Panagiota Kakni

Panagiota was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1994. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Democritus University of Thrace. Subsequently, she moved in Edinburgh in order to continue her studies and obtain her Master’s degree in Integrative Neuroscience. For her master thesis, she performed a six-month interniship at the Centre for Integrative Physiology of the University of Edinburgh, about the evaluation of brain organoids as a model of brain development and disease.  
In February 2019, she started working as a PhD candidate in MERLN with a main focus in 3D culture systems. It is well known that 3D cultures offer a wide range of advantages comparing to traditional 2D cultures, but their use is still restricted mainly due to variation in shape and size and lack of vascularization and surrounding systems. By the combination of biology and engineering methods, she aims to find ways to overcome these issues and create more controlled 3D culture systems that resemble better the in vivo tissues.