Doctoral thesis success: Agata Lapa

Agata Lapa, zusammen mit Prof. Boccaccini nach ihrer Doktorarbeitsverteidigung.

Ms Agata Lapa, who carried out her doctoral thesis at our Institute, under academic supervision of Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini, and in collaboration with industrial partner Lucideon Ltd, UK, successfully defended her thesis on 17th December 2018.

Her thesis entitled: “Bioactive Phosphate Glasses” was carried out in the framework of the Horizon 2020 EU MSCA-ITN-2014-EID – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network “Drug-Free Antibacterial Hybrid Biopolymers for Medical Applications – HyMedPoly”, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Cresswell and Dr. Phil Jackson (Lucideon Ltd, UK). Prof. Ifty Ahmed (University of Nottingham, UK), Prof. Uwe Gbureck (University of Würzburg, Germany), Prof. Nicolas Vogel (CBI Department, FAU), Prof. Stephan Wolf (Chair for Glass and Ceramics, FAU) and Prof. Boccaccini were the members of the examination board.

Prof. Boccaccini highlighted the outstanding research work carried out by Agata, in particular considering the challenge of the HyMedPoly Engineering Doctorate program, involving spending half of the time (18 month) in the industrial partner (Lucideon Ltd). He mentioned that Agata is the first candidate in the context of the EU Training Network HyMedPoly to obtain her doctoral degree, and remarked the excellent collaboration with the industrial partner, Lucideon Ltd. (Stoke-on-Trent,UK).

The work of Agata led to the development and characterization of new families of phosphate glasses incorporating metallic ions with antibacterial capability with focus on the development of phosphate glass fibres for wound healing applications. Four papers from Agata’s thesis are in advanced stage of preparation and will be submitted for publication in early 2019.

We congratulate Agata for her doctorate degree and wish her all the best in her future career.