Accardo Lab
Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering (PME), TU Delft
Accardo Lab
Light-assisted manufacturing of Multi-scale 3D cellular microenvironments
Research
Using light to structure biomaterials for cell culture applications
We develop versatile multi-scale (nano-micro-meso) fabrication paradigms to address a range of open questions in cell biology.
We are interested in the design and fabrication of 3D architectures by employing light-assisted additive manufacturing techniques (such as two-photon lithography and stereolithography).
We plan to exploit these 3D engineered microenvironments for studying the mechanobiology, migration and differentiation mechanisms of cells as well as of spheroids/organoids.
We dream to use these platforms for prospective applications in the field of in-vitro 3D models (e.g. for neurodegenerative diseases, cancer) and tissue engineering (e.g. for neural or bone scaffolds).
News
June 1, 2019
I officially joined TU Delft within the Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering (PME) as Tenure-Track Assistant Professor!
Excited to start this challenging adventure and set up my new lab!
September 9, 2019
Beatriz Costa, visiting Master Student from University of Minho (Portugal), is the first member of my team!
She will work on 3D fabrication and mechanical characterization of polymeric/hydrogel scaffolds.
Welcome Beatriz!
September 16, 2019
Keynote Lecture entitled "To scaffold or not to scaffold: pros and cons in the realization of biomimetic neuronal microenvironments" at the Symposium "Bioinspired and Biointegrated Materials as New Frontiers Nanomaterial" that I am honored to chair during the 2019 E-MRS Fall Meeting in Warsaw.
October 7, 2019
Excited to have joined the Brain-on-chip group, part of the human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT) consortium.
November 14, 2019
The Special Issue "3D Microfabrication Unleashed: Emerging Applications and New Manufacturing Concepts" in Micromachines Journal is open for submissions!
December 10, 2019
Giving a talk in Utrecht on "Multi-scale engineered cell microenvironments by laser-assisted additive manufacturing" at the International MicroNanoConference 2019.
December 13, 2019
The first paper of my professorship at TU Delft is out: "Engineered 3D Polymer and Hydrogel Microenvironments for Cell Culture Applications". (Open Access Review article)
Also, the first PhD position in my group on "Light-assisted 3D manufacturing of neuronal microenvironments" is now open for applications. (Deadline 15/1/2020)
December 20, 2019
Dian Veldkamp, PME Master Student, joined our team!
She will develop a graduation project on 3D fabrication and 3D imaging of engineered micro-environments for guiding the fate of neural stem cells.
Welcome Dian!
January 23, 2020
I am very honored to be the recipient of the 1st Place grant of the TU Delft Health Initiative Pilot Projects call. Within this project, involving a strong synergy between TU Delft and the Holland Proton Therapy Center, we will start to explore the development of 3D Onco-Scaffolds as a benchmark tool for Proton Radiobiology.
February 10, 2020
Excited and honored to have been awarded a Cohesion Grant of 200 k€ from Sectorplan funding, together with Dr. Mohammad J. Mirzaali! This project will allow us to develop novel nanostructured 3D scaffolds by combining advanced mechanical engineering designs and light-assisted 3D micro-manufacturing. The beginning of a promising "cohesion" between the Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering (PME) and the Department of BioMechanical Engineering (BME) at TU Delft.
Please have a look at the available PhD position.
February 14, 2020
First oral presentation of our Visiting MSc Student Beatriz Costa at the hDMT (human Organ and Disease Model Technologies) international meeting! Good job Beatriz!
March 24, 2020
Brian Roos, PME Master Student, joined our team!
He will develop a graduation project on 3D microglia-on-chip in collaboration with the Biomedical Primate Research Center (BPRC).
Welcome Brian!
April 1, 2020
Welcome Ahmed Sharaf, freshly appointed PhD student in my group!
His project will be focused on Light-assisted 3D manufacturing of neuronal microenvironments.
May 29, 2020
Congratulations to Saleh Aghajani, PME-MNE section PhD student that I am co-supervising, for his first author's paper entitled "Aerosol Direct Writing and Thermal Tuning of Copper Nanoparticle Patterns as Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Sensors" just appeared in ACS Applied Nano Materials!
