Olga Tsigkou joined the University of Manchester in 2014 as a Lecturer in Biomaterials after completing an Intra-European Marie Curie Fellowship (IEF-CORDIS) at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Greece.

Prior to this Olga completed postdoctoral training at Imperial College in the laboratories of Professor Molly M Stevens and Professor Julian R Jones and at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Professor Joseph P Vacanti.

She received a PhD in the investigation of bioactive glasses for bone tissue engineering from Imperial College, a MSc in Molecular Medicine from University College London and a BSc in Biology and an ASc in Chemistry from the University of New Haven, Connecticut.

Olga is currently programme co-ordinator of the MSc in Biomaterials and co-ordinator of MatSoc, the School of Materials student society. 

My research employs novel approaches in stem cells, hydrogels and porous scaffolds for the vascularization of engineered tissues and the development of 3D in vitro models to mimic the cellular microenvironment.

Research efforts of the group also focus on the investigation of the intricate cell-substrate and cell-extracellular matrix interactions for the design of novel bioactive materials for bone and nervous system regeneration.