Debby Gawlitta

Dr. Debby Gawlitta is an Associate Professor working on maxillofacial tissue regeneration, particularly focusing on bone regeneration. She is inspired by the natural mechanisms of the body for bone development and repair that she aims to adopt in her regenerative strategies. Translation of the regenerative strategies to clinical practice is driving current research.

Dr. Gawlitta aims to mimic the process of endochondral bone regeneration (via a cartilage intermediate - such as seen in the growth plate) to ultimately restore defects in patients. Recently, she showed the potential of allogeneic cells (cells from donors) in this regenerative approach and currently studies the impact of the interaction with the immune system, devitalization and avenues for scale-up and clinical translation (see also here). The use of allogeneic cells would ease therapeutic interventions in patients. Furthermore, her group is focusing on vascularization strategies for bone regeneration to be able to create engineered bone tissue that is large enough to treat patient defects.

Research keywords include bone regeneration, cartilage, vascularization, clinical translation, biomaterials, stem/progenitor cells (MSCs, ECFCs, DPSCs), osteoimmunology, bioreactors, and 3D bioprinting.

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Dr. Gawlitta was trained as a biomedical engineer at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her PhD thesis was focused on generating engineered skeletal muscle tissue to model and monitor the development of pressure ulcers.

In 2007, she moved to the department of Orthopaedics, University Medical Center in Utrecht, to work on bone and cartilage tissue regeneration within the Hospital's strategic impulse on regenerative medicine. During this postdoctoral period, she received a prestigious Veni grant (Dutch innovation grant) to pursue (endochondral) bone regeneration from a cartilage template with bone marrow-derived stem cells.

In 2014, she moved to the department of 'Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery & Special Dental Care' to establish her own group focusing on craniomaxillofacial bone regeneration. She currently holds a position as Associate Professor, supervising her group in the RMCU (Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht). In 2016, she received a start-up grant from the AO Foundation and in 2021 she received an OTP grant from NWO to extend and continue her endochondral research line in the XLbone project. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers.

Further, Debby Gawlitta developed and coordinates the 2-year Master’s program RMT – Regenerative Medicine and Technology. Since 2012, RMT is a collaborative program of the UMCU, Utrecht University and Eindhoven University of Technology.