ISBF Award Winners

Please select from the years below to view ISBF Award Winners.

2023   |   2022   |   2021  |  2019   |   2018   |   2017   |   2016   |   2015

2023 ISBF Award Winners The ISBF Awards Committee is pleased to announce the 2023 Award winners. The award categories include A) Senior Investigator Award, B) ISBF’s Mid-Career Investigator, C) ISBF’s Professional Development award, D) Travel Awards, E) WFIRM Young Investigator Award, F) Best Oral Presentations, G) Best Poster Presentations, and H) IOP Best Poster Award. The awards were presented at the Biofabrication 2023 Conference in Canada. The winners of the ISBF awards are shown below.

2022 ISBF Award Winners The ISBF Awards Committee is pleased to announce the 2022 Award winners. The award categories include A) Senior Investigator Award, B) ISBF’s Mid-Career Investigator, C) ISBF’s young investigator awards, D) Travel Awards and E) WFIRM Young Investigator Award. The awards will be presented at the Biofabrication 2022 Conference in Pisa. The winners of the ISBF awards are shown below.

Travel Awards*: Gabriele Addario, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, Gopal Agarwal, University of Florida, USA, Michael Bartolf-Kopp, University of Wurzburg, Germany, Yoo-mi Choi, Pohang Science and Technology University, Korea, Abishek Dhand, University of Pennsylvania, USA, Han Hohyeon, Pohang Science and Technology University, Korea, Hao Liu, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, Aylin Kara Ozenler, Technical University of Dresden, Germany, Bram Soliman, University of Otago, New Zealand, Anahita Soufivand, Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, Francesca Tivano, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, Marta Valverde, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

*Award recipients should request their award package at the conference registration desk.

2021 ISBF Award Winners

2019 Award Winners The ISBF Awards Committee is pleased to announce the 2019 Award winners. The award categories include A) Senior Investigator Award, B) ISBF’s Mid-Career Investigator, C) ISBF’s young investigator awards, D) Travel Awards and E) WFIRM Young Investigator Award. The awards will be presented at the Biofabrication 2019 Conference in Columbus, Ohio. The winners of the ISBF awards are shown below.

ISBF Senior Investigator Award

Awardee: Dong-Woo Cho, Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH), Korea Prof. Dong-Woo Cho received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986. Ever since, he has been a professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). He is the director of the Center for Rapid Prototyping-based 3D Tissue/Organ Printing. His research interests include 3D printing technology based 3D microfabrication along with its application to tissue engineering, and more generally to bio-related fabrication. He has recently focused on tissue/organ printing technology and development of high performance bioinks which he termed as “tissue specific bioinks”. As of September 1^st, 2019, his total citation and h-index are 11011 and 58, respectively. He serves or has served on the editorial boards of 11 international journals. He has published over 280 academic papers in various international journals in manufacturing and tissue engineering and has contributed chapters to ten books as well as writing a textbook related to tissue engineering and organ printing. He has received many prestigious awards including “the mystery of life” award at The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul (2018, January) and “the respect life” award from LINA Foundation 50+ awards (2019, April). He was also awarded with the Nam-Go chair professorship at POSTECH.

ISBF Mid-Career Investigator Award

Awardee: Ferry PW Melchels, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom Ferry Melchels is associate professor in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering at Heriot-Watt University. He develops and studies polymeric biomaterials; combining hydrogels, scaffold materials and cells with biofabrication technologies to prepare 3D constructs for regenerative medicine, in vitro modelling and drug delivery. His work has been published in leading journals, attracting over 5,700 citations over the past 5 years. Ferry holds an MSc (2005) in chemical engineering and PhD (2010) in biomaterials from the University of Twente (The Netherlands). He was a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow between two of the pioneering institutes in the young field of Biofabrication; Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia) and University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands) before starting his PI position in Edinburgh in 2015. Current research topics are suspension media for extrusion printing, 3D printed tumour models and vaccine delivery devices. Besides home brewing the best beers on the weekend, his future aim is to continue advancing materials-based technology platforms for biomedical applications.