July 27, 2020
Qais Akolawala, PME Master Student, joined our team!
He will develop a graduation project on 3D microenvironments for glioblastoma proton radiobiology studies in collaboration with LUMC and the HollandPTC.
Welcome Qais!
August 26, 2020
Excited to chair with Dr. Paul Wieringa a symposium on "Strategies for the realization of biomimetic neuronal microenvironments" at the 6th World Congress of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS2021) taking place in Maastricht next year!
September 18, 2020
The chapter Nanoscaffolds for Neural Regenerative Medicine, part of the book Neural Regenerative Nanomedicine has been published! A nice collaboration with expert colleagues in the field!
October 8, 2020
Nastaran Barin, PME Master Student, joined our team!
She will develop a graduation project on 3D engineered tumoral microenvironments for the study of primary and patient-derived glioblastoma cells in collaboration with ErasmusMC.
Welcome Nastaran!
November 1, 2020
Welcome Ebrahim Yarali, freshly appointed PhD student in my group in collaboration with the Department of Biomechanical Engineering!
His project will be focused on the development of novel nanostructured bio-mimetic meta-implants for bone tissue replacement.
May 6, 2021
Congrats Saleh Aghajani for his latest work on additive manufacturing of Au nanoparticle patterns featuring tunable photoluminescence and SERS behaviour.
June 14, 2021
New collaborative paper with Mohammad Mirzaali on Curvature Induced by Deflection in Thick Meta-Plates just appeared in Advanced Materials!
August 15, 2021
Our lab has been awarded two NWO Grants!
August 27, 2021
Congratulations to our freshly graduated (9/10) MSc student Qais Akolawala!
September 3, 2021
Thomas Michalica, PME Master Student, joined our team!
He will develop a graduation project on 2.5D Hybrid polymer/metal Neuron-On-Chip architectures by two-photon polymerization and multi-focal lithography in collaboration with Max Mastrangeli (EWI) and Jean Philippe Frimat (LUMC).
September 20, 2021
Chihao Kuo, PME Master Student, joined our team!
He will develop a graduation project on hybrid soft/stiff polymer-hydrogel scaffolds in collaboration with Eduardo Mendes (TNW).
September 28, 2021
Updated group picture on a very sunny day at TU Delft!
October 10, 2021
October 26, 2021
The Italian regional television channel Canale 10 interviewed me for talking about my 3D microenvironment research at TU Delft
October 28, 2021
Congratulations to our freshly graduated (9/10) MSc student Nastaran Barin!
November 1, 2021
Welcome back to Qais Akolawala who joined the team as Junior Researcher!
November 11, 2021
Congratulations to our freshly graduated (7.5/10) MSc student Brian Roos!
November 12, 2021
MNE Group picture at the Remastered museum in Rotterdam during our winter outing!
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November 17, 2021
Great collaborative work with my colleagues from McMaster University and LAAS-CNRS on 3D polymeric and hydrogel cell scaffolds fabricated by stereolithography/two-photon polymerization and decorated with cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs).
December 1, 2021
Welcome back to Nastaran Barin who joined the team as PhD student, shared with ErasmusMC, and continuing her work on 3D engineered models of primary glioblastoma!
December 1, 2021
Welcome to Pieter van Altena who joined the team as PhD student working on 3D cell-instructive engineered stem cell models for neuropsychiatric disorders!
February 7, 2022
Honored to be featured among the 5 talents of the Netherlands by the scientific popular magazine NewScientist.
February 17, 2022
My history and research appeared on the pages of the Italian national newspaper Libero.
February 25, 2022
Another press release about my research on the pages of the Italian popular scientic magazine Sanita' Informazione.
March 7, 2022
Congrats Saleh Aghajani for his latest work on nanoparticles high-resolution dry aerosol direct writing just published in Additive Manufacturing (IF 11)!
March 13, 2022
Great work by my former Erasmus+ Mobility Program MSc student, Beatriz Costa on bone marrow MSCs interaction with polymer and PEGDA microscaffolds published, in collaboration with INL and University of Minho, in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (IF 9.2).
