Seminar

Biomaterials in tissue regeneration, cancer dormancy and metastasis

Amaia Cipritia

In this seminar, I will provide an overview of the work in our lab. We are interested in clinically-inspired basic and translational research at the intersection between bioengineering and biomedicine. We aim to understand how biophysical and biochemical properties of native extracellular matrix and synthetic biomaterials guide cell response in tissue regeneration, cancer dormancy and bone metastasis. We use materials science and engineering systems, such as scaffolds, hydrogels or microfluidic chips, which obtain inspiration from in vivo imaging and ex vivo multiscale characterization. S. Bakhshandeh, H. M. Taïeb, A. R. Varadarajan, S. M. Lissek, S. M. Hücker, X. Lu, D. S. Garske, S. A. E. Young, J. Contzen, M Gossen, S. Kirsch, J. Warfsmann, K. Honarnejad, C. A. Klein, A. Cipitria, “Quiescence-inducing 3D-engineered matrix uncovers mechanosensitive and drug protective FHL2-p21 signaling axis”, bioRxiv (2023). S. A. E. Young, A-D. Heller, D. S. Garske, M. Rummler, V. Qian, A. Ellinghaus, G. N. Duda, B. M. Willie, Anika Grüneboom, A. Cipitria, “From breast cancer cell homing to the onset of early bone metastasis: dynamic bone (re)modeling as a driver for osteolytic disease”, bioRxiv (2023). H.M. Taieb, G. Herment, T. Robinson, A. Cipitria, “Effect of capillary fluid flow on single cancer cell cycle dynamics, motility, volume and morphology”, Lab on a Chip, 2023, 23:92-105. DOI S.A.E. Young, M. Rummler, H. M. Taïeb, D. S. Garske, A. Ellinghaus, G. N. Duda, B. M. Willie, A. Cipitria, “In vivo microCT-based time-lapse morphometry reveals anatomical site-specific differences in bone (re)modeling serving as baseline parameters to detect early pathological events”, Bone, 2022, 161:116432. DOI S. Bakhshandeh, C. Werner, P. Fratzl, A. Cipitria, “Microenvironment-mediated cancer dormancy: Insights from metastability theory”, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2022, 119(1): e2111046118. DOI H.M. Taieb, D.S. Garske, J. Contzen, M. Gossen, L. Bertinetti, T. Robinson, A. Cipitria, “Osmotic pressure modulates single cell cycle dynamics inducing reversible growth arrest and reactivation of human metastatic cells”, Scientific Reports, 2021, 11(1):13455. DOI A. Lueckgen, D.S. Garske, A.E. Ellinghaus, D.J. Mooney, G.N. Duda, A. Cipitria, “Enzymatically-degradable alginate hydrogels promote cell spreading and in vivo tissue infiltration”, Biomaterials, 2019, 217:119294. DOI M. Paris, A. Götz, I. Hettrich, C.M. Bidan, J.W.C. Dunlop, H. Razi, I. Zizak, D.W. Hutmacher, P. Fratzl, G.N. Duda, W. Wagermaier, A. Cipitria, “Scaffold-curvature mediated novel biomineralization process originates a continuous soft tissue-to-bone interface”, Acta Biomater, 2017, 60:64-80. DOI Short biography: 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. As senior scientist at the Charité, she investigated the effect of biomaterial physical properties on cell response and in vivo bone regeneration, using advanced materials characterization techniques. In 2017, she received an Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Group Leader grant by the German Research Foundation, and moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces as leader of the independent research group “Extracellular Matrix in Disease and Regeneration”. In 2021, she returned to Spain as an Ikerbasque Research Associate at Biodonostia Health Research Institute to start the new research group „Bioengineering in Regeneration and Cancer“.