ESR11: Kelly Blust

Host: B5 KTH Royal Insitute of Technology / Supervisor: Ass. Prof. My Hedhammar

Individual Project

Stem cell differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to pancreatic tissue in a 3D cell culture system based on spider silk.

STACCATO Research

The aim of the project is the development of methods for 3D culturing of human embryonic stem cells and differentiation to pancreatic tissue using recombinant spider silk. I will perform validation on differentiated pancreatic tissue using single cell analysis.

Scientific Background

I hold a Bachelor degree in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Rostock, Germany. During my Bachelors I worked in stem cell therapy after myocardial infarction. I have written my Bachelor thesis at the Heart Institute in Christchurch, New Zealand in Biomarker analysis after heart failure. I obtained a Master degree in Pharmaceutical and Industrial Biotechnology. I completed my master thesis in tissue engineering of human adipose derived stem cells on 2D and 3D culture systems to osteogenic and chondrogenic tissue at the Biomedical materials group at the University of Halle, Germany.

Publications

  • Two publications are being prepared for submission to peer-reviewed journals in 2023.

Conferences

  • Oral presentation: Falling Walls Lab Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Virtual, 30.09.21.
    Breaking the wall of curing diabetes.
  • Poster presentation: European Society for Animal Cell Culture Technology (ESACT), Lisbon, Portugal, 26. – 29.06.22.
    BioSilk as a novel 3D biomaterial to incorporate pancreatic aggregates.
  • Youtube: Kelly Blust (ESR11) presenting her poster: “A 3D BioSilk network to support pancreatic aggregates”.