March 15, 2022
The launch of the Delft Young Academy took place in the beautiful Berlagezaal of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft. A great event featuring insightful exchanges between the DYA board members, one of the initiators of the DYA (Behnam Taebi), the Rector Magnificus of the Technische Universiteit Delft Tim van der Hagen, members of two other Young Academies (Yarin Eski, Amsterdam Young Academy; Noel de Miranda, Young Academy Leiden) and the DYA community.
March 31, 2022
Great performance by Nastaran today at ErasmusMC in occasion of the ACE TI-IT Symposium where she talked about her patient-derived 3D engineered glioblastoma model.
April 21, 2022
Our lab has been awarded a NWO-XS grant for the project "Unravelling neuronal growth cone mechanobiology via sub-micrometric fabrication and super-resolution microscopy"!
May 11, 2022
Our work on the Evaluation of Proton-Induced DNA Damage in 3D-Engineered Glioblastoma Microenvironments made it to the cover of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (IF 9.2)!
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May 25, 2022
Great talk from my PhD student Nastaran Barin at the NWOLife conference!
June 14, 2022
Congratulations to our freshly graduated (7/10) MSc student Dian Veldkamp!
June 20, 2022
Great job of my BEP group with their project on a portable cell culture incubator!
June 29, 2022
Honored to be among the invited speakers of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) European Chapter Conference 2022 in Krakow!
June 29, 2022
Thank you HollandPTC for the nice interview and for your continued support!
July 7, 2022
Yesterday I was honored to host and moderate the Bioday2022 event at Technische Universiteit Delft. We had a great plenary lecture from Jaap den Toonder and several other talks as well as poster presentations from TU Delft bioengineering researchers (PIs, Postdocs, PhDs, MSc students).
July 8, 2022
What a wonderful outing with my whole group in the canals of Delft! Great synergy with these guys and ladies!
July 8, 2022
Very happy to serve as Guest Editor of the Special Issue "Engineered environments and organ-on-chip for directing stem cell behavior" which will be published in the Elsevier Stem Cell Research journal. Please consider submitting your work and share with other potentially interested authors!
July 22, 2022
New work just published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (IF 6.1)! We show how micro- and nanostructures fabricated by two-photon polymerization provide topographical and mechanical cues able to foster the expression of the ramified phenotype and a high number of primary branches per ramified cell in primary microglia derived from adult rhesus macaques.
July 28, 2022
Our work on 3D engineered glioblastoma microenvironments for proton radiotherapy highlighted by Nanoscribe!
August 29, 2022
Himanshu Kadel, PME Master Student, joined our team!
He will develop a graduation project on electrically conductive 3D scaffolds.
September 23, 2022
It was a great MNE - Eurosensors 2022 Conference in Leuven. Plenty of fascinating talks and a chance to catch up with the whole community. A big applause to my researchers Ahmed Sharaf, Nastaran Barin and Qais Akolawala who rocked on stage and shared very nice moments also with other colleagues from the MNE section of TU Delft | Mechanical Engineering: Francesco La Malfa, PhD, Marcel Tichem and Urs Staufer! Ahmed also received the 1st prize for the best Micro-Nano graph competition 👏👏.
October 1, 2022
George Flamourakis joined our group as Post-doc!
He will work on the fabrication and super-resolution imaging of polymeric structures for the development of neuronal growth cones.
Welcome George!
October 19, 2022
Invited Keynote talk at the 2022 Nano-Micro-Lithography Symposium organized by Raith, Nanoscribe, GenISys and microresist Technology: The era of two-photon polymerized engineered microenvironments, a promising tool for cell mechanobiology and in-vitro disease/treatment modelling
November 1, 2022
What a great two-weeks visit at the Vilnius University Laser Research Center (VULRC) of Vilniaus universitetas / Vilnius University in Lithuania invited by Prof. Mangirdas Malinauskas to perform, together with my PhD student Pieter van Altena and our precious local technical support Jurga Jeršovaitė, some challenging multi-material two-photon polymerization experiments. Thank you Laserlab Europe for funding our research visit!