ISBF Young Investigator Award

Awardees: 1^ST Place: Gabriella CJ Lindberg University of Otago, New Zealand Dr. Gabriella Lindberg did her masters in biotechnology and tissue engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Passionate about developing new generation biomaterials, she moved to New Zealand to pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering. She successfully gained her doctoral degree from the University of Otago in December 2017 and is now working as a researcher in the Christchurch Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering (CReaTE) Group. Dr Lindberg’s research is focused on the design of cell-instructive photo-polymerisable hydrogel bioinks and bioresins that mimics the native architectural organisation and biological niche. She has successful fabricated functional cartilage tissue through the identification of controllable chemistry systems and cell-instructive matrix components previously undescribed in the scientific literature. She has further co-invented a visible light activated hydrogel technology and was earlier this year awarded the prestigious emerging research first grant from the health and research council New Zealand, now looking to recruit PhD students to join her in the pursuit of a blueprint to bridge the gap between engineered- and native tissues. Her research is furthermore part of larger collaborative projects involving both national and international collaborators in the likes of Germany, Netherlands, USA and Australia.

2^nd Place: Jihoon Park Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), Winston Salem, NC, USA Dr. Park is a research fellow at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) since 2018. He acknowledged the importance of developing bio-inks for 3D bio-printing and developed printable and biocompatible bio-inks using various natural and synthetic materials. Recently, his study focuses on the bio-inks that could provide an environment to the stem cells, which can induce cell differentiation in the desired direction. Dr. Park began his Ph.D. study at Ajou University, South Korea in 2012 and received Ph.D. in February, 2018 with a thesis, “Preparation and application of biodegradable polyester having functional groups”. During his Ph.D. study, his research focused on the development of drug delivery carrier using the biodegradable polyesters, which can be modified to meet the desired mechanical properties. However, the synthesized polymers had some limitations in releasing the drugs efficiently. He thought that the addition of functional groups to the back bone of the monomers before the polymer synthesis can induce the conjugation of drug molecules to the functional groups. He was able to modify the polyester monomer to include the functional groups and this novel method helped the sustained release of drugs from the drug delivery carrier.

3^rd Place: Ashkan Shafiee Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), Winston Salem, NC, USA Dr. Ashkan Shafiee received his Ph.D. in one of the pioneer laboratories in bioprinting at the University of Missouri, under the supervision of Professor Gabor Forgacs. Currently, he is working with Professor Anthony Atala at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. In addition to his extensive works in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and bioprinting, Dr. Shafiee has several years of experience in printed- and plastic electronics. He inkjet-printed organic electronic devices and the world’s first printed fluorine-doped tin oxide transparent conductive electrode. He also introduced a novel technique for obtaining energy band diagrams of organic semiconductors. His research interests include self-assembly and dynamics of multicellular systems and their applications in bioprinting as well as biocompatible electronic device fabrication for regenerative medicine. Among other achievements, Dr. Shafiee has discovered a few biocompatible functional electronic materials and inkjet-printed electronic devices for regenerative medicine. Moreover, he has calculated the energy and force involved in cellular self-assembly and discovered biophysical parameters that serve to accelerate tissue maturation post-bioprinting procedure; that is essential for autologous tissue engineering.

ISBF Travel Award for the 2019 Biofabrication Conference Travel Awardees: 1) Jinyang Li, University of Maryland, USA 2) Jihoon Park, WFIRM, USA 3) Benjamin Kessel, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland 4) Jannika T. Paulamaki, University of Bergen, Norway 5) Anne Metje van Genderen, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 6) Manuella Estermann, University of Friobourg, Switzerland 7) Joanna Babilotte, Université de Bordeaux, France 8) Irene Chiesa, University of Pisa, Italy

