PhD School

I have a pleasure to announce a guest lecture of dr hab. inż. Urszula Stachewicz, Associate Professor at AGH, who is a holder of ERC Starting Grant BioCom4SavEn. She is an expert in the design of  electrospun fibers for biomedical applications, as well as water and energy harvesting systems, and she will give a talk entitled "Electrospun polymer fibers for tissue engineering and skin care applications".

Electrospun polymer fibers are one most studied material for tissue engineering as it is characterized by high surface area to the mass ratio. The porosity of electrospun scaffolds reaches often more than 90 %, which gives an enormous advantage in tissue engineering. Apart from porosity, the key parameters in biomedical applications are surface properties, which we control via a single-step electrospinning process by alternating voltage polarities. Voltage polarity defines the charge accumulated on the surface of the liquid jet and the surface of the fibers. Positive polarity attracts negatively charged groups to fibers’ surface, whereas negative polarity moves the negatively charged functional groups away from the surface. This way we can control the surface chemistry, wettability and additionally surface potential of electrospun fibers. We proved the significant effect of fibers surface potential and geometry on cell integration with the scaffolds and further cell development in the regeneration processes based on the osteoblast, fibroblast and keratinocytes culture studies. Additionally, the controlled geometries of electrospun fibers and membranes show a great application possibility as skin patches. The experimental studies in vitro and in vivo have been confirmed with the numerical simulations of oil transport through the porous patches. We show that oil spreading and transport can be controlled and results in increased skin hydration. The electrospun patches can be easily applied overnight on skin with atopic dermatitis. 

Urszula Stachewicz (ORCID: 0000-0001-5102-8685) is an associate professor at AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland. She graduated from Delft University of Technology with PhD in electrohydrodynamic of liquids to use electrospray as an on-demand deposition method, with research performed at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. She conducted the postdoctoral research at Queen Mary, University of London (UK) and work at spin-out company Nanoforce Technology Ltd. discovering polymer science and electrospun fibers. In 2018 she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge at Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, UK. Her research activity is focused on surface properties of electrospun fibers for biomedical and water and energy harvesting, and in situ mechanical testing of synthetic and naturally structured materials. In 2020 she has been awarded with the ERC StG, BioCom4SavEn.

The lecture will be given at the Faculty of Chemistry Council Hall (M.Strzody 9, II floor), on Friday, 30^th September, at 1:00 pm.