Affiliation: University of Minho, PT

Keywords: Tissue Engineering, Scaffold-free, Cell Sheets, Vascularization

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Rogério Pedro Pirraco was born in Porto, Portugal, where he currently lives. Rogério developed his PhD studies at the 3B’s Research Group of the University of Minho on the subjects of co-cultures of cells for Tissue Engineering purposes, cell sheet engineering using thermally responsive surfaces and stem cell culture. During this time, he spent a total of one year at Professor Teruo Okano’s Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science of the Tokyo’s Women Medical University in Tokyo, Japan, where he acquired knowledge in cell sheet engineering and its application in animal models.
He presently serves as Assistant Researcher (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at the 3B’s Research Group of the University of Minho, Portugal, where he is supported since 2016 by an FCT IF contract (career starting grant from the Portuguese Science and Technology agency).

Rogério is part of the Scientific Council of the I3Bs Research Institute, of the Ethics sub-Commission for Life and Health Sciences and of the ICVS/3B’s Animal Welfare Body (ORBEA), all at the University of Minho.
He is Manager of the Microscopy Facilities and Manager of the Animal Facilities of the 3B’s Research Group, training prospective users in both cases.
Between 2010 and 2012, Rogério served as Chair of the Student and Young Investigator Section of the European Chapter of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS).
He received several awards such as the prize for “Outstanding Student Contribution” at the meeting of the European chapter of TERMIS (2007, London, UK), the Crioestaminal Best Oral Communication award at the 7th Meeting of the Portuguese Society of Stem Cells and Cellular Therapy (2012, Porto, Portugal) and Best Doctoral Thesis of 2012 of the School of Engineering of the University of Minho.
He has been deeply involved in the preparation of national and European research proposals, being a core team member of several H2020 projects.
In 2018, he was awarded a 1.5M € Starting Grant by the European Research Council, the most prestigious career starting grant awarded in Europe.

Currently, his research is focused on the use of cell sheet engineering, stem cells and hypoxia for Tissue Engineering strategies, with a strong emphasis on vascularization. He has published more than 65 works in international refereed journals, books and conference proceedings.