WFIRM Young Investigator Award at the 2019 Biofabrication Conference

Awardee: Saigopalakrishna Yerneni Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Saigopalakrishna “Sai” Yerneni earned a Bachelors’ in Technology from Anna University, India in 2012 followed by a Masters’ in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh in 2015. He then continued at Carnegie Mellon as a Dowd Fellow to pursue his PhD in Biomedical Engineering. His doctoral work focuses on understanding extracellular vesicle mediated cell-to-cell communication in health and disease. Specifically, he uses biofabrication tools and techniques, including inkjet-based and extrusion-based bioprinting, to study extracellular vesicle biology in regenerative medicine, cancer and infectious diseases. He received the ‘Student Research Award’ from the Society for Biomaterials – Drug Delivery Special Interest Group in 2018, and received the ‘Young Investigator Award’ from the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles in 2019.

2018 Award Winners The award categories include A) Senior Investigator Award, B) ISBF’s young investigator awards, C) Travel Awards and D) WFIRM Young Investigator Award. The awards will be presented at the Biofabrication 2018 Conference in Wurzberg, Germany. An overwhelming number of applications was received for each award category. The ISBF Awards Committee has thoroughly reviewed and selected the awardees. The winners of the ISBF awards are shown below.

ISBF Senior Investigator Award Awardee: Vladimir Mironov, MD, PhD Chief Scientific Officer, 3D Bioprinting Solutions, Moscow Russia; Leading scientist, Regenerative Medicine Institute, Sechenov Moscow Medical University, Moscow, Russia Vladimir Mironov was born in Russia in 1954. Vladimir Mironov finished Ivanovo State Medical Institute in 1977 as a medical doctor. He got his PhD in Developmental Biology from Second Moscow Pirogov Medical Institute in 1980. He was trained by Prof. Peter Kaufmann at The Department of Anatomy RWTH in Aachen and Werner Risau’s lab in Germany in The Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Matinsried, Germany. He later worked at The Department of Anatomy and Regenerative Medicine and Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC, USA and then at The Division of 3D Technologies of Renato Archer Institute for InformationTechnology at Campinas, SP, Brazil. Last 5 years he worked as a Chief Scientific Officer at 3D Bioprinting Solutions and Leading Scientist at Regenerative Medicine Institute of The Moscow Sechenov Medical University, Moscow, Russia. He is one of pioneer of 3D bioprinting technology and bioprinted a first functional and vascularized organ construct – a mouse thyroid gland.

ISBF Young Investigator Award Awardees:

1^ST Place: Tiziano Serra, PhD Research Scientists AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) AO Foundation Davos, Switzerland Tiziano is a Postdoctoral Fellow (Research Scientist) at AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) in the AO Foundation (Switzerland). He is a materials engineer from Lecce (Italy), received a PhD (cum laude) at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (Spain, 2014) with a thesis on the development of bioactive composite scaffolds by 3D-printing for bone tissue engineering. Then he spent two years as Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London (UCL) working on design and development of 3D-printed patient specific medical devices. Since October 2016, his research activities at ARI are articulated around the a) translation of innovative additive manufacturing technologies for the repair of musculoskeletal disorders and b) development of cutting-edge 3D in vitro disease models for drug screening and personalized medicine through acoustic and magnetic stimuli for contactless cell assembly.  

2^nd Place: Khoon S. Lim, PhD Research Fellow, BE (Hons 1, Chemical Engineering, UNSW), ME (Biomedical Engineering, UNSW), PhD (Biomedical Engineering, UNSW) Christchurch Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering (CReaTE) Research Group University of Otago, New Zealand Dr Khoon Lim is a biomedical engineer with specialization in polymer chemistry. His research focus is on adopting a class of polymers known as hydrogels as tissue engineering matrices for a variety of applications. His research technology platform involves photo-polymerizable hydrogel bioinks for 3D bioprinting of functional tissues and also delivery of bioactive molecules to promote tissue regeneration. Khoon is currently an Associate Investigator on the Centre of Research Excellence in Medical Technologies (MedTech CoRE), Affiliate Investigator on the Maurice Wilkins Centre (MWC) for Molecular Diversity and Executive Committee member of the Australasian Society of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE). He currently holds a prestigious New Zealand Health Research Council Emerging Research First Grant, and is involved in a number of collaborative projects involving national and international collaborators (Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Korea, Japan and USA).