December 2, 2022
What a great visit at McMaster University! Thank you Jose Moran-Mirabal and Alex Adronov for the kind invitation to contribute to the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research seminar series and for the amazing hospitality!
December 8, 2022
Our work on 3D engineered cell microenvironments for glioblastoma mechanobiology made it to the front cover of Small (IF 15.1)!!!
Kudos to all the collaborators and especially to my PhD student Nastaran Barin who, besides being a brilliant scientist, is also a talented artist (she designed the cover herself 👏👏).
December 13, 2022
A warm welcome to three new group members: Floor Keuning (BSc student Erasmus University College), Kirsten Hopman (MSc student Biomedical Engineering TU Delft) and Kai Cussen (MSc student Biomedical Engineering TU Delft). Looking forward to working with you in the coming months!
December 14, 2022
Neuromechanobiology is the field of research which tries to unveil how mechanical cues influence the behavior and fate of neural (stem) cells.
I am glad to share that our review paper discussing the biological and engineering aspects involved in the neuromechanobiology of scaffold-free and scaffold-based 2D and 3D neuronal models has been just published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology!
This is the result of a great collaboration within the context of our ENW-M-2 project between Delft University of Technology and Amsterdam UMC. Kudos to all the co-authors Pieter van Altena, Lucía Castillo Ransanz and Vivi Heine. 👏👏
December 21, 2022
Congratulations Nastaran Barin, PhD student under my and Pim French supervision, for being awarded the second prize of the Delft Bioengineering Institute (BEI) Best MSc Graduate Awards 2022 competition!👏👏👏
January 17, 2023
Honoured to have been appointed Member of the European Scientific and Technical Committee at the European Parliament!
January 20, 2023
What can I say? I never had a surprise birthday party and yesterday my group and colleagues of the Precision and Microsystems Engineering Department filled that gap 😁. A totally unexpected and heartily appreciated surprise. Thank you all for this, it means a lot to me ❤️.
January 30, 2023
Delighted to contribute an invited talk about our recent work on two-photon polymerization of engineered microglia and glioblastoma microenvironments as 3D in-vitro mechanobiology/treatment models at the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco!
February 10, 2023
Congratulations to my PhD student Nastaran Barin who received yesterday the Best Poster Award at the Oncotech TU Delft Health Initiative symposium!! 👏 👏
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February 10, 2023
Congratulations to my PhD student Ahmed Sharaf who published an invited perspective article in the Journal of Neural Regeneration Research (IF 6.058), where we discuss how engineered microglia cell culture models can help to overcome the limitations of conventional 2D plastic/glass culture ware approaches.
February 11, 2023
Congratulations to my former PhD student now "Dr." Saleh Aghajani who succesfully defended his PhD thesis "Dry Aerosol Direct Writing for Selective Nanoparticle Deposition" !!! 👏 👏
February 17, 2023
Welcome to our new MSc student Ayman! He will work on 4D two-photon polymerized structures.
February 27, 2023
Congratulations to our freshly graduated "cum laude" mechanical engineer (9/10) Thomas Michalica!
February 28, 2023
Group picture 2023!
April 7, 2023
Our work on "Micro 3D Printing Elastomeric IP-PDMS Using Two-Photon Polymerisation: A Comparative Analysis of Mechanical and Feature Resolution Properties" has been published in Polymers! (IF 5) Congratulations to my PhD student Pieter van Altena for the amazing job, part of our NWO ENW-M-2 project!
April 10, 2023
Our work on "Suppression of auto-fluorescence from high-resolution 3D polymeric architectures fabricated via two-photon polymerization for cell biology applications", part of the project of my PhD student Ahmed Sharaf, has been published in Micro and Nano Engineering!!!
April 12, 2023
Congratulations to our freshly graduated (7/10) MSc student Chihao Kuo!
May 16, 2023
Welcome to our new MSc student Celine! She will work on engineered glioma spheroid microenvironemnts!
June 15, 2023
Congratualtions to Floor for succesfully defending her BSc Capstone project at Erasmus University College!
