Our team

 

Dr Andrew Daly

Dr Daly is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Galway. His research focuses on bioprinting tissue and organ models with advanced physiological structure and function. In particular, this work focuses on developing bioprinting technologies inspired by organogenesis.

Dr Daly was awarded a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Trinity College Dublin in 2018, where he developed bioprinted implants for joint resurfacing. For this work, he was awarded the Engineer’s Ireland Biomedical Engineering Research Medal in 2018. Following this, he moved to the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania for his postdoctoral training. In 2020, he was awarded an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship to develop bioprinted cardiac disease models for screening of miRNA therapeutics. In January 2021, he started his research group at the University of Galway and in 2022 he was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant.

Dr Daly’s research is highly cited and has been published in the top journals in the field, including Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Materials, Cell, Biomaterials, Advanced Science, Acta Biomaterialia, Advanced Healthcare Materials, and Biofabrication. To date, he has has received over €2.4 million in research funding.

Postdoctoral researchers

 

Rashmi Ramakrishnan, PhD

Rashmi received her PhD in Biological Sciences, specializing in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram, India. Her doctoral research focused on the development of bioengineered functional skin substitutes for the regeneration of non-healing burn and diabetic wounds, along with the advancement of bioinks for 3D bioprinting of skin. Following that, she worked as a postdoctoral research associate in a pilot clinical trial study, evaluating the safety and efficacy of an indigenous bone graft for segmental mandibular augmentation. Rashmi's research interests lie at the intersection of stem cells, biomaterials, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine, aiming to develop innovative medical devices and therapeutic solutions for effective tissue repair. Currently, she holds a postdoctoral research position focused on an industry-funded project, investigating in vitro models to optimize compatibility tests for extracellular matrix-based biomaterials.

 

Daniel Kelly, PhD

Daniel received his PhD in Computer Science, specialising in Machine Learning and Serverless Computing, from the University of Galway, Ireland. His doctoral research focused on applying a novel means of translation of traffic logs into images for detection of a theoretical cyber attack on Serverless Computing, known as Denial of Wallet, via image classification. Daniel also has conducted prior research on the application of Computer Vision to Search and Rescue tasks such as casualty identification in ocean-based scenarios. He was an active volunteer at the University of Galway Makerspace where he fulfilled 3D print requests and performed maintenance on the machines. Currently, Daniel is working in a postdoctoral research position that brings together his past research experience and love of 3D printing, that aims to utilise Computer Vision for the autonomous correction of control parameters in extrusion-based 3D printing.

 

Vasileios (Vasilis) Sergis, PhD

Vasilis is a mechanical engineer with interest in automation, additive manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. He earned his bachelor's degree in ‘Production Engineering and Management’ department from the Technical University of Crete, followed by a master's degree in ‘Automation Systems’ from the Technical University of Athens, where he delved into control system design, mechatronics, and robotics. His academic journey continued with a PhD in engineering at École de Technologie Supérieure – Université du Québec in Montreal, Canada, focusing on automating the development process of mortar mixtures and the quality monitoring of the layer deposition in 3D concrete printing technology by integrating statistics, artificial intelligence, optimization, and computer vision techniques. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral researcher in the aiPRINT project with the aim to develop a closed-loop artificial intelligence-powered 3D printer for bioprinting applications.

 

Juhi Chakraborty, PhD

Juhi obtained her Biotechnology bachelor's degree from Burdwan University and her master's degree (with a gold medal) from Gulbarga University in India. After that, she worked in the field of next-generation sequencing at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics in India. Her academic career proceeded with a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) as a DST Inspire Fellow. Her thesis examined 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering strategies for regenerating both soft and hard tissues. Following that, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at IITD on the use of metal-organic frameworks for cartilage regeneration using suitable bio-inks. She is now employed as a post-doctoral researcher in the ERC-funded morphoPrint project, where her goal is to develop 4D bioprinted shape-morphing constructs for cardiac tissues and mimic their shape changes.

PhD candidates

 

Ankita Pramanick

Ankita received her Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree in Jute & Fibre Technology from the University of Calcutta, and Master of Technology (MTech, Gold medalist) in Fibre Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). She has professional experiences working in a multinational conglomerate. She also worked as a research assistant in the Regenerative Engineering Lab at IITD. Her PhD research is focused on bioprinting morphing tissue to mimic early organogenesis using cell-responsive hydrogel. Her project is funded by an Irish Research Council (IRC) Postgraduate Scholarship, and is in collaboration with Prof Abhay Pandit.

 

Sogol Kianersi

I obtained both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran. I also spent some time working as a research assistant at the Center of Diabetes, obesity, and metabolism at Royan Institute. My research interests include Biomaterials, Tissue engineering, and Microfluidics. My current research as a PhD student is focused on preparing a heart-on-a-chip models using conductive biomaterials. My project is in collaboration with Prof Abhay Pandit and Prof Ger O’Connor.

 

Laura Ventura

I obtained my BSc in Molecular Biotechnology at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and my MSc in Biomedical Research, specialization in Advanced Therapies and Regenerative Medicine at Universidad de Navarra, Spain.  My PhD is focused on developing bioprinted models of heart development and is part of the morphoPRINT project. 

 

Neha Waghmare

Neha holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering from IIT Kanpur, India. During her Masters, she developed a preformed yet injectable scaffold system for cartilage regeneration. She was a recipient of the FCS Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, leading her to explore ADSC exosomes for peripheral nerve regeneration at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Neha has also worked at Pandorum Technologies, a tissue engineering startup, focusing on bioprinting of corneal and liver tissue models. Currently, she's pursuing her PhD as part of the morphoPRINT project, funded by ERC, aiming to replicate 4D shape changes in bioprinted heart tissues.

 

Orlaith Kennedy

Orlaith completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at University of Galway. During this she completed a research placement at Lehigh University surrounding cartilage regeneration in an inflammatory environment. She is currently pursuing a PhD as part of the morphoPRINT project, focussing on the mechanical forces required to induce tissue maturation on bioprinted heart models.  

 

Hey Wei Wong

Hey Wei Wong obtained his BSc Bachelor of Biotechnology (Hons) at Taylor’s University in Malaysia and he did his MSc Stem Cell Engineering in Regenerative Medicine at University of Glasgow. His PhD research is focused on engineering bio-printed cardiac injury models containing functional vascular and immune components to model the inflammatory response following myocardial infarction. His project is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and this project is part of the lifetime CDT Doctoral Training programme.

Previous members

Eoin O’Donovan, MSc Regenerative Medicine

02/23 - 08/23

Tahmineh Ghahri

11/22 - 07/23

Graham Britchfield, MSc in Biomedical Engineering

09/21 - 08/22

Subham Shah, MSc in Biomedical Engineering

09/21 - 08/22

Aika Doheny, MSc in Biomedical Science

05/21 - 12/21