Sahar Ghorbanpour received her master's degree in biotechnology from BOKU University in 2017. Her master's thesis focused on the design and development of a Cutinase enzyme with unprecedented potential for plastic recycling in the industry. For this work, she was awarded the prestigious Rotary Award in 2017. Then, she received two prestigious scholarships from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) – the UTS President’s Scholarship and the UTS International Scholarship – for her PhD research proposal on using advanced microfluidic models of placental and vascular tissue to understand the pathogenesis of placental dysfunction in high-risk pregnancies, including preeclampsia, a cardiovascular complication diagnosed after 20 weeks of gestation during pregnancy.
During her doctoral studies (2020-2023), she designed and developed novel 3D microfluidic human disease models, including a placenta-on-chip and a microvasculature-on-chip, to study the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. Additionally, she designed and developed the first highly sensitive nanoparticle-based point-of-care devices to detect preeclampsia in pregnant women at an early stage. This point-of-care test represents a significant advancement in the early diagnosis of preeclampsia, facilitating the safe management of pregnancies and improving outcomes for both mothers and babies.
Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on new approaches to the isolation of primary cells from human tissue to study complications during pregnancy. Her work emphasizes modelling human diseases utilizing state-of-the-art dynamic 3D cell culture and bioreactor technology to generate mini placentas, enabling the first experimental reproduction of human placental tissue in the laboratory.
www.linkedin.com/in/sahar-ghorbanpour-7152b41a2
https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0001-5614-5215
