July 3th, 2025
Pedro Lavrador was awarded with the ‘Fundação Amélia de Mello’ (FAM) 2024 prize for the Best PhD Thesis from the Department of Chemistry. This prize aims to recognize the scientific merit, originality, and potential impact of outstanding doctoral theses, contributing to the promotion of high-level research conducted at the University of Aveiro.
Pedro Lavrador’s doctoral thesis, titled “Dynamic Control across Adaptable Hydrogels and Engineered Cell Assemblies,” was developed at the COMPASS Research Group, affiliated to the Associate Laboratory CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials, in the scope of the Doctoral Program on Biotechnology. The thesis explores new approaches (i.e., chemo- and biodynamic) in the design of materials for tissue engineering, combining responsive biomaterials with cellular materials that present biological functionalities similar to our own tissues. The development of this thesis led to 13 publications in highly prestigious scientific journals, including first-authorships in Nature Materials (IF=37.2), Advanced Materials (IF=27.4), Advanced Functional Materials (IF=18.5), Advanced Healthcare Materials (IF=10), and EBioMedicine (IF=9.7), along with collaborations in Advanced Science (IF=14), ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (IF=8), Biofabrication (IF=8). The thesis also yielded 3 book chapters, 3 patents, and over 10 presentations at national and international conferences, as well as a publicly available bioinformatics pipeline dedicated to transcriptomics data analysis.
One of the works highlighted in the awarded thesis – published in the prestigious journal Nature Materials – focused on blending concepts from bio-orthogonal chemistry and materials science by functionalizing cell membranes and biomaterials to develop “living” materials, in which human cells themselves serve as structural nodes. This approach endows the constructs with adaptable architectures and enhanced biological performance. Also, the technology unlocks the rapid assembly of customized tissues from multiple cell types, even demonstrating a superior therapeutic potential for skin regeneration compared to conventional cell-laden hydrogels.
The PhD thesis was supervised by Prof. João Mano and Prof. Vítor Gaspar and included a period in the research group of Prof. Kristi Anseth (CU Boulder, Colorado), supported by a Fulbright scholarship. The award ceremony took place on July 3 at the UA Rectory in the presence of André Oliveira, representing FAM, Artur Silva, UA Vice-Rector for Research, and Armando Silvestre, Director of the Department of Chemistry.
