Doctoral thesis success: Zoya Hadzhieva
We congratulate Zoya Hadzhieva for successfully defending her doctoral thesis titled “Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of advanced bioactive and antibacterial zein-based coatings on titanium for biomedical applications“ on 20th September 2024. Zoya carried out her doctoral project in our Institute supervised by Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini. The doctoral thesis examination board was composed by Prof. Boccaccini, Prof. Enrica Verne (Politecnico di Torino, Italy), Prof. Ulrich Lohbauer (FAU Dental School), Prof. Sanna Virtanen (Institute of Surface Science and Corrosion, FAU) and Prof. Peter Felter (FAU Department of Materials Science and Engineering). Zoya’s project was partially carried out in the framework of the DFG funded project “EPD BioCoat” (NCN-DFG Polish-German Funding Initiative) in collaboration with the group of Faculty of Metals Engineering and Industrial Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology (principal investigator: Prof. Tomasz Moskalewicz). Referring to Zoya and the successful defense of her doctoral thesis, Prof. Boccaccini highlighted the interesting results and innovative character of her research project, which showed the high versatility of the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method to obtain multifunctional coatings for biomedical applications, offering the possibility of creating coatings from natural materials, including phytotherapeutic agents combined with synthetic biomaterials such as ion doped bioactive glasses. The project belongs to a group of activities in our Institute in which EPD is being further developed for the room temperature processing of coatings with osteconductive and antibacterial effects. The results of the thesis have been already published in well-known journals in the field (e.g. ref. [1, 2]), including several joint publications with the collaborating parters in Poland (for example [3, 4]). Prof. Boccaccini highlighted also the great support that Zoya have given to many activities on our Institute over the years, collaborating in the preparation and managing of many European projects and serving as main point of contact for many visiting students and researchers. Many congratulations to Zoya for this achievement, we wish her much success in her future career.
[1] Hadzhieva, Z. et al., Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of zein/bioactive glass composite coatings doped with F and Cu on titanium for biomedical applications, Materials Letters 351 (2023) 135066.
[2] Hadzhieva, Z., and Boccaccini, A. R., Recent developments in electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of antibacterial coatings for biomedical applications- A review, Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering 21(2022):100367.
[3] T. Moskalewicz, M. et al., Electrophoretic deposition, microstructure and properties of multicomponent sodium alginate based coatings incorporated with graphite oxide and hydroxyapatite on titanium biomaterial substrates, Applied Surface Science 575 (2022) 151688.
[4] F. Maciąg, et al., Development and investigation of mesoporous bioactive glass/zein coatings electrodeposited on titanium alloy for biomedical applications, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A 54A (2023) 241-260.