3^rd Place: Naomi Paxton, BASc (physics), MASc, MSc, AFHEA; PhD Candidate Biofabrication and Tissue Morphology Group Queensland University of Technology, Australia Naomi Paxton is a PhD student and scientific researcher in the area of biofabrication. After attaining her Bachelor of Science (Physics) from QUT, Naomi went on to complete the Dual International Masters degree in biofabrication, run jointly between QUT and the University of Würzburg, Germany. Currently, Naomi is completing her PhD in QUT’s new ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre in Additive Biomanufacturing, under the supervision of Professor Mia Woodruff. Naomi’s research project focusses on developing customised biomaterial scaffolds fabricated using advanced 3D printing methods for bone regeneration. In support of her multidisciplinary, international research, Naomi was awarded the 2018 CSIRO Alumni Scholarship in Physics and national Women in STEM travel award sponsored by Campus Travel and Virgin Australia. Alongside her studies, Naomi is a passionate science communicator and teacher. She has over 5 years’ experience as a Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Student Ambassador at QUT and also participates in the Wonder of Science program as a Young Science Ambassador and Flying Scientist. Naomi has presented her undergraduate astrophysics research at TEDxQUT 2014 and was invited to share her biofabrication research at TEDxUniversityofWürzburg in 2016. Currently, Naomi is a lecturer at QUT in astrophysics and has been recognised as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

ISBF Travel Award for the 2018 Biofabrication Conference Travel Awardees: 1) Liliang Ouyang, Imperial College London, UK 2) Philipp Fisch, ETH Zurich, Switzerland 3) Markus Lunzer, TU Wien, Austria 4) Agnes Dobos, TU Wien, Austria 5) Yong Sang Cho, Wonkwang University, Republic of Korea 6) Gianluca Cidonio, University of Southampton, UK 7) Giorgia Montalbano, Politecnico of Turin, Italy 8) César Roberto Alcalá Orozco, University of Otago, New Zealand

WFIRM Young Investigator Award at the 2018 Biofabrication Conference Awardee: Kerstin Schneeberger, PhD Post-Doctoral Fellow Utretcht University Utretcht, The Netherlands Dr. Schneeberger is a biotechnologist by training and a postdoctoral researcher in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine. During her PhD at the University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands), she acquired expertise in stem cell biology of the gastrointestinal tract, and extensively applied adult stem cell derived organoids as disease models and for regenerative purposes. The results of her projects have been published in high profile journals (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Gastroenterology, Stem Cells, Biofabrication, among others). Since February 2016, she is employed as a postdoc at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Here, she is combining her expertise in adult stem cell derived organoids with her biotechnological background to create functional liver tissue models. She has been awarded with several prestigious awards and prizes, and recently received a personal grant to start her own research line on liver tissue engineering. Her personal long-term goal is to create complex organs that can be used for clinical transplantations in patients.

2017 Award Winners The ISBF has expanded its award programs and added two new awards this year. The award categories include A) Senior Investigator Award, B) ISBF’s young investigator awards, and C) Student Travel Awards. The awards will be presented at the Biofabrication 2017 Conference in Beijing, China. An overwhelming number of applications was received for each award category. The ISBF Awards Committee has thoroughly reviewed and selected the awardees. The winners of the ISBF awards are shown below. ISBF Awards Committee:

• Giovanni Vozzi (Chair), University of Pisa, Italy
• David Dean, The Ohio State University, USA
• Paul Dalton, University of Würzburg, Germany
• Roger Narayan, UNC School of Medicine, USA
• Sang Jin Lee, Wake Forest School of Medicine, USA
• Utkan Demirci, Stanford University, USA

ISBF Senior Investigator Award Awardee: Dr. Wei Sun Dr. Wei Sun is an appointed Albert Soffa Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Drexel University, and National “Thousand-Talents” Distinguished Professor and Director of Biomanufacturing Engineering Research Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Dr. Sun’s research has been on Biofabrication, Bio-3D Printing, Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering, CAD/CAM, and Additive Manufacturing. His research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the Chinese Natural Science Foundation, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Ministry of Education. Dr. Sun has published 450+ journal and conference papers/abstracts, 60+ patent applications, and conducted 260+ invited national and international presentations in the field of his research. Dr. Sun is the Founding President for International Society of Biofabrication (2010-2014), and currently serving Editor-in-Chief for the journal Biofabrication.

