Dr Sara Correia Carreira

The aim of my research is to design more realistic models of human tissues that help to reduce animal testing in the safety assessment of new drugs, materials or devices. I am also exploring new tissue engineering strategies that lead to better quality replacement tissues, particularly skin grafts to resurface burns and wounds.

Currently, I am developing the next generation of human skin models by interfacing tissue engineered skin with soft robotic actuators ("artificial muscles"). This enables me to deliver mechanical stimuli to the tissue and to study the effects of the resulting strain on the penetration of compounds and particles across the skin. I am also investigating the effects of mechanical stimulation on the biological structure and the mechanical properties of engineered skin. 

Other research interests include the application of magnetic nanoparticles in tissue engineering (e.g. scaffold functionalisation), and for the magnetic labelling and detection of bacteria.