During the period October 2019 and March 2020 the PhD student form Moldova State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Olga Ignatov, has visited the Leibniz Research Laboratories for Biotechnology and Artificial Organs from Hannover Medical School in Germany. Olga Ignatov was conducting a part of her PhD project in the area of tissue engineering at LEBAO under the supervision of Dr. Andres Hilfiker. The focus of the project is “Biomechanical and biocompatibility tests of tissue strips made out of placental membrane loaded w/o nanoparticles (GaN or ZnO).” In addition to experimental design and implementation, the student has been able to train in various methods and techniques including uniaxial strain/stress testing, cell culture with fibroblasts on plastic and membranes, production of conditioned media, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and production of SEM samples, metabolic measurements using MTT assays tests, and microscopy. During her visit, Olga has received detailed instruction and support in lab work from Dr. Birgit Andrée.
Additionally, she has been able to network extensively with peers and liaise with internationally recognised experts in tissue engineering, stem cell research, and molecular biotechnology at LEBAO and more widely at NIFE, the MHH and local biotechnology companies such as Corlife.
Olga has also had the opportunity to attend lectures within the REBIRTH PhD programme (Year 1 courses in regenerative medicine) and the Hannover Biomedical Research School. She has integrated well in the research group at LEBAO, profiting from a highly interdisciplinary and international research environment with state-of-the-art lab infrastructure. She has also participated in LEBAO seminars, progress report meetings and a weekly journal club meeting, including presentations on her own work. Her newly acquired skills and competencies will be used to develop the course on Bioinstrumentation, Ms Ignatov is going to teach in the framework of the Advanced Training Course on Nanotechnologies and Biomedical Engineering, organised by the NanoMedTwin project. Communication with experienced colleagues from Hannover Medical School helped Ms. Ignatov to accumulate new, valuable knowledge and skills that definitely will have a good impact in the further career development of the young researcher.
Thanking NanoMedTwin project for the given opportunity to be trained in a world class environment Olga is ready now to implement the best European practices in her institution by training students and doing responsible and conscious research activities in the lab.