ISBF Young Investigator Award Awardees:

1^ST Place: Yeong-Jin Choi, Postech, Pohang, Korea Yeong-Jin Choi Graduate Student Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) South Korea Yeong-Jin Choi received his B.S. (2012) from division of Biomaterial Engineering at Kangwon National University, Korea. He is currently pursuing his PhD degree under the supervision of Prof. Dong-Woo Cho in Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea. His research interests focus on fabrication of 3D functional living tissue/organ by 3D cell printing for biomedical applications.

2^nd Place: Christopher Highley, University of Pennsylvania, USA Christopher Highley, PhD Postdoctoral research fellow Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania USA Chris Highley is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. His primary research interests are in the development of materials and fabrication technologies to enable the design and construction of complex cellular and material systems, with the goal of addressing fundamental and translational problems in biomedicine.

3^rd Place: Almoatazbellah Youssef, Wurzburg University, Germany Almoatazbellah Youssef Graduate Student Department of Functional Materials, Würzburg University Hospital Germany Almoatazbellah Youssef is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Functional Materials at the Würzburg University Hospital. He studied medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and graduated as a physician in 2011. Afterwards, he worked for two years in Alhelmya Military Hospital, one of the largest trauma centers in Cairo, as an orthopedics resident. He obtained a master’s degree in Life Sciences from Würzburg University, Germany, and his interest in regenerative medicine lead him to start a Ph.D. in the Biofabrication Group with Prof. Paul Dalton. His research involves the fabrication of scaffolds using melt electrospinning writing.

ISBF Travel Award for the 2017 Biofabrication Conference Travel Awardees: 1) Chen Chen, Utrecht University, Netherlands 2) Vera Guduric, BioTis, INSERM U1026, UniversitŽ de Bordeaux, France 3) Dhoolappa Melinamani, Shivamogga, India 4) Khoon S Lim, University of Otago, New Zeland 5) Riccardo Levato, Utrecht University, Netherlands 6) Liwei Yan, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong, China 7) Negar Motayagheni, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, USA 8) Paweena Diloksumpan, Utrecht University, Netherlands 9) Ricardo Ribeiro, New castle Univerisity, UK 10) Rong Wang, Maastricht University, Netherlands 11) Sejeong Yoon, Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea 12) Yufei Ma, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China

WFIRM Young Investigator Award at the 2017 Biofabrication Conference Awardee: Miguel Castilho, PhD Miguel Castilho, PhD Postdoctoral Researcher Department of Orthopaedics, UMC Utrecht, Netherlands Department of Orthopaedic Biomechanics, Eindhoven University of Technology Netherlands Miguel Castilho is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Orthopaedics, UMC Utrecht, Netherlands, and at the Department of Orthopaedic Biomechanics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, and trained as a mechanical engineer, he completed his PhD studies in biomedical engineering (cum laude) in 2015, at the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal. Between 2012 and 2014, he was a visiting research scholar at the University of Würzburg, Germany, and worked in a biomaterials company for the development and CE marking of tissue-engineered bone substitutes. He is currently researching the generation of cartilage and bone tissue equivalents by applying innovative bioprinting technologies, and simultaneously he is a teacher at the first international Masters in Biofabrication, at Utrecht University. Miguel has published his research in high impact journals within the field of biomanufacturing and bioprinting and he is an active contributor to international scientific conferences in the field.

IOP Poster Award at the 2017 Biofabrication Conference The winner will be announced at the Biofabrication Conference.

2016 Award Winners