Prof Benjamin Gantenbein is an Associated Professor of the Medical Faculty and Group Head of the Tissue Engineering for Orthopedics & Mechanobiology (TOM) group at the Department for BioMedical Research (DBMR) and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Inselspital, at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern. His research focuses on intervertebral disc repair using biomaterials and scaffolds, mesenchymal stem cells or a combination thereof. He started his career at the University of Bern in the field of evolutionary biology / phylogenetics where he completed his Master of Science degree and also his PhD at the Computational and Molecular Population Genetics (CMPG) laboratory at UBERN. He then received two fellowships (SNF young scientists and a Marie Curie fellowship) to focus on animal molecular evolutionary rates at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh. From there he moved to the Genetics and Molecular Ecology Laboratory at Cambridge University, where he focused on recombination in animal mitochondria. Before the current assignment, Prof. Gantenbein entered into the field of intervertebral disc research at the AO Research Institute in Davos, where he acquired experience in modern concepts of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
He is active in the field of tissue engineering and stem cell research (https://www.scrm.unibe.ch). He is further conducting research in bioreactor design using a wider range of bone & joint tissues. He teaches Tissue Engineering in the Biomedical Engineering Masters course in Bern. He also teaches mechano-biology at the University of Basel as a guest lecture at their Biomedical Engineering Program.