YCN representative - Latvia

Ilijana Kovrlija

YCN representative from the Latvian Materials Research Society

The Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering (IBB) of Riga Technical University (RTU)

Ilijana.Kovrlija@rtu.lv 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ilijana-Kovrlija 

Ilijana is a part of the group of prof. Dagnija Loca and prof. Janis Locs within the Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering (IBB) of Riga Technical University (RTU), Latvia. Her Ph.D. research is funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, as a part of the ITN programme PREMUROSA, and the focus so far has been on the synthesis and characterization of calcium phosphates and their subsequent functionalization (e.g. drug delivery vehicles, coatings, scaffolds) for biomedical applications.

Ilijana’s PhD research focuses on solving concerns in the musculoskeletal field, by developing octacalcium phosphate (OCP) production technology and enhancing its functionality for regenerative applications. OCP, recognized for its biocompatibility and role in bone formation, serves as a promising material for drug delivery in bone regeneration. At the Baltic Biomaterial Centre of Excellence (BBCE) in Latvia, groups of prof. Loca and prof. Locs, have tackled challenges in OCP production and explored its use in coatings, bone cements, and drug delivery systems. Even though combining OCP with anticancer drugs, within Ilijana’s PhD, showed potential, there is still a need for more evidence on release profiles and their impact on different cell lines.

Thanks to the support of the PREMUROSA project and the BBCE, Ilijana was able to participate in multiple international conferences, such as ESB, TERMIS and ScSB with oral and poster presentations. In 2021 she won the Rapid Fire competition at ScSB 2021 and she also obtained a travel grant for attending the 2023 TERMIS EU in Manchester. With the support of RISEus2 project, Ilijana attended the 2023 ECerS conference in Lyon, where she was the second place winner in the Student Speech Contest. These events were a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the worldwide network of researchers working with biomaterials and a great way to become one of the YCN members.

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