Dr. Niloofar (Zeinab) Tahmasebi Birgani, an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University with a profound passion for biomaterials in regenerative medicine, earned her Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering with a specialization in Biomaterials in 2009. She then pursued her PhD in the Tissue Regeneration department at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Niloofar's doctoral research was a dedicated exploration of calcium phosphate-based biomaterials enriched with inorganic additives to promote essential bone regeneration processes, such as osteogenic differentiation and vascularization.
Following the successful completion of her PhD, Niloofar embarked on a new adventure as a Biomedical Engineer and R&D Team Leader in a pioneering startup, where her work revolved around the discovery of surface microtopographies that could influence cell behavior, ultimately dictating specific cell fates.
Driven by her ambitions for academic excellence, Niloofar began her post-doctoral journey in 2018 at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine at Maastricht University, where her research focused on developing cutting-edge platforms for the biological screening of biomaterials in 3D, the advancement of microbiomaterials, and the bottom-up engineering of musculoskeletal tissues, with a particular emphasis on bone. Currently, Niloofar is an Assistant Professor at the MERLN Institute, where her research pursuits encompass advanced technologies for crafting micro-scale biomaterials, utilizing biomaterials for regenerative therapies, advancing the field of bottom-up tissue engineering, and constructing in vitro miniaturized models, all with a strong emphasis on musculoskeletal tissues.
