Petra de Graaf

Lower urinary tracts symptoms, including urethral diseases, have a major impact on the quality of life. My major goal in research is creating tissue that surgeons can use in urethral reconstruction surgery. I use tissue engineering (TE) as an approach. Ideally, a TE urethra mimics the native urethra, consists of multiple cell layers of different origin, protects the underlying tissue as an efficient barrier from urine, is vascularized and resistant to mechanical forces during surgery. As in many patients undergoing urethral reconstruction surgery, the natural support of the urethra, the corpus spongiosum, is either absent or affected by fibrosis, we aim to integrate this support in our TE graft, providing the natural vascular environment. 

Since 2014 she works as head of regenerative urology in the Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht, department of Urology.

In 2024 the consortium grant STRONG-UR was awarded in the HORIZON-HLTH-2024-TOOL-11-02 programm: Bioprinting of living cells for regenerative medicine. The project focusses on bioprinting for urethral regeneration. With a 12-partner consortium composed of scientists, clinicians, and companies contributing to the whole value chain, supported by a state-of-the-art infrastructure and a proven track record of successful projects in this field, STRONG-UR represents the best team to deliver this ground-breaking work. Dr. De Graaf is the leader of WP2: Structure-function relationship in urethral tissues