Doctoral student of ”Nicolae Testemitanu” University wins scholarship of World Federation of Scientists

Mariana Jian, researcher at Laboratory of Tissue Engineering and Cell Cultures, PhD student in the first year at the Doctoral School of Health Sciences of Nicolae Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, is one of the 10 young researchers – winners of a Excellence Scholarship offered by the World Federation of Scientists (WFS) for 2022.

The obtained scholarship is a result of the research activity achievements registered by the doctoral student, namely: 5 articles in Scopus indexed journals, 9 publications in national and international journals, 10 papers in various scientific forums, 22 theses published in the materials of events organized in the country and abroad; 18 patents for inventions, as well as 16 special awards, 30 gold medals, 8 silver medals and a bronze medal – obtained at international trade fairs.

For the WFS scholarship competition, the young researcher submitted the project Three-dimensional acellular grafts for oro-maxillo-facial surgery. “The aim of this project is to obtain 3D matrices of collagen extracted from the umbilical-placental complex, Achilles tendon for application in oro-maxillo-facial surgery. The project reveals that one of the problems encountered in regenerative medicine resides in the tissue and organ defects, and among the treatment methods, the reconstruction of defects by involving tissue engineering methods, namely through the use of 3D collagen structures, becomes more widespread”, says Mariana Jian.

The objectives of the project are: the evaluation of the degree of purity of the extracted collagen and the ratio of the types of collagen in the obtained suspensions; in vitro testing of the biocompatibility, physico-chemical properties and architecture of three-dimensional collagen structures of human collagen and in vivo testing on laboratory animals by intramuscular implantation of the obtained collagen materials.

In total, 10 young Moldovan researchers will receive scholarships of excellence from the World Federation of Scientists, amounting to 150 Swiss francs per month during 2022. The winners were selected through a competition, held between November 15 – December 3, 2021 A total of 15 research projects from the country’s universities and scientific institutions took part in the competition.

The scholarship of excellence awarded by the World Federation of Scientists in accordance with the WFS Regulation for the academic year 2022/2023 (Rules and Guidelines of the National Scholarship Program) is meant for second and third year doctoral students and young researchers up to 40 years of age. Since the launch of the competition, in 1999, until now, young researchers from the Republic of Moldova received about 200 WFS scholarships of excellence.