ReWire

Epidural electricalstimulation (EES) is a promising technique used to help restore movement and function in individuals with SCI. The main goal of his project is to develop solutions to enhance rehabilitation with EES. His thesis will be focused on two axes. The first one will involve the development of sensors and real-time algorithms for motion intention recognition in combination with personalized EES. The second axis will focus on investigating state-of-the-art orthoses and their potential to improve mobility in conjunction with EES.

Simay Genişcan is from Turkey, Izmir, and completed her Master’s degree in Neuroscience in Ajou University, South Korea. She is workingin the lab of Prof. Elizabeth Bradbury at King’s College. With a focus in spinal cord repair, she has been utilizing different approaches to regenerate damaged spinal cord, including cell and organoid transplantation, biomaterial injection, and modulation of inhibitory spinal cord ECM environment with therapeutic drugs. Her thesis project is on an in vitro scar model with primary fibroblasts and astrocytes and screened drugs that can modulate fibrosis.

Yayue Song is from Beijing, China, and studied medicine in China. She completed her MSc degreein Translational Neuroscience at Imperial College London, under the guidance of Professor Simone Di Giovanni. Yayue is undertaking a PhD project at Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor Simone Di Giovanni, with a focus on investigating the molecular mechanisms that promote regeneration and repair following spinal cord injuries. Within the consortium, she aims to combine the molecular stimulation of neuronal regeneration with biomaterials or other combinatorial approaches to enhance the repair potential after spinal injury.

Carlo Carraro is from Italy and recently completed his Master’s degree in Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, where he specialized in electronics and wearable device technologies. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD under theguidance of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vallery Heike (Instituteof Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University) and Dr. Joachim von Zitzewitz (ONWARD Medical). His research focuses on developing personalized orthosis and sensor/control platforms for movement intention recognition, both with the goal to improve EES-supported (Epidural Electrical Stimulation) locomotion for people with spinal cord injury.

Rui Chen was born in China and obtained his MSc degree from Tsinghua University in Mechanical Engineering, and another MSc degree from RWTH Aachen University in Product System Engineering. He began working as a PhD student at Wearable Robotics in Italy under the supervision of Professor Antonio Frisoli. His work will focus on the development of a robotic soft exoskeleton for gross manipulation restoration after spinal cord injury.

Catarina Tavares, from Portugal, obtained her MSc degree in Nanotechnology Engineering at the NOVA Faculty of Science and Technology. She is pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Laura De Laporte at DWI (RWTH Aachen University), focusing on the microfluidic production of microgel capsules as drug delivery systems and the sustained release of growth factors to promote spinal cord regeneration after injury. Since starting in September, she has been conducting a literature review on sustained or stimuli-triggered drug delivery systems based on microgels and on the effects of local growth factor release for neural regeneration.

Jace Vu graduated with a BSc in Chemical Engineering at Miami University, USA, and an MSc in Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. He will start his doctoral research in the Advanced Materials for Biomedicine research group led by Dr.-Ing. Laura De Laporte at the DWI Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials. He will be working on developing and evaluating injectable, magneto-responsive, macroporous guiding scaffolds as therapy after acute SCI.

Maria Justino is a PhD student at Clinatec and the main objectives of her program are to establish novel algorithms of intended movement decoding from epidural cortical (brain) recording to provide corresponding stimulation patterns to central or periphery nervous system aiming at recovering motor control after spinal cord injury in humans. She looks forward to expanding her competencies in designing appropriate acquisition systems, acquiring and processing data, establishing new datasets, data imaging and visualization, and developing interpretable and accurate machine learning models.