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Shahzad Hafeez


Shahzad earned a Bachelor of Science (honors) in Materials Engineering and a Master of Science (honors) in Advanced Materials and Processes. For his master’s thesis, he worked at the Julius Wolff Institute, Charité, Berlin, in collaboration with the Institute of Biomaterials, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. He focused on developing viscoelastic Bioglass-alginate composite hydrogels for bone tissue engineering and studied the interaction between micron-sized Bioglass particles and human mesenchymal stem cells.

Shahzad then moved to the Netherlands for his PhD studies, earning a PhD (Cum laude) in Biomedical Engineering from the MERLN Institute, Maastricht University. During his PhD, he developed dynamic hydrogels using dynamic covalent and supramolecular chemistry. He demonstrated that engineered dynamicity can control time-dependent properties (stress relaxation) and influence cellular responses. Additionally, he used these dynamic materials for 3D bioprinting complex life-like structures. He showed that combining supramolecular self-assembly with covalent bond formation can create materials mimicking the structure and resilience of extracellular matrix proteins.

Shahzad was keen to help address the plastic pollution problem on our planet and joined Prof. Rint Sijbesma’s lab, where he worked with dynamic covalent chemistries based on phosphorous and thiol-anhydride for reprocessability and 3D printing. In June 2024, Shahzad joined Prof. Patricia Dankers’ lab to investigate how chirality can be used to create tunable supramolecular biomaterials that control cellular functions.

Contact: s.hafeez@tue.nl