Associate Professor

Salwa Suliman

Biography

Trained as a dentist from University of Khartoum in Sudan, Salwa established herself as an interdisciplinary researcher specialised in translational and basic experimental research focused on bone tissue engineering. Salwa completed her PhD in the Tissue Engineering Group, University of Bergen, where she was awarded Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry’s best PhD prize in 2015. Her research focused on efficacy and biocompatibility of bioactive scaffolds delivering growth factors for bone regeneration.

She continued as a researcher and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen with a research stay at Department of Applied Oral Sciences at The Forsyth Institute and Harvard School of Dental Medicine, USA (2019-2020).

Salwa is now a Principal Investigator leading a research node on ‘immune-driven regeneration’ within the Tissue Engineering Group. Her research focuses on understanding and harnessing the role of the immune system in improving bone regeneration. Salwa was awarded the Meltzer Prize for Outstanding Young Researchers (2020) and she is a member of the Young Academy of Norway (2021-2025)

Project

Trond Mohn Foundation Starting Grant (Immune-Driven Tissue Regeneration) (2021-2025)

FRIPRO Young Researcher Talent (Harnessing Regulatory T cells to Enhance the Efficacy of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Bone Regeneration) (2021-2025)

Publications

CRISTIN link

Team members

Eylem Baysal

Natalia Fiesco Arango

Associate Professor

Cecilie Gjerde

Biography

Cecilie Gjerde graduated as cand. odont at University of Bergen in 1999, and she finished her specialty in Oral and Maxillofacial surgery at UiB in 2006. She worked at Haukeland University Hospital from 2002-2008. She was head of the clinical education for students and residents at the Section of Oral Surgery and Oral Medicine at UiB since 2008. From 2012 she has a research position focusing on stem cells and tissue engineering. She has a part time referral clinic for oral surgery.

She has published several scientific papers and given more than 150 invited lectures at national and international conferences. In 2020 she completed her PhD focusing on mesenchymal stem cell in bone regeneration in clinical trials at UiB. She won the Norwegian Grand Prix 2015 for Scientific Presentations and in 2016 she was awarded both the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry`s price for scientific communication and the dental students award for best lecturer. In 2017 she was given best educator price from the final year dental students.

Publications

CRISTIN link

Associate professor

Mohammed Ahmed Yassin

Biography

Mohammed holds Ph.D in Bone Tissue Engineering. His Ph.D research was the interaction between Stem Cell and 3D polymeric scaffolds to regenerate bone. Recently, he is focusing in developing marine-derived biomaterials and applying 3D printing technology for tissues regeneration.  He is responsible for Micro-computed topography (Micro-CT) core facility at Department of Clinical Dentistry, UiB.

Publications

Google Scholar – Research Gate

ORCID – 0000-0003-0030-1906  – CRISTIN link

Profile

Linkedin

Senior Researcher

Niyaz Abdulbaqi Al-sharabi

Biography

Born in Yemen, has a background as a dental surgeon from the University of Science and Technology and in 2016 completed his PhD focusing on mesenchymal stem cell paracrine factors in tooth tissues healing and regeneration after injury, department of dentistry, UiB. He is now a post-doc in the Tissue Engineering group working on multidisciplinary projects, including application of stem cells in maxillofacial and orthopedic regions: Clinical Trail phase III.

Publications

CRISTIN link

Postdoc

Shuntaro Yamada

Biography

Shuntaro Yamada, DDS, MSc, PhD, FHEA, is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Bergen and serves as a Visiting Lecturer in Regenerative Dentistry at King’s College London.

Projects

He  completed an MSc in Regenerative Dentistry at King’s College London, followed by a PhD in Tissue Engineering at the University of Bergen, Norway, in 2023. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher focusing on oral and craniofacial tissue regeneration using tissue-specific stem cells, integrating advanced bioengineering (bioreactors and additive manufacturing), next-generation biomaterials, and multi-omics approaches.

His work aims to bridge fundamental stem cell biology with clinically relevant biofabrication strategies, with particular interests in neurovascularized regeneration, stem cell heterogeneity, and epigenetic regulation of regenerative potential. He contributes to interdisciplinary collaborations across academia and industry and is actively involved in research training, education, and supervision in regenerative dentistry and tissue engineering.

Field of Competence

Cell signalling research, Advanced microscopy, 3D cell/tissue culture, transgenic mice.

Publications/Social media

• Norwegian Research Information Repository
• Linkedin

Ph.D candidate

Åshild Johansen

Biography

Åshild is a Norwegian dentist graduated from the University of Bergen in 2022. She first joined the group in 2018 as a student in the research program and after graduating she joined the team as a PhD candidate.

Projects

Her PhD project is part of the Olav Thon funded project; Let’s make bone – 3D printing as a tool for bone regeneration. Her main interest is 3D printing, and she works with both hydrogels and synthetic polymers.

Publications

Complete Pubmed list

CRIStin

CRISTIN link

PHD CANDIDATE

Francesco Torelli

Biography

Francesco is an Italian licensed Special Needs Dentist and Craniofacial Biologist. In 2020, he graduated from the Centre for Regenerative and Craniofacial Biology at King’s College London, with an M.Sc. In Regenerative Dentistry working on salivary glands progenitor/stem cells in murine models and organoids. He started his Ph.D. Fellowship with the Tissue Engineering Group in June 2021 and is currently associated with the Bonefix Consortium, collaborating with partners in Sweden, Denmark, France, and Switzerland. 

