Cecilia Sahlgren is a part-time Full Professor at the TU/e Department of Biomedical Engineering (research group Soft Tissue Engineering & Mechanobiology) and Professor of Cell Biology at Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. Her research aims to understand the basic molecular principles of signaling mechanisms that regulate stem cell fate choices in cardiovascular tissue engineering. Another important goal is to develop technologies and probes to specifically tune and monitor these signals at will in specific cell populations in order to steer stem cell fate and curtail disease activities. The specific focus of her research is the role and regulation of the evolutionarily highly conserved Notch signaling pathway, a key regulator of stem cell function.

The main objectives are:

1. to understand how the cellular microenvironment influences Notch signaling activity and how this impinges on cell identity and function;

2. to understand how Notch activity in stem cells influences remodeling of the environment;

3. to develop technology platforms and probes to regulate Notch signaling in engineered tissues and for cellular and molecular imaging.

Increased knowledge of these processes can provide insights into regenerative processes and has the potential to find applications in material-based stem cell therapy. Specific projects focus on Notch signaling in cardiovascular tissue and on directing engineered tissue fate by modulating Notch signaling.

Cecilia Sahlgren obtained her PhD at Åbo Akademi University (Turku, Finland), focusing on the role of intermediate filaments as signaling orchestrators in cell fate decisions. From 2005 to 2008, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden). She then returned to Finland to establish the Cell Fate Lab at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology, a joint department of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University.

In 2013, she moved to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, The Netherlands), first as an assistant professor and subsequently as an associate professor. In 2016, she again returned to Finland to become Professor of Cell Biology at Åbo Akademi University but kept her affiliation with TU/e, now as a part-time professor.

In 2017, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council to investigate the interplay between blood flow and cell signaling, and to clarify their effects on the architecture of blood vessels in the ForceMorph project. She was the principal investigator at the Center of Excellence in Cellular Mechanostasis in Turku from 2019 to 2024, and in 2020 was awarded an Academy of Finland grant on cell communication in the multilayered blood vessel wall.

Current research projects include the development of an engineered platform to generate hematopoietic stem cells from stem cells (MAKING BLOOD), an ERC-funded project, and the Center of Excellence project IMMENs, funded by the Academy of Finland, to study the interface between lymph vessels and inflammation.

By using technology and probes to tune and monitor specific cell populations, we can unravel the basic molecular principles of signaling mechanisms that regulate cell fate choices in cardiovascular tissue engineering, steer stem cell fate, and curtail disease.