Jana, a German native, started her professional career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA) where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Business Administration while competing in Division I collegiate tennis. During this time, Jana worked in the Tissue and Organ Chip Bioengineering Laboratory where she developed a keen interest in combining the study of cardiovascular diseases and organ-on-a-chip technology. This interest brought Jana to the University of Twente where she received her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering with a specialization in Bioengineering Technologies. After performing an internship at Miltenyi Biotec (Germany) on in-vitro target cell screening with cancer-reactive genetically engineered γδ T-cells, Jana joined AST to complete her graduation project. Here, she focused on the integration of an epicardial layer in a medium-throughput engineered cardiac chamber platform.

Currently, Jana is a PhD candidate at AST. Her research project centralizes around the optimization and disease modeling in engineered cardiac in-vitro models, specifically on the next generation of miniature cardiac pumping chambers.