Welcome To
Applied Stem Cell Technologies
About Us
Every day we are pushing the boundaries of the stem cell research field. With one goal: bridging the gap between engineering and medicine. That’s where we make our impact.
Our research topics
Our technology
Team leaders
Passier’s research focuses on cardiac disease modelling based on human pluripotent stem cells, which have the capacity to form any cell type of the human body. In recent years, defined protocols for generating specialized cardiac cells and cardiovascular progenitor cells from human pluripotent stem cells have been established in his group. At the University of Twente his group combines human pluripotent stem cell technologies (controlled differentiation to cardiovascular cells and genetic manipulation) and micro-engineering technologies to build innovative highly advanced “heart-on-chip” systems (either 2D or 3D) and cardiac organoid-like tissues for modelling cardiac disease and unravelling underlying molecular mechanisms. In addition, his group aims to develop multifunctional high-throughput technologies and platforms for drug screening and personalized medicine.
Robert Passier – Head of department
Broersen’s research focuses on the fundamental biochemistry of cell to cell signaling to, from and inside of the brain in relation to neurodegenerative diseases. Broersen aims at seeking answers to our questions using combined biochemistry, biophysics, and cell biology approach including the use of microfluidic chip systems for cell culture.
Kerensa Broersen – Adjunct professor
Van der Meer focuses on the technical development of ‘next-generation’ organs-on-chips, by controlled engineering of three-dimensional tissues and by their active perfusion with human blood. Moreover, he aims to develop ‘personalized’ organs-on-chips by integration of human stem cell-derived tissues and by controlling culture parameters based on personal health data. Finally, he has a major interest in the miniaturization, standardization, multiplexing and automation of organs-on-chips by developing modular systems and by controlling fluid flow through microfluidic valves.
Andries van der Meer – Adjunct professor
Schwach’s research focuses on:
- hPSC differentiation towards multiple cardiac cells.
- Cardiac tissue engineering using bioprinting.
- Cardiac disease modeling, such as a heart-on-chip model for arrhythmia.
- CRISPR/Cas9 editing technologies, including pooled and arrayed screening approaches
- Multi-organ-on-chip models, for example a heart-brain model.
- Cardiotoxicity.
Verena Schwach – Assistant professor
