Summer is here, with a full year from the last milestones post, we have achieved many things! It has been an exciting year, with diverse efforts across various ongoing projects by the amazing lab members. We now also update our activities through posts on our Herland Lab LinkedIn page, but here are some other updates.
Media Coverages and Outreach Activities
Our group activities at KTH and KI (also SciLifeLab!) have been featured by different media, one of which was our organ-on-chip device highlighted in the article titled ‘How mini organs can answer difficult research questions’ by Medicinsk Vetenskap magazine (nr 2, 2025) and the KI website. Another follow-up article about our recent work on the subventricular zone on-a-chip was also featured in the KI and KTH press release titled ‘Treatment could prevent brain damage during premature birth’ and ‘Potential treatment may prevent brain damage in premature babies’.
Nobel Prize Museum
Science Today: The Cell
From the KTH side, our PhD student Jessika shared her experience developing a spin-off activity from one of our ongoing projects with the help of KTH Innovation, to bridge microfabrication with organoid research. We also share our research through an amazing presentation by our postdoc, Ana Spencer, with her talk titled ‘From a neuron to a full brain that fits on a chip‘ at the Nobel Prize Museum event, Science Today: The Cell.
Most interestingly, we now also contribute to one of KTH’s strategic research initiatives, particularly through IMPreT: In vitro Models for Precision Therapies. We held a workshop in November 2025, where two of our postdocs (Rekha and Ana) also presented our group’s work on organ-on-chips and organoids. Read more about IMPreT on the KTH press release here.
BSc and MSc Research Projects
This year, our lab had the honor of hosting 7 BSc students and a few more MSc students (as usual!). Some of the projects are:
Johanne Boor (University of Amsterdam, MSc Biomedical Sciences): Generating cellular blood-brain barrier components from mouse embryonic stem cells
Esther Melvine Nginyu (Uppsala University, MSc Biotechnology): Thin Dry film for Electrophysiology
Marius Louis Richer Fauteux (KTH, MSc Medical Engineering): (to be published soon)
Ekaterina Kasyanova (Karolinska Institutet, MSc Biomedicine): Novel neurovascular-unit-on-chip model for drug development
Alice Samuelsson (ETH Zurich, MSc Biotechnology): Integrating electrical sensors into NVU-on-chip
Matthew Alexander Darien (University of Twente, MSc Biomedical Engineering): Engineering experimental platforms for pancreatic islet interfacing and monitoring
Ines Siti Sarah (KTH, MSc Medical Engineering): Automated and configurable Python pipeline for MEA analysis
Estelle Byström, Olof Årjes, Tova Gabrielsson, Johanna Åkesson, Ankita Poppel, Gustav Hogéus, and Johannes Lindberg (KTH, BSc Biotechnology): Establishment of a versatile pipeline for electrophysiological analysis of 2D neuronal networks and 3D brain organoids
Published Scientific Articles
- Subventricular Zone-on-a-Chip: A Model to Study Neurogenesis Disruption in Neonatal Intraventricular Hemorrhage, in Advanced Science
- Integrated microoptical system for continuous fluorescence monitoring of microtissues, in Microsystems & Nanoengineering
- Microfabricated Organic Electrochemical Transistors Enabled by Printing and Laser Ablation, in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
- Modeling the effects of radiation on neurogenesis using an in vitro neurogenic niche approach, in Lab on a Chip
- Unraveling the influence of astrocytes on endothelial cell transcription: Towards understanding blood-brain barrier in vitro models’ dynamics, in Brain Research Bulletin
- Metabolic assessment of iPSC-derived neurons under ketone-enriched condition: Ketone sensor development and BHB-driven metabolic adaptation, in iScience
- Modeling neuroinflammatory interactions between microglia and astrocytes in a human iPSC-based coculture platform, in Cell Communication and Signaling
- Electrochemical dual-sensing of lactate and glucose using NiO nanoparticles with cross-sensitivity calibration, in Talanta
See you in other future posts and enjoy the summer!