Curriculum vitae

Education and academic qualification

Adriana Kovalcik (previous name Gregorova) completed her PhD thesis in the field of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava in 2005. After Postdoctoral stays at Institut de Chemie de Clermont-Ferrand, Universite Blaise Pascal in France; and Department of Material Science and Process Engineering Vienna, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU) in Austria, she completed her habilitation in Macromolecular Chemistry and Technology at the Graz University of Technology (Institute for Chemistry and Technology of Materials) in 2015. In 2016 she joined Kompetenzzentrum Holz GmbH (Wood K Plus) in Linz as Key Researcher. In June 2017 she has moved to Brno University of Technology as an Invited Researcher due to the receiving award: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow within the Project SoMoPro (6SA18032), funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie and co-financed by the South Moravian Region under grant agreement No. 665860. She has published more than 55 papers and 10 book chapters and works as an active reviewer for many scientific journals.

Non-University activities

Dear Colleagues,

tissue engineering intends to develop "neo-tissues" with chemical nature, morphology, and 3D structure, which would encourage the infiltration, adhesion, proliferation and cell growth during tissue regeneration or formation. A few technologies have been developed for the processing of scaffolds such as freeze drying, gas foaming, porogen leaching, polymerization-induced phase separation, electrospinning and additive rapid prototyping (e.g., fused deposition modeling, selective laser sintering, and micro-stereolithography). At one side, the artificial 3D scaffolds should fulfill demands on precise geometry and morphology (micro- and macro-structure) as well as sufficient mechanical stability. On the other side, they should be non-toxic, nonantigenic, noncarcinogenic, nonteratogenic and biocompatible. Recently, also the target of biodegradability has been marked out as a required parameter.

The tissue engineering is a relatively new and rapidly advancing interdisciplinary field of biomedical research, which combines knowledge from biological sciences, polymer chemistry, material engineering, and computer sciences. It is my privilege to invite you to submit a manuscript for the upcoming Special Issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944), entitled “Biocompatible and biodegradable 3D scaffolds”. Full papers, review articles and short communications from the area of tissue engineering focused on the development of biodegradable and biocompatible materials for 3D scaffolds are welcome. The knowledge and results from the high-quality and original research aimed at the synthesis/production of biodegradable materials (including biopolymers, synthetic polymers, copolymers, blends, and composites), which would stay stable at the certain biomechanical conditions, for the particular time and would degrade under controlled rates will be highly supported. However, also works with the focus on testing and processing methods or strategies, promoting the construction of 3D scaffolds with the sufficient structure and mechanical properties are expected and will receive special attention.

Guest Editor

Assoc. Prof. Adriana Kovalcik, Ph.D.

E-Mail: kovalcik@fch.vut.cz

Keywords: Additive rapid prototyping, 3D scaffolds, Biocompatibility, Biodegradable polymers, Biodegradation, Cell adhesion, Electrospinning, Proliferation, Surface properties, Tissue engineering

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/materials/special_issues/3D_scaffolds