"My research can lead to personalized medicine"

PhD-student at DTU Irene Papiano. Photo: Frida Gregersen.
  • Name: Irene Papiano
  • Age: 27
  • Education: MSc in Photochemistry and Molecular Materials from University of Bologna
  • Project research field: Intersection between material science, biology and chemistry
  • Project period: 2022-2025
  • Supervisors: Associate Professor Johan Ulrik Lind (principal supervisor), DTU Health Tech, Associate Professor Anton Allen Abbotsford Autzen, DTU Health Tech.

 

My PhD project is about ...

...developing 3D-printed electronic devices for growing cells, specifically for muscle cells like cardiac and skeletal muscle. These cells naturally respond to electrical signals from neurons - like when an electrical impulse causes skeletal muscle cells to contract. My role focuses on designing and developing specialized materials and 3D-printing these devices.

Imagine this: a small, transparent device with delicate printed circuits lying beneath a layer of beating cells. Using this device, we can observe cells’ contractions, stimulate them with precise electrical signals, or record their electrical communication.

This process allows us to simulate and study phenomena associated with heart-related diseases, like cardiac arrythmias. With this setup, we can also test how different drugs affect different processes, providing a platform for disease modelling and drug screening.

 

The research can contribute to…

… bypassing animal studies. There is a tendency to remove animal studies for ethical reasons, but also because the physiology of the animals is different from humans. We are close in the sense that we are all mammals, but mice are mice, humans are humans. Therefore, we can't really copy and paste the results that we get from mice and animals in general.

My research can also be used to study mechanisms of diseases and potentially go into personalized medicine. If a patient requires a specific drug, we can take their cells through a biopsy, cultivate them in a lab, in one of these devices, and administrate the drug onto the cells. By doing this we get an understanding of how a specific patient responds to a specific drug. This is relevant because we are all humans, but we're also all different. We have different genetic backgrounds, different age, different sex and so on.

 

I get new ideas for solutions when I…

… take a little break from things that I'm working on daily. I might get extremely stuck in one project. Then I’ll dedicate my time to another project and afterwards go back to the first one with a fresh mind.

Besides that, it really helps talking to colleagues and the other PhD students, because they often have a different perspective on things. That helps me a quite a lot to see a different side of a problem and solving issues.

 

It’s been a great day on the job when…

… I feel like I’ve done my best in solving a problem. It doesn't necessarily mean that the problem is solved. It can be a failure, but I would be satisfied if I feel like I did a certain experiment because it made sense based on previous research, and the process behind was logical.

 

I get especially excited when…

… I'm working with students, and they are interested in a project and they come to understand what I’m explaining. It's exciting when I get an understanding of something or I'm helping other people understand something.

 

I take a break from work when…

… I am making amigurumi, which is a Japanese concept of small, crocheted animals and then I’ve started bouldering.

I still feel like it's very scientific somehow, because PhD, crocheting, bouldering, they all involve a project. I guess you could say I like working for objectives.

I would recommend everyone doing a PhD to have something outside the PhD. Like working non-stop on a project is not healthy.

 

As a PhD I was surprised…

… that everyone has their own way of responding to the large task of doing a PhD. Failure is huge part of it, and maybe I didn’t expect it to hit so hard. Showing up after a month of failures is certainly a journey of personal growth in which you learn your limits and how to set boundaries.

 

In the future, I would like to work with…

… functional materials and devices that make a meaningful contribution to society - essentially a continuation of the work I am doing now during my PhD.

I am not sure if I will continue this work on the academic path as I am open to pursuing this path in the industry sector as well. Looking ahead, I envision evolving what I am doing now, with a greater emphasis on the societal impact of materials and devices.