2023/06/09 | People | Biomechanics

Two ARTORG Venture Fellows

Among the second round of University of Bern Venture Fellows are two Senior Researchers from the ARTORG Center: Soheila Zeinali, Organs-on-Chip Technologies, with her project to create personalized tumor-on-chip testing microenvironments for new drugs and Miguel Ariza, Computational Bioengineering, who proposes a novel treatment for Keratoconus, a progressive eye disease today treated with refractive surgery. The ARTORG Center congratulates Soheila and Miguel as well as the other Fellows: Fabian Guignard, Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science, and Nicolas Melin, Department of Visceral Surgery and Medicine at the Inselspital.

Organ-on-chip technologies aim to mimic complex microenvironments, to which cells are exposed, in laboratory settings. Using an innovative tumor-on-chip technology, Soheila Zeinali creates a personalized microenvironment that allows testing various drugs and drug dosages on individual tumor patient samples. This technology, developed at the Organs-on-Chip Technologies lab of Olivier Guenat, aims to support precision oncology in determining the most effective treatment for each patient individually. 

LinkedIn profile Soheila Zeinali

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Miguel Ariza is proposing a novel treatment for Keratoconus – a progressive disease that leads to thinning of the cornea and in the worst case to blindness. In collaboration with Philippe Büchler, Head of the ARTORG Computational Bioengineering research group, Ariza is designing a novel minimally invasive treatment method to treat corneal refractive errors. To achieve this, he aims to develop a personalized biomechanical approach to strengthen the cornea. 

LinkedIn profile Miguel Ariza