Astrid Olivefors

Short presentation

Astrid joined the EMBLA research group as a PhD student in November 2022.

Keywords

• microfluidics
• microfabrication
• hydrogels
• precision medicine
• 2 photon 3d printing
• brain-on-chip
• cerebral organoids
• vascularization
• 2 photon printing

Biography

• 2022 - current, PhD student, Uppsala University
• 2020 - 2022, Global Graduate Associate at AstraZeneca (Sweden)
• 2019, MScEng Chemical Engineering and Engineering Physics, Nanotechnology, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden)

Research

Microfabrication of biomimetic vascular systems in organoids

Organoids are of interest in applications such as drug development, where they can provide more physiologically relevant data than a two-dimensional cell culture. Additionally, there is a possibility for organoid-based models to supplement and in time replace data from experiments that are currently performed on animals. However, since organoids lack an internal vascular system, there is no way for oxygen and nutrients to reach the core and for waste products to efficiently be removed from the core. Eventually this leads to e.g., hypoxia in the organoid core. My research project is focused on fabricating a biomimetic vasculature-like system that can perform the transport of oxygen, nutrients, and waste products to and from the organoid core.