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. 

Dr. De Graaf studied chemistry with a master in Biochemistry at Utrecht University (UU). Her PhD was performed at the faculty of biology (UU) in the laboratory of Prof. Arie Verkleij and Dr. Paul van Bergen en Henegouwen on lipid kinases. After a short postdoc in the LUMC Leiden, she returned to Utrecht for an extended postdoc in the lab of Prof. Marc Timmers. Here she introduced microscopy as a tool to study basic transcription regulation. Since 2014 she works as head of regenerative urology in the Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht, department of Urology.