Dr Isabella Nymann Westensee

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Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Science

Isabella Nymann Westensee obtained her PhD in Nanoscience in 2023 from Aarhus University, Denmark, under the supervision of Professor Brigitte Stadler. Her focus was on developing hydrogel-based synthetic cells that exhibit minimal liver-like function, and interfacing these with natural liver cells as therapeutic support systems. This work was recognized by an Elite Research Travel Grant in 2022, which she used to explore how synthetic cells can be used in a clinically relevant setting at University College London, Royal Free Hospital. She is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Kirill Alexandrov, where she is developing artificial allosteric switches as protein-based biosensors that can detect and distinguish rare earth elements. In general, she is interested in how to develop novel technologies using synthetic biology at several length scales, and how we can benefit from combining the synthetic and natural world in our research.