Congratulations to Huijun Zhang on successfully defending her doctoral thesis entitled: “Development and characterization of Si-containing hybrid scaffold based on natural polymers for cartilage engineering” on 23rd February 2026. Huijun carried out her doctoral project at the Institute of Biomaterials under the supervision of Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini. Prof. Boccaccini highlighted the innovative character of Huijun’s project, which established (for the first time in our Institute) a biomaterial platform for the development of 3D printable organic-inorganic hybrids with potential applications in cartilage repair. The Chair of the committee was Prof. Olga Kasian (Department WW, FAU) and other members of the committee were Prof. João Mano (Univ. of Aveiro, Portugal), Prof. Andreas Wierscheim (Department CBI, FAU) and Prof. Boccaccini. Papers in high-impact journals have resulted from Huijun’s work (for example [1]) and it is expected that other papers will follow. Many congratulations to Huijun on the successful defense of her doctoral thesis. We wish her all the best in her future career!
[1] H. Zhang, et al., Monophasic hyaluronic acid-silica hybrid hydrogels for articular cartilage applications, Biomater. Adv. 167 (2025) 214089.
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