Name: Mayra Alejandra Loayza Saldaña
Position: Master Student, 2022
Biographical information
I finished my bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University Pompeu Fabra in 2021. During my final year project at the BCN MedTech research unit, I developed an algorithm to scale a 3D knee joint model to match the dimensions of a patient with osteoarthritis, a key step towards a personalized and patient-specific model. Throughout my studies, I participated in several projects related to health problems, including the development of interfaces, mobile applications, medical devices, and the modelling of disease progression. I also extended my knowledge in computational modelling during my internship at IDIBAPS, where I studied aortic coarctation and implemented technological solutions related to the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of physiological and clinical data. Finally, a research stay at the Synthetic Biology Group at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park allowed me to combine my engineering background with microbiology, immunology, and cellular biology to optimize bacterial cellulose production. Currently, I am pursuing a master’s degree in Biomedical Research, and my project focuses on the identification and characterization of minimal metallopeptidases by structural biochemistry. These scaffolds can then be used to design and engineer application-specific activities with customized activity and specificity profiles.