STEMreg

Immune-Driven Tissue Regeneratio

The project is funded by Trond Mohn Foundation under the scheme TMS Starting grant from 2021-2025
Despite bone’s potential to restore a functional tissue without scar formation,there are several occasions where it fails to regenerate due to extensive bone loss or compromised healing.Bone tissue engineering introduced thein vitroexpansion of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells(BMSC)combined with biomaterials,bioactive molecules,and different priming strategies to reconstruct clinically challenging bone defects.Transplanted BMSC encounter a myriad of synchronised interactions with the recipient’s immune system and these cellular interactions that affect the efficacy of the stem cell-therapy are largely unexplored. Given the complexity of immune profiles in different individuals and various immune-related diseases,the outcome of this interaction is likely to be significantly influenced by thein vivomicroenvironments.

STEMreg consists of a series of activities built around the following research themes:

• Unravel the molecular interplay between implanted mesenchymal stem cells and the recipient’s immune system and how this impacts the microenvironment and hence the therapy outcome.
• Steer stem-cell based bone regeneration in models under different immune compromised healing conditions.
• Develop novel immune-instructive biomaterials to improve bone regenerative therapies.

Members

Senior Researcher & Principal Investigator

Salwa Suliman
PHD CANDIDATE

Eylem Baysal
PostDoc

Azzurra Margiotta
HEAD ENGINEER

Hisham Saghayroon Abdalla

Senior Researcher & Principal Investigator

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

Department:Department of Clinical Dentistry

Email:Salwa.Suliman@uib.no

Telephone:+47 55 58 63 56 / +47 471 67 075

Visiting Address:Årstadveien 19

Postal Address:Postboks 7804, 5020 Bergen

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

Department:Department of Clinical Dentistry

Email:Eylem.Baysal@uib.no

Visiting Address:Årstadveien 19

Postal Address:Postboks 7804, 5020 Bergen

PostDoc

Azzurra Margiotta

Biography

Azzurra is a Post-doc in the Tissue Engineering group (Immune-driven tissue regeneration node). She graduated in 2009 in Biotechnology at University of Salento. She completed her MSc. in Human Biology in 2011 at University of Salento where she obtained an award for her thesis. She has been a PhD student in Genetics and cell biology (University of Tuscia) and contributed to several publications, collaborations and attended courses abroad. She obtained two awards for her research activity. She defended her PhD thesis in 2016 and obtained the mark excellent and the title of Doctor Europaeus (EUA). Afterwards, she has been a researcher at University of Oslo and a post-doc at University of Masaryk/FNUSA in Czech Republic.  

Projects

Her project is part of the STEMreg (Immune-driven tissue regeneration) project funded by the Trond Mohn Starting Grant 2020. Her research is focused on understanding the mechanism through which mesenchymal stem cells and regulatory T cells regulate bone regeneration. 

Publications

ResearchGate

CRIStin

CRISTIN link

Department:Department of Clinical Dentistry

Email:Azzurra.Margiotta@uib.no

Visiting Address:Årstadveien 19

Postal Address:Postboks 7804, 5020 Bergen

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

Email:Hisham.Alla@uib.no

Telephone:+47 55 58 62 92

Visiting Address:Årstadveien 19

Postal Address:Postboks 7804, 5020 Bergen

Project in Cristin

News

Contact Infomation

Salwa Suliman
Årstadveien 19, Bergen, 5009, Norway
+47 55 58 63 56
salwa.suliman@uib.no