Umber Cheema
Professor Cheema completed her PhD in tissue engineering of skeletal muscle at UCL in 2004. She then went on to work as a post-doctoral fellow with Professor Robert Brown from 2004 at UCL and Professor Teruo Okano from 2007 in The Tokyo Womens Medical University in Japan. In 2008 she was awarded a prestigious BBSRC David Phillips fellowship. During this time her research was based on understanding cell behaviour and signalling in 3D collagen scaffolds, which resulted in close collaboration with industrial partners, including Oxford Optronix on real-time O2 monitoring in 3D tissue engineered scaffolds and Sartorius on the development of biomimetic 3D tumour models. She continues working closely with industrial partners, including Lonza. Professor Cheema is the Vice Dean for Innovation and Enterprise for the Faculty of Medical Sciences. She was previously the Divisional Graduate Tutor (Research) for Surgery (2014-2021). Professor Cheema was awarded her chair in bioengineering in 2020. She leads the Centre for 3D models of Health and Disease, which nurtures a team of dedicated research leaders committed to championing science in this area.