Maria Jaramillo

Maria Jaramillo, PhD has over 14 years of experience in the field of biosciences. Maria began their career in 2006 as a Graduate Student at the University of Pittsburgh. During their time there, they established a fibrin based system for evaluating effect of physical properties of substrates in stem-cell differentiation, developed an experimental and computational approach for the analysis of pathways involved in definitive endoderm specification and their effect on pancreatic cell maturation, designed a co-culture platform for maturation of pluripotent-stem cell derived pancreatic cells through direct interaction with endothelial cells, formulated a project and provided preliminary results for dynamic culture of differentiated beta cells for maturation and maintenance of mature phenotype, and helped set up the laboratory. In 2013, they took on a role as a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. From 2014 to 2018, they worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH/HMS) where they developed a protocol for creation of decellularized human liver scaffolds which were used for in-vitro maintenance of primary hepatocytes, and development of ECM-based protocol for hepatic differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Maria also contributed to a project involving optimization of recellularization and use of non-invasive methods for characterization of decellularized liver scaffolds by assisting with experimental design, analysis of the data and written communication of the results, and participated in a project involving liver decellularization by irreversible electroporation. In 2018, they moved on to IVIVA Medical Inc. where they held the roles of Director of Cell Biology and Senior Scientist. In 2020, they began their current role as Principal Scientist, Head of translational biology at Walden Biosciences.

Maria Jaramillo, PhD attained their Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Florida International University between 2001 and 2006. Maria then went on to pursue their PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, which they completed in 2013.