June 16, 2023
Our work on "Auxeticity as a Mechanobiological Tool to Create Meta-Biomaterials" has been published in ACS Applied Bio Materials! Congratulations to my PhD student Ebrahim Yarali the great job, part of our Cohesion grant!
July 12, 2023
Honoured to have been invited by Nanoscribe to give a webinar about Biofabrication of 3D microphysiological models!
July 14, 2023
We finally installed our new Andor 200 Spinning disk confocal microscope!
July 24, 2023
Very excited to announce that I have been awarded a NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) Open Competition grant for the project "Shaping the blood brain/tumor barrier using light"!!
August 26, 2023
Delighted to give an invited keynote presentation about how we shape 3D biomaterials for mechanobiology applications at the upcoming SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics Sensors + Imaging conference in Amsterdam!
August 27, 2023
Honoured to be listed among the invited speakers of the symposium “2D and 3D bionanomaterials: immunology, mechanobiology, and cancer” taking place at the upcoming European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) 2023 Fall Meeting in the beautiful Warsaw!
August 28, 2023
Congratulations to our freshly graduated MSc student (8) Himanshu!!
August 30, 2023
Welcome to our new MSc students Valery, Michela and Jurga!! They will work on engineered brain and brain cancer microenvironemnts!
August 31, 2023
Congratulations to our freshly graduated MSc student (8.5) Ayman!!
September 27, 2023
Highlights from the MNE2023 Conference!!! I have been elected Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) Member of the International Micro and Nano Engineering Conference; George Flamourakis awarded the second place for the best micrograph award; Presenters at MNE2023 conference: George Flamourakis, Pieter van Altena, Ahmed Sharaf, Francesco La Malfa.
November 9, 2023
It was a great pleasure to share our recent research at the 5th Neuroscience & Engineering BEI Meeting in the beautiful Theater de Veste in Delft! Great talks and wonderful atmosphere! Thank you Daan Brinks, Kristin Grußmayer and Nienke van Bemmel for the kind invitation and for organizing the event.
November 23, 2023
What an inspiring day at the International Scientific Symposium of the HollandPTC R&D consortium! Just great to see the future of proton therapy research from different perspectives. Thank you Mischa Hoogeman and Irene Van Haaren for the kind invitation
November 27, 2023
I am thrilled to announce that my former High-Tech Engineering MSc student Thomas Michalica, has been awarded today the prestigious Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW) Young Talent graduation prize in the field of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, at the Hodshon Huis in Haarlem. His MSc thesis “Two-photon polymerization-based 3D-multi-electrode arrays for electrical monitoring of neuronal cells”, is the result of a great collaborative effort between TU Delft | Mechanical Engineering and TU Delft Faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathemat (Massimo Mastrangeli). Congrats Thomas and ad maiora!
November 27, 2023
Our work "Micro-Vessels-Like 3D Scaffolds for Studying the Proton Radiobiology of Glioblastoma-Endothelial Cells Co-Culture Models" has been published in Advanced Healthcare Materials!
December 10, 2023
Angelo Accardo awarded Delft Bioengineering Institute (BEI) 20k grant for the project “Disentangling the Brain’s Fiber Network using 3D-Nanofabrication and Scattered Light” (in collaboration with Miriam Menzel – TNW) & Thomas Michalica awarded the Delft BioeEgnineering Institute (BEI) Best MSc Graduate Award 2023!!
December 13, 2023
Angelo Accardo awarded NWO XS grant for the project “Unveiling the connection between air pollutants and Alzheimer's disease via engineered stem cell derived models”!
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December 17, 2023
Glad to see our latest work on 3D engineered co-culture model for brain cancer proton radiobiology, featured on Delft op Zondag and Medical Xpress!!
January 26, 2024
I am truly excited to kickstart, together with Mohammad J. Mirzaali and our PhD student Ebrahim Yarali, an overseas collaboration with Jose Moran-Mirabal and his PhD student David A. González-Martínez from McMaster University, thanks to a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance International Catalyst Grant that we have just been awarded! Together, we will explore the combination of laser-assisted additive manufacturing, metamaterials and cellulose nanocrystals for tissue engineering applications.
