Bas van Rijn is an Associate Professor of Perinatal Health and Technology in the Soft Tissue Engineering and Mechanobiology Group at Biomedical Engineering. Van Rijn also works as a Gynecologist in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the Maxima Medical Center. His research focuses on understanding the complex interplay between health during pregnancy and the adaptations required for safe development of the fetus, with a special emphasis on health of the placenta and its interaction with the vascular and immune system at the maternal-fetal interface. With his group at TU/e Dr van Rijn is developing models using human placental organoids and stem cell technology to engineer living cell models for an artificial placenta platform. These models pave the way for developing improved diagnostics and treatment strategies for diseases such as fetal growth restriction, preterm birth and preeclampsia. In addition, Van Rijn is involved in initiatives to facilitate technology-driven healthcare by implementing value-based smart solutions for current perinatal health care pathways. He has been leading and participating in several national and international clinical and research programs, focusing on bridging the gap between perinatal medicine, women’s health and engineering.  

By engineering the building blocks of early placental development at the maternal-fetal interface, we can now better understand the intimate relationship between mother and child during early stages of human development, not only to learn how to improve pregnancy outcome, but also to gain important insights into long-term biology of health and disease

Bas van Rijn studied Medicine in Utrecht University where he received his MD degree in 2002. In 2003, he started on a training and research grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research to obtain his PhD in 2008 and complete his clinical training in Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2012 at the University Medical Center Utrecht. Between 2012 and 2014, he spent two years as Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Southampton, then continued in a dual role as Associate Professor from 2014 to 2017 at the University of Southampton in combination with a clinical staff position at the UMC Utrecht and was appointed Associate Professor within the Circulatory Health and Child Health program. From 2018, Dr Van Rijn continued at Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and led a research program on placental health with the Department Developmental Biology, before moving to Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, The Netherlands) and Maxima Medical Center (Veldhoven, The Netherlands) in 2023. Dr Van Rijn is recipient of several national and international grants and awards and participates in consortia in both reproductive, cardiovascular and regenerative medicine.