Member info

• FACULTY:
  Faculty of Sciences
• DEPARTMENT:
  Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry
• RESEARCH GROUP:
  Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials Research Group
• WORK ADDRESS:
  Krijgslaan 281 building S4, 9000 Gent, Belgium
• PUBLICATIONS:
  ORCID
• SUMMARY:
  Prof. Sandra Van Vlierberghe has acquired expertise related to the synthesis, the modification and the processing of photo-responsive and/or photo-crosslinkable (bio)polymers including thermoplasts (e.g. polyesters) and hydrogels (e.g. proteins and polysaccharides) for a variety of biomedical applications (e.g. tissue engineering, drug delivery, sensors, photonics, etc.). She is experienced in the field of polymer processing using 3D printing (light- versus extrusion-based additive manufacturing; two-photon polymerization (2PP), volumetric additive manufacturing, DLP)) and electrospinning. She received her PhD in Sciences in 2008 at Ghent University. She authored >300 Web of Science Core Collection cited papers, she has a h-index of 54 (WoS), is promoter of 22 PhD’s and she edited three books, authored 7 chapters in books of which 5 invited. She is European Society for Biomaterials (ESB) council member, treasurer of the Belgian Polymer Group (BPG), former spokesperson of the ‘Young Scientist Forum (YSF)’ and former TERMIS-EU council member. She serves on the editorial board of several journals focussing on tissue engineering and biomaterials science. In 2017, she received the Jean Leray award from the European Society for Biomaterials. She also received the 2025 TERMIS-EU Mid Term Career Award, which is awarded yearly to recognize an individual who has demonstrated outstanding achievements in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine research. She is (co-)inventor of numerous patents and patent applications, is co-founder of the spin-off ‘BIO INX’ focussing on bioinks for biofabrication purposes and is co-founder of the spin-off 4Tissue which is focusing on the translation of an injectable biomaterial serving breast reconstruction from in vivo animal testing towards first in-human trials.
• EMAIL:
  Sandra.vanvlierberghe@ugent.be
• WEBLINK:
  https://pbmugent.eu