From skin to the eye, how technology is shaping modern medicine

Skin fibrosis, most known as scar, is a common condition that currently has no specific treatments but can lead to excessive scarring, potentially causing severe disability. Why is that? This is exactly what I try to understand with my work. To unveil this mystery, I use complex bioinformatic tools (called scRNAseq) to identify genetic changes that might occur in the scar. We hope this will help to accurately develop patient-specific therapies, helping patients with skin fibrosis in their day-to-day life challenges.

Through my research on the outer blood retinal barrier I will show the exciting potentials of reducing and replacing animal drug testing and disease studies with an alternative model, a so called “Organ-on-Chip”. By growing cells in a specially structured environment and monitoring their behaviour, pathologies can be simulated, and drugs can be tested for their efficacy and safety. My research project focuses on reproducing the blood to retinal barrier, our natural defence that protects the inner eye.