiac fibroblasts, macrophages ) . The platform will be integrated with an on-line electrical system to assess the pathology evolution (ie changes in structural and/or electrophysiological andor contraction parameters). This technology will be applied as a high-throughput tool to identify new targets and to investigate the efficacy of anti-fibrotic drugs or advanced therapies in preventing or reverting the pathology.

COLLABORATORS AND SECONDMENTS IN THIS PHD PROJECT

• Academic Medical Center : As part of this project, the PhD student will visit the lab of Prof. Annette Neele at the Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands for three months to learn how to generate, activate and test in vitro cultured macrophage models.
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven : Another part of this PhD project consists of a second period of three months in the lab of Prof. Elizabeth Jones at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium to acquire additional knowledge of cardiac function and inflammatory pathways in HFpEF for improved organ modeling.

 

ABOUT BiomimX Srl

BiomimX is an R&D-performing SME, spinoff of Politecnico di Milano, the most important technical university in Italy. BiomimX is the pioneering Organ-on-Chip (OoC) company with strong expertise both in microtechnologies and in advanced predictive models of human organs and pathologies. With an efficient team of 8 brilliant individuals, BiomimX proposes a new generation of in vitro preclinical tools, building upon its proprietary cutting-edge platform (ie Beating OoC), which enables to generate in vitro replica of human tissues with an unprecedented level of clinical resemblance. This provides a window into human organs and complex diseases, without involving animals. The result is a more reliable, responsive, and predictive in vitro model to investigate new therapies, solving a main pain of drug developmental process stakeholders.

SUPERVISORS