Professor, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Director, BME Calgary Initiative

Principal Investigator, PPRF

mskallos@ucalgary.ca

Dr. Kallos’ laboratory has been a leader in the development of bioprocesses for stem cell expansion and differentiation. They have specific experience with expanding cells as aggregates or adherent cells on microcarriers in stirred suspension bioreactors. Scroll down to find out more about his team!

Department Head - Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Professor - Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Principal Investigator - PPRF

asen@ucalgary.ca

Dr. Sen's current research interests lie in the areas of biochemical and biomedical engineering. His primary research program focuses on making contributions to the development of adult stem cell based therapies by combining principles from the biological sciences, engineering, and medicine.

PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

E.I.T., Chemical Engineering

bsborys@ucalgary.ca

Breanna is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in biomedical engineering at the University of Calgary. Her thesis is focused on developing tools and protocols to overcome bioprocess challenges in the large-scale expansion of high-quality pluripotent stem cells. Breanna has spent the last year working in California for PBS Biotech - a manufacturer of the most advanced single-use bioreactors and provider of world-class process development and scale-up services. Breanna is the recipient of the Engineers Canada Gold Medal Student Award and is a current Vanier Scholar.

Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

sara.hassanpourtamri@ucalgary.ca

Sara's Ph.D. is focused on the development of a novel microfluidic device for exosome isolation from biological samples. Her work is laying the foundation for development of technologies to promote early detection of cancer and other diseases, and has additional applications for cell-free therapeutics. Her interests are extracellular vesicles, exosomes, microfluidics, point-of-care diagnostics, tissue engineering, and biomaterials. She is supervised by Dr. Sen, co-supervised by Dr. Nezhad.

Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

E.I.T., Electrical Engineering

jdcolter@ucalgary.ca

James' work is focused on studying the interplay between environmental dynamics, cell growth, phenotype, and integrity in human induced pluripotent stem cell populations and their derivatives. His work combines process analytical technologies, multi-omics approaches, and computational methods to elucidate critical characteristics of cell health and quality in the context of clinical translation, therapeutic safety, and efficacy.

MSc Student

Chemical Engineering E.I.T.

bdabraha@ucalgary.ca

Brett’s project involves the generation of cellulose based biomaterials modified with recombinant carbohydrate binding modules (CBMs) for different biochemical and biomedical applications. Cellulose is a natural and renewable biomaterial and CBMs are peptides with specific binding affinity towards different types of cellulose. Using synthetic biology, recombinant proteins can be produced that link CBMs to other bioactive proteins. This allows for these fusion proteins to be immobilized on different cellulose materials. Brett aims to use CBMs to increase the adherence of cells to microcarriers in stirred suspension bioreactors and other tissue engineering applications.

MSc Student, Biomedical Engineering Program

Chemical Engineering E.I.T.

tiffany.dang@ucalgary.ca

Tiffany is a Master’s Student under the supervision of Dr. Michael Kallos. Her current research focuses on induced pluripotent stem cell bioprocessing. Specifically, computational fluid dynamic modeling of different bioreactor geometries to understand the impact of bioreactor geometry on iPSC growth, the development of bioprocessing protocols, and understanding the effect of metabolism on iPSC expansion and differentiation.