Maria Pau Ginebra is full professor at the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering of UPC, as well as Director of the Biomaterials Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering Group. She is Associated Researcher at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalunya (IBEC). She has been PI in numerous national and international projects and is currently leading an ERC Advanced Grant. She has published more than 260 scientific articles an supervised 21 PhD Theses. She aims at translating her results to the clinics and industry, being the inventor of 10 patents. In 2013 she co-founded the spin-off company Mimetis Biomaterials, and in 2018 she was a finalist of the EU Prize for Women Innovators. She received the Narcís Monturiol Medal from the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2012, the Racquel LeGeros Award by the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine in 2013, and the Klaas de Groot Award by the European Society for Biomaterials in 2019. 

Research interests

Her research is focused on the development of new biomaterials for tissue engineering and controlled drug release, with special emphasis in the musculoskeletal system. Her main goal is to exploit biomimetic strategies for the design of biomaterials for bone tissue engineering, inspired in the features of both the inorganic and the organic components of bone extracellular matrix. Specifically, her main challenges include: i) the development of biomaterial-based antimicrobial strategies, in view of overcoming the challenge of antibiotic resistance; ii) understanding the role of the different material features in the cellular events leading to osteoinduction and biomaterial-assisted bone regeneration. Furthermore, she explores new strategies of biofabrication, including injectable cements and foams, surface biofunctionalisation with multifunctional peptides and protein fragments and 3D printing of scaffolds for tissue engineering and personalized regenerative medicine.

Keywords

Biomaterials for tissue engineering, biofunctional materials, drug delivery, bone regeneration, biomimetic materials, 3D printing of biomaterials, bioprinting, cell-material interactions, preclinical studies of biomaterials