February 6, 2024
Congratulations to my and Mohammad J. Mirzaali's PhD student Ebrahim Yarali for his latest article just published in Acta Biomaterialia! 👏👏
In this work, we investigated how preosteoblasts interact with computationally designed auxetic and non-auxetic meta-biomaterials in terms of cell morphology, osteogenic differentiation and matrix mineralization, thus paving the way for their use in the field of bone tissue engineering. This is the result of a cohesive effort between the Department of Biomechanical Engineering and the Precision and Microsystems Engineering Department at TU Delft | Mechanical Engineering, as part of the Faculty Cohesion grants program
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February 27, 2024
Happy to share that I have been promoted to Associate Professor as of 1st of February 2024!!
March 1, 2024
Thrilled to see our work on Micro-vessels-like Glioblastoma 3D-Microenvironments Radiobiology selected as front cover in Advanced Healthcare Materials! 🙌
March 22, 2024
Group picture 2024 and group dinner!!
March 27, 2024
New video of our MicroSLA Micro 2 setup!!
April 11, 2024
Angelo Accardo chaired the Bioday2024 congress, George Flamourakis and Michela Manco awarded best poster prizes!
April 16, 2024
Looking forward to giving an invited seminar at the LIMNI@KU Leuven Bio Spring School on Advancements in Bio-inspired Materials, Fabrication, and Integration for Micro- and Nanosystems (BioNanoTech) 2024!
May 15, 2024
Congratulations to our former MSc student Michela Manco who was awarded with a 110/110 Cum Laude for her thesis "Light-assisted 3D Printing of Mesoscale Engineered Neural Cell Environments" defended at University Campus Biomedico of Rome, Italy!!
May 28, 2024
New review paper on 4D printing for biomedical applications published in Advanced Materials!!
June 5, 2024
Welcome to our new MSc students Azza Jacobs and Ruben Knuppe who will work on 3D engineered meso-scale neural environments and 3D organoid traps!
June 18, 2024
Congratulations to our former MSc student Jurga Jersovaite who was awarded with a 10/10 Magna Cum Laude for her thesis "Light-Assisted Microfabrication Of Orthogonal And Hexagonal Lattices Influencing Neuronal Processes And Growth Cone Morphology" defended at Vilinus University, Lithuania!!
June 24, 2024
Congratulations to our former MSc student Kai Cussen for his well-deserved MSc degree!!
July 1, 2024
Organized and hosted the 1st TU Delft Early Career Researchers Day on behalf of the Delft Young Academy!
July 8, 2024
Welcome to our new MSc student Novinda Sofya Pertiwi who will work on 3D Micro Scale biomimetic scaffolds for genetic expression analysis of Glioblastoma Proton therapy response!
September 19, 2024
The 50th edition of the International Conference on Micro- and Nano Engineering (MNE2024) in the sunny Montpellier comes to an end. A truly exceptional event where my wonderful team showed great cohesion and excellent performances culminated in a "hat trick"! 🙌🙌🙌
Jurga Jeršovaitė: Best Poster Award
Pieter van Altena: 2nd Best Micrograph Award
Nastaran Barin: Best Student Oral Award
Amazing presentations also by Pieter van Altena, Ahmed Sharaf, George Flamourakis, Michela Manco, Ebrahim Yarali & Qais Akolawala 💪💪💪. Couldn't be prouder of these people!
October 21, 2024
Very excited to share that the work of my Postdoc George Flamourakis, entitled “Deciphering the influence of effective shear modulus on neuronal network directionality and growth cones morphology via laser-assisted 3D printed nanostructured arrays”, has just been published in the prestigious Wiley Advanced Functional Materials journal (IF 18.5)!! 👏👏👏
November 7, 2024
Mechanical cues play a pivotal role on (neuronal) cell behaviour. In this work just published in the prestigious Materials Today Bio journal, my talented researcher Ahmed Sharaf manufactured 2.5D microgrooves and 3D microchannels via two-photon polymerization (2PP) to investigate the effect of mechanical confinement on mechanosensitive proteins (YAP & MRTFA) as well as on neurite ougrowth. Congrats Ahmed!! 🙌🙌