Dr Alexandra Iordachescu PhD, MInstP

Dr Alexandra Iordachescu

School of Chemical Engineering
PI and Teaching Fellow in Bioengineering

Contact details

Address
Institute of Translational Medicine
Healthcare Technologies Institute
Heritage Building
Mindelsohn Way
Birmingham
B15 2TH

Dr Alexandra Iordachescu is a Principal Investigator in the School of Chemical Engineering (College of Engineering and Physical Sciences). She leads a research theme focused on developing organotypic & organoid systems for regenerative medicine and simulating the response of biosystems to extreme environments. These include simulated microgravity, shock and impacts, achieved using a range of specialised capabilities.

She is the founder and lead of a national consortium enabling interdisciplinary research and excellence in this area. During her time at Birmingham, she has pioneered several organotypic models of bone tissue through multiple awards that she received as PI. These focused on engineering tissue-like constructs of higher complexity and replacing animal models of trauma and bone degeneration.

Her research also involves studying habitability in extreme environments, such as space habitats and designing bioengineered solutions in support of crew health during deep-space missions. She collaborates with researchers globally for developing the next generation of testing platforms for biomedical research, bioastronautics and defence applications. She is a visiting academic at Cranfield Defence and Security based at the UK Defence Academy, where she co-supervises research in the area of hypervelocity impacts.

She also has a background in space physiology and is involved in initiatives focused on using the low Earth orbit for advancing medical research. Her work is funded through research council awards or support from the NC3Rs, EPSRC and STFC. Alex also works with the Institute of Physics, where she holds 4-year terms as Vice-Chair of the West Midlands branch and Secretary of the Shockwaves and Extreme Conditions Group.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, 2018
  • MSc in Space Physiology and Health, King’s College London, 2014
  • BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, University of Manchester, 2012

Biography

Dr Alexandra Iordachescu is a Principal Investigator & Teaching Fellow in Bioengineering in the department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on developing bone organoids and other complex tissue-engineered biosystems, also known as micro-organs and artificial tissue models, for screening, regenerative medicine and simulating the physiological response to altered environments.

At the University of Birmingham, Alexandra leads multiple interdisciplinary projects, consisting of modelling human biology in analogue systems, with a particular focus on understanding the response to significant or absent mechanical stress and the ageing of (bio)materials. Alexandra has expertise in using high resolution X-Ray systems for structural and biochemical characterization of these platforms. She is also a lecturer in several modules in the department, teaching themes such as tissue engineering and in vitro organogenesis.

Alexandra undertook a joint doctoral programme between the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford (awarded in 2018), during which she worked on developing an in vitro model of mature bone tissue, where she was able to culture constructs over clinically relevant durations (1-2 years).

After completing her PhD, she continued her research in the department of Chemical Engineering, where she has held several teaching and research roles. In 2018, she was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the NC3Rs (UKRI) to become a Training Fellow and PI. In this work, Alexandra engineered a trabecular bone organoid model and used this to establish an in vitro bone loss model as a replacement to animal-based research studies.

She was subsequently awarded further funding as PI through a Skills and Knowledge Transfer grant to continue this research and apply the bone organoids in a pre-clinical/pharmacological context, by working collaboratively with the University of Manchester.

Before joining the University of Birmingham, she also studied at Master’s level in Space Physiology at King’s College London, which involved practical work at the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine and the European Space Agency-DLR in Cologne, Germany. This experimental work was focused on understanding the physiological responses to hypoxia, lower-body negative pressure and centrifugation.

Teaching

  • LM Medical Devices (Course lead)
  • LM Frontiers in Tissue Engineering
  • LM MEng Research Project MEng (UG)
  • LH Bioscience for Graduates from Other Scientific Disciplines