His main areas of interest and research focus on developing segmental & critical size bone defects regenerative solutions and non-titanium-based osteosynthesis fixation patches alternatives for complex fractures management for maxillofacial and orthopedic surgical applications.

Publications

CRISTIN link

Ph.D Candidate

Serhat Aydin

Biography

Serhat is a Kurdish PhD candidate who received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in chemical engineering and materials science, sequentially.

His PhD project is part of larger projects titled “3D Printed Engineering Nano-Composite Templates for Bone Regeneration (3DPRENT)ˮ and “Let’s Make Bone” funded by the Norwegian Research Council (RCN) and Olav Thon Foundation, respectively.

The aim of the current PhD project is to design 3D-printed building blocks that can be combined in a multi-site scaffold system that mimics the anatomical and biological properties of the mandibular condyle.

Google Scholar; ResearchGate

CRISTIN

PHD CANDIDATE

Eylem Baysal

Biography

Eylem is a PhD candidate in the Immune-Driven Regeneration research node at the Tissue Engineering group. She graduated with a B.Sc. degree in Biological Sciences from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey and received a MSc. in Stem Cell Sciences from Hacettepe University, Turkey. During her masters, Eylem examined the effect of melatonin on the Hippo signalling pathway in dental pulp stem cells. During her master program, she contributed to several interdisciplinary projects and did an internship in Bramham Lab at The Department of Biomedicine, UiB.  

Projects

Her PhD project is part of the STEMreg (Immune-driven tissue regeneration) project funded by the Trond Mohn Starting Grant 2020. Her research is focused on deciphering the molecular mechanisms involved in the crosstalk between regulatory T cells and bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells in the context of bone regeneration.

CRIStin

CRISTIN link

PHD CANDIDATE

Masoumeh Jahani Kadousaraei

Biography

Masoumeh completed her both B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering in the University of Guilan, Iran. She started her Ph.D. in the Tissue Engineering Group of UiB in 2021. Before coming to UiB, she did an internship in the Biomedical Engineering group of Eindhoven University of Technology (Tue) to learn about tissue engineering. 

Projects

Her Ph.D project aims to develop multicomponent bioinks for bone tissue engineering applications.

Publications

CRISTIN link

PHD CANDIDATE

Nora Marek

Biography

Nora attended the Maastricht Science Programme for her Bachelors at Maastricht University, the Netherlands and continued her education at Lund University, Sweden. She graduated in 2021 from Lund University with a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology. Nora has joined the Tissue Engineering group as a PhD candidate in the Immune-driven tissue regeneration node. 

Projects

Nora will be working in the RCN funded Young Talent project ‘Harnessing regulatory T cells to enhance the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell-based bone regeneration’. Her research focus will be on designing and optimising next-generation immune-instructive scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.  

Publications

Complete Pubmed list

CRIStin

CRISTIN link

PhD candidate

Joasia Sendek

PhD Candidate

Ragda Saleem

Biography

Dental background from University of Khartoum, Sudan. She joined the PhD program at UiB.

Projects

She is working on the antioxidant effect of conditioned medium derived from mesenchymal stem cells.

Publications

CRISTIN link

PhD Candidate

Øyvind Goksøyr

Biography

Norwegian dentist since 2012. Currently a research fellow and has been working in the tissue engineering group since 2017. Fields of interest are bone tissue engineering and oral surgery.

Projects

In his project he is using modified synthetic polymer scaffolds as a carrier for bone marrow stem cells to promote mineraliser tissue repair.

Senior Engineer

Samih Mohamed Ahmed

Biography

Born 1986 in Sudan and graduated as a dentist from University of Gezira, Sudan. In 2019, he completed his PhD at UiB focusing on stem cell-based bone regeneration. He is now a post-doc in the Tissue Engineering group working with mesenchymal stem cells from multiple sources and different biomaterials for bone regeneration, in addition to other applications.

Publications

CRISTIN link

HEAD ENGINEER

Hisham Saghayroon Abdalla

Biography

Hisham Saghayroon Abdalla has a background as a medical laboratory technologist, with long experience in clinical chemistry & Quality control, graduated from Sudan University of Science and Technology. After completed his master’s degree on Medical Cell Biology at UiB, he has been in charge with cell culture and various experimental and administrative research methods in the lab.

Publications

CRIStin link

Senior Engineer

Kaia Lindstrøm Berstad

Biography

Kaia Berstad, engineer of the biological laboratory, has her education in genetics from University College Dublin and has previously worked in quality assurance in the pharmaceutical industry. Her main areas are the Bioplotter 3D-printer and cell laboratory along with training new users, general maintenance work, rules and routines and more.

Head of the Financial Section

Liv Rebecca Arnedatter Aae

Biography

 Originally from Sweden, Liv Rebecca has been resident in Norway since 1998. She holds a bachelor’s in economics and Administration and a Master of Management, both from the Norwegian Business School BI in Bergen. She is the Head of the Financial section at Department of Clinical Dentistry.  Liv Rebecca has since 2009 long experience in finance and management at departments of the University of Bergen and has previous been working as accountant and as an auditor in private sector businesses.

Liv Rebecca is a certified ski instructor, doing voluntary work teaching kids to ski in her spare time. She also loves to take long walks in the mountains.

Hun er også utdannet kokk – og har arbeidet som kokk i nesten 15 år. Jeg har veldig variert bakgrunn fra hotell og restaurant bransjen.