Group Leader
Prof. Michael Monaghan
Prof. Michael Monaghan is Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. He performed his Postdoctoral research in Germany as a recipient of a prestigious Marie Curie Individual Fellowship where his research was coordinated between the Department of Cell and Tissue Engineering in the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology and the Department of Women's Health in University Clinic Tubingen. During this period he has published a number of key papers in the field of human valvulogenesis, embryonic stem cell research, cardiomyocyte differentiation, biomaterials and non-invasive optical characterisation (Raman microspectroscopy, fluorescent lifetime imaging (FLIM), multiphoton and second harmonic generation (SHG) imaging). Dr. Monaghan received both his B.Eng (Biomedical) and Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG).
email: monaghmi@tcd.ie Google Scholar Research Gate PubMed
Researchers
Meenakshi Suku
Dr Meenakshi joins as a PhD candidate from 2019/20. She received her bachelors in Biomedical Engineering from Chennai, India and moved on to pursue masters in Bioengineering (Tissue Engineering) from Trinity College Dublin. During her masters, she worked in the fields of bone and cartilage tissue engineering in the Tissue Engineering Research Group (TERG) RCSI Dublin, under the supervision of Prof. Fergal O’Brien. She spent nine months as a Research Assistant in TERG RCSI Bahrain, where she carried out a project on using β-klotho and SDF-1α gene-activated scaffold for diabetic wound healing, which was in collaboration with Boltzmann Medical Institute, Vienna and RCSI Dublin. She also executed a project on developing thermally stable hydrogels for corneal regeneration.
Her PhD research was on modelling the interplay between the innate immune system and cardiac physiology in organoid models of disease.
After completing her PhD in Monaghan lab, Meena is now a postdoctoral researcher working on improving engineered heart tissue models to study cardiac resident macrophages and model inflammatory cardiac conditions.
Sara Corbezzolo
Sara Corbezzolo is a MSc in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino who joins the Monaghan Lab to pursue her research project. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy (2020).
To date, her project will be on developing patches able to both modulate the acute inflammatory phase that occurs in the infarcted myocardium and to trigger cardiac regeneration postinfarct.
Sara returns to the Monaghan lab to conduct her PhD from September 2023!
Lequn Li
Lequn Li is a MSc Biomedical Engineering student, joining the Monaghan lab to conduct his research project on Elastomeric conformable dry electrodes. Before Trinity, he worked for 7 years in the investment and consulting industries in China, following 2 years in Johnson & Johnson MedTech. Lequn earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Fudan University in China.
GuangChen Wang
Guangchen Wang completed his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is now pursuing a PhD in statistics and computer science, with research interests in Bayesian optimization, clustering methods, and reliability analysis. Guangchen joined the Monaghan Lab through his work on the flIMAGIN3D project, where he contributes to classification, image processing, and various data analysis tasks.
Aoife McLoughlin
Aoife received her bachelor's degree in Biotechnology with French at the University of Galway. During her time there she conducted a seven-month research placement at the Université de Rennes, France investigating the immune microenvironment during the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on mice samples. Following on from that she also completed her final year project at The Lambe Institute, Galway where she developed patient-derived lung cancer organoids and characterised potential cancer associated fibroblast (CAF) markers within these samples.
Aoife joins the Monaghan lab to pursue her PhD on designing a piezoelectric biomaterial blend to generate a range of electric charge for immunomodulation of cardiac resident macrophages.
Silvia Marino
Silvia Marino received her BSc and MSc in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She carried out her final master thesis abroad, at the Laboratory of Micro-Biomechanics of Hokkaido University, Japan. Her project concerned the investigation of pancreatic cancer mechanotransduction mechanisms using in vitro platforms like stiffness-tunable hydrogels and micropillar arrays. After graduating, she worked as a research fellow in the Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Unit at Centro Cardiologico Monzino, Italy, using bioprinting for heart disease modeling. Her PhD at Monaghan lab will focus on engineering piezoelectric cardiac patches able of generating immunomodulatory electric fields and promoting regeneration after myocardial infarction.
Cian Whelan
Cian Whelan joins as a PhD student under the lifETIME CDT programme. He received his bachelors in cell and molecular biology from university college Dublin.
His Research focuses on the effect mechanostimulation has on macrophage polarization and the wound healing potency of their EVs.
Project Manager
Teresa r. capuz lladró
Teresa Ruibin Capuz Lladró, is graduate in International Relations and Master’s in Project Management. She has worked in a SaaS and automotive companies as a Project Manager. She has joined Monaghan lab to manage together with Prof. Monaghan the project flIMAGIN3D pertaining to Marie Sklodowska Curie Action Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Rajiv Borah
Dr Rajiv Borah joined as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) post-doctoral researcher at the Monaghan Laboratory in February, 2023. His primary research focuses on development of silk based injectable electroconductive hydrogel for spinal cord regeneration application. He obtained MSc (Nanoscience & Technology) in 2013 and Ph.D. in Physics (Materials Science) in 2018 from Tezpur University, India. During his Ph.D., he acquired advanced training in electrically stimulated neural regeneration using conductive biomaterials through Newton-Bhabha Ph.D. Exchange Programme in School of Pharmacy & Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton, UK. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at IIT Guwahati in 2018-19. Then, he worked as an early career independent researcher under Inspire Faculty programme funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (GoI) in the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (An Autonomous Institute Under DST, GoI) Guwahati, India from October, 2019-January, 2023.
