ReGEN Biomedical designs and develops modular, automated equipment for high-throughput cell and tissue manufacturing. This equipment enables partners and clients to produce reproducible, high-quality regenerative medicine products. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, we drive transformative advances in healthcare. By making these technologies more accessible and affordable, we aim to revolutionize healthcare. Through strategic collaborations, we strive to reduce production costs and accelerate innovation.

Demcon (NL), a contract R&D company with over 1100 employees, specialized in complex system design across various engineering fields. In this project, Demcon will develop a closed-circuit pipeline setup, a data platform to integrate sensor data, and collaborate with Optiqua on the ML framework and to develop trigger functions for the EventLab system that can control an autosampler to hold a sample, leveraging its expertise in sensor systems, machine learning, and system integration.

MERLN’s focus area is regenerative medicine, which encompasses a variety of therapeutic strategies that aim to augment, repair, replace or regenerate biological tissues. This emerging field involves various disciplines such as biomaterials, cell therapy, and tissue engineering.

Particon is an independent Dutch investment company from Maastricht, founded in 2007. The copany uses its own capital to invest in medium-sized enterprises in the southeastern Netherlands, with the goal of stimulating and protecting growth and employment in the region.

The Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus (MHC) serves as a vibrant ecosystem where groundbreaking ideas become medical innovations. Here, researchers from Maastricht University and clinicians from Maastricht UMC+ collaborate with entrepreneurs to tackle global health challenges. Investment fund Brightlands Life Sciences Ventures (BLSV) fuels this process, strategically backing promising health and life sciences startups. 

Building on its international reputation, Maastricht University (UM) is a driver of groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary research. Organized around four core themes—Quality of Life, Learning and Innovation, Europe and a Globalising World, and Sustainability and Circularity—UM addresses complex societal challenges and translates knowledge into real-world solutions.

Managing Director. Tom Mastenbroek combines a scientific background in regenerative medicine with entrepreneurial and operational leadership in the life sciences sector. With a PhD focused on cell-based technologies and an Executive MBA in strategic innovation, he bridges research and business execution. Before founding and leading VitelleX, Tom managed complex R&D and manufacturing projects at ReGEN Biomedical, driving high-throughput tissue production. At VitelleX, he focuses on translating advanced stem-cell science into scalable, clinically relevant manufacturing solutions — aligning scientific excellence with market-ready strategy.

Scientific Director & Founder. Dr. Erik Vrij is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University’s GROW Research Institute for Oncology and Reproduction, with a close affiliation to the MERLN institute. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and his master’s degree in biomedical engineering, both from the University of Twente (The Netherlands). He subsequently earned his PhD at Maastricht University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Van Blitterswijk and Dr. Rivron, with his thesis entitled Directed assembly and development of engineered tissues using microwell screening platforms.

Founder & Scientific Advisor. Dr. Stefan Giselbrecht graduated from the University of Saarbrücken (Germany) in Technical Biology and Bionics/Biology. He received his doctorate in mechanical/micro engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany) in 2005.

From 2007 to 2014 he headed the research group 'Biomimetic Microdevices' at the Institute for Biological Interfaces-1 at KIT. Since 2014, he has been working at the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine. Currently he is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University.

Founder & Scientific Advisory. In the early 1990s, Prof. Clemens van Blitterswijk was one of a small group of scientists worldwide who was beginning to realize that biomaterials could be used to induce the body’s cells to heal damaged tissues. These discoveries formed the basis for a new field called tissue engineering, which aims to replace or regenerate diseased or damaged tissues through a combination of biology and engineering. Van Blitterswijk is widely considered to be the founder of tissue engineering in Europe.

Application Specialist. Ensieh (Ava) obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Master’s degree in histology and embryology. Her Ph.D. project aimed to develop a more reliable, rapid, and cost-effective functional liver organoid derived from human pluripotent stem cells for drug screening and disease modeling applications. To this end, she applied the tissue engineering method and co-culture system along with micropatterning approach. During this project, she tried to recapitulate a natural microenvironment in terms of supportive cells and ECM for further maturation of hepatocyte cells.

Application Specialist. Decoding mammalian embryogenesis using Blastocyst-like structures grown on micro-engineered 3D environment. In September 2019, she started her PhD journey at the MERLN institute in the department of Instructive Biomaterials Engineering (IBE). Her research focusses on using the previously established ‘Blastoid’ (3D blastocyst-like) model system in the lab to extensively study the dynamics of mammalian embryogenesis and decipher some of the missing pieces in the available model systems. She is planning to combine the 3D cell culture systems with innovative bioengineering platforms to recapitulate the in vivo scenario.