Esther Chen has chosen to pursue her PhD in the joint Biomedical Engineering department of Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University with us at the Biological Systems Engineering Lab. Esther received a BSc in Chemical Engineering from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. During her undergraduate studies she worked in the field of green chemistry. Her semester project was on kinetic studies of ring-opening polymerization of polyethylene furanoate (PEF) using bio-compatible initiators. Before graduating, she also completed a 6-month internship in API manufacturing at Janssen-Cilag (Johnson&Johnson). Continuing with her Master’s in Chemical and Bioengineering at ETH, Esther deepened her knowledge on process design and simulation. She completed her thesis in the group of Prof. Klavs Jensen at MIT (Cambridge, MA) on the continuous end-to-end synthesis of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride. Once back in Zurich, she worked in the Macromolecular Engineering Lab led by Prof. Mark Tibbitt on the preparation of photodegradable hydrogels.
To join the Biological Systems Engineering Lab led by Prof. Mantalaris and Dr. Panoskaltsis, she moved to Atlanta, GA. She will join the BSEL as a Student Research Assistant starting in April. Her research will be focused on the development of a 3D model of leukemia.