Biography

Mikel Díez lives in Bilbao and he studied Chemical Engineering during three years at University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and Chemistry in the Spanish National Distance University (UNED) at the same time. In his third year of engineering, Mikel decided to follow his chemical studies in UPV/EHU, the university in which he wants to enroll in the "New Materials" Master.

Since July 2022 he is working in the field of microfluidic technology at the Microfluidics Cluster UPV/EHU (Vitoria-Gasteiz). The aim of selecting this research group was to start learning about microfluidics for carry out his final BSc project: The preparation of an Organ on a Chip device for medical trials as an alternative to animal experimentations.

Research

Actually, Mikel is preparing biocompatible and cytocompatible polymer microstructures (scaffolds) with different materials to print/pattern cells (MsC, HeLa, PC3, MFC7) in them. For this purpose, Mikel learned photolithography, soft-lithography, printing and vaccum litography, vaccum litography; laser cutting, CO2 cutting; surface functionalization; profilometry; confocal microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, inverted microscopy, optical microscopy; cell culture...