PhD position

University of Twente's Technical Medical Centre is widely recognized for its excellence in development of new biomedical solutions and advanced biofabrication technologies to address important biomedical challenges. Here, various Departments work on pressing topics with high societal and biomedical relevance such as osteoarthritis. Within theDepartment of Developmental BioEngineering (DBE; https://www.utwente.nl/en/tnw/dbe/ , a vacancy exists for a PhD-student funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie co-Fund Innovative Training Network (ITN) Ostaskills (www.ostaskills.eu ).

Within the DBE Department, we work on the development of various intra-articular injection therapies for the management of osteoarthritis. More specifically our interest focusses on the use of small antibody fragments, i.e. variable domains of single chain heavy chain only antibodies (VHH). These VHHs have various advantages over conventional antibodies. They are small and extremely stable, consist of a single peptide chain and are equally effective in antigen binding and/or neutralization in comparison to conventional antibodies. VHHs are amenable for facile genetic modification optimizing antibody properties and due to their small size, they can be cost effectively produced using bio fermentation processes in yeast for a fraction of the costs of conventional antibodies. Particularly relevant for cartilage repair VHHs can easily penetrate the dense cartilage matrix in contrast to the impaired capacity of conventional antibodies to reach the cartilage embedded chondrocytes. The topic of this PhD project focusses on developing VHHs that target to chondrocytes in damaged cartilage inducing a regenerative response in the damaged tissue. This process involves selection and thorough characterization of the VHHs and the validation of their potential use as a disease modifying agent, their formulation in biomaterials capable for controlled and sustained release after an intra-articular injection, their targeting to cartilage and the validation in ex vivo models of the human joint, in so-called joint-on-chips.