E-mail: borahr@tcd.ie
Remya Kommeri
Dr. Remya Kommeri is a postdoctoral researcher joined the department of Mechanical, Manufacturing & Biomedical Engineering in the year of 2024 with a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie and CURAM co-funded MedTrain+ award.
RK received her Ph.D in biomaterial science from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) in India, with advanced training in skills developing injectable hydrogel formulations for cell therapy, cardiac cell culture, cardiomyocyte isolation, synthetic polymer production, polymer characterisation and 3D cell culture. Her doctoral research was funded by Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) under Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. After being awarded her doctoral degree, RK has trained in premier Indian institutes as a postdoctoral researcher and further gained knowledge in nanoparticle synthesis, tumoroid culture and developed protocols to generate drug resistance in glioma cells. RK has expertise in managing audit documentation and protocol validation in an ISO, COFRAC accredited laboratory doing in vitro cytotoxicity testing activities for industrial partners. RK has been awarded with a prestigious Fulbright-Nehru postdoctoral award in the year 2021, funded by United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) with a total of $77,800.00 amount. RK has conducted Fulbright research in the lab of Dr. Stephen Badylak, Deputy Director, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh at the Departments of Surgery and Bioengineering. She has gained expertise in porcine heart perfusion decellularization, extracellular matrix preparation, hydrogel formulation, matrix-bound nanovesicle (MBV) isolation and characterisation. RK has published 11 research articles, 5 book chapters in peer-reviewed international journals, and several poster and podium presentations in conferences.
Annalisa Rovinelli
Annalisa received her bachelor's degree in chemistry and materials chemistry at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, where she continued my studies with a master in Photochemistry and Molecular Materials . She carried out her final master project abroad, in the Nanochemistry and Bioimaging team of Dr. Andrey Klymchenko (CNRS, Strasbourg). During that time she produced electrospun fibers that she characterized with Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy techniques and studied photothermal properties of dye-loaded fibers and rods. Her PhD focusses on the use of FLIM and its development in studying cardiometabolics.
Ciara Hegarty
Ciara Hegarty is a Biotechnology graduate from Dublin City University (DCU), class of 2023, who is passionately pursuing a career in research. With a solid foundation in laboratory work and research, she has gained valuable experience through an internship in a pathology-based research lab in Dublin during her final undergraduate year and as a pathology laboratory assistant at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital since 2021. Ciara completed an undergraduate thesis on Uveal Melanoma, where she used bioinformatics to uncover potential new driver genes and highlighted genetic differences in disease progression across age groups. In September 2023, Ciara began a PhD in the Microbiome and Mucosal Immunity lab under Professor Sinéad Corr. Her research focuses on modelling the microbiome in human in vitro organoid platforms as part of the RESIST-AMR team, supported by the Prendergast Challenge-based awards. As part of this project, Ciara will be actively collaborating with the Monaghan Lab, leveraging their expertise in biomedical engineering and FLIM. This collaboration aims to integrate advanced bioengineering approaches into her work on developing cutting-edge in vitro organoid models.
Diana Eveline Sanchez Amador
Diana Eveline received her bachelor's degree in Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering from Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) in Mexico. She then obtained her master's degree in Bioengineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. Her master's thesis, conducted in the Laboratory for Nanomedicine under the supervision of Professor Charlotte Hauser, focused on the study of ultrashort self-assembling amyloid-like peptide hydrogels for application as 3D cell culture scaffolds.
Following her master's degree, Diana worked as a visiting researcher in the Molecular Imaging and Microscopy Laboratory of Professor Satoshi Habuchi at KAUST. There, she synthesized fluorescent organic nanoparticles for use as probes for shortwave infrared imaging in biological tissues, and characterized them using various techniques, including UV-Vis spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential analysis, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC).
Diana will soon begin her PhD in the Monaghan Lab, where she will work on a project focused on the optimized design of biomaterial implants for the modulation of the foreign body response.
Matteo Nosè
Matteo Nosè accomplished his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Medical Biotechnology at the University of Brescia. During his final year, he carried out his master's project abroad in the Mechanobiology of Disease (MBD) group in FNUSA (Brno, Czech Republic) under Dr. Giancarlo Forte's supervision. His work aimed at unraveling the role of Yes Associated Protein (YAP) during cardiac differentiation using 2D and 3D hPSCs-derived in vitro models and imaging techniques.
His future PhD project will focus on deciphering the macrophage stiffness and metabolic adaptations to optimise the design of biomaterial implants and modulate immunity directed foreign body response.
Antonio Pellico
Antonio Pellico is a MSc Biomedical Engineering student from Politecnico di Torino, joining the Monaghan Lab to conduct his research on piezoelectric biomaterial patches with tunable output based on unit mesh design