Meet the editors

Assistant Professor Diana Paula Kitala graduated with degrees in Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering, and while writing her doctoral thesis she completed postgraduate studies in the fields of clinical research, biostatistics, laboratory diagnostics, LEAN methodology, and Six Sigma management. She works in a tissue bank as GMP Head of Quality Assurance, in Dr. Stanisław Sakiel Burns Treatment Center, and as a university lecturer. She

has taken part in scientific grants, and in 2019 she won the EWMA grant for the project "Theory of constraints (TOC) and LEAN management for wider application of amniotic mesenchymal stem cells in a group of patients with chronic wounds." She was nominated for the golden medal for merits for the Silesian Voivodeship. Personally, she is a mom of two daughters and a volunteer in saving stray animals.

Ana Colette Pereira de Castro Osório Maurício obtained a Veterinary Medicine degree in 1995, a Ph.D. in Veterinary Sciences in 1999 from Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária (FMV) - Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa), and a Habilitation in Veterinary Sciences from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar - University of Porto (ICBAS-UP) in 2011. At present, she is an associate professor with Habilitation, from the Veterinary Clinics

Department of ICBAS-UP, and scientific coordinator of the Regenerative Medicine and Experimental Surgery sub-unit at Centro de Estudos de Ciência Animal (CECA) from Instituto de Ciências, Tecnologias e Agroambiente da Universidade do Porto (ICETA). For the past twelve years, she has coordinated a multidisciplinary research group of experimental surgery and regenerative medicine, working with several biomaterials and cellular therapies. She started working with embryonic stem cells obtained by somatic nuclear transfer for therapeutic use with Ian Wilmut´s group (Dolly's cloned sheep). More recently, a continued effort to identify and characterize novel stem cell populations appears critical for widespread clinical success. This effort implies in vitro studies, experimental surgery, and in vivo testing, before clinical trials and compassionate treatment in such clinical cases where the traditional and standard treatments have failed. She created a multidisciplinary team, including veterinarians, engineers, and medical doctors that through experimental surgery have a crucial role in the development of biomaterials and cellular therapies. This team allows for sharing of knowledge between biomaterials design, development of cellular systems, and clinical application. She is the supervisor of several Ph.D., post-doctoral, and master's students (sixteen Ph.D. theses already concluded with success and twelve Ph.D. theses ongoing) as well as co-author of many scientific articles and scientific book chapters. She was the principal researcher of several national and international scientific projects and has edited two international scientific books and invented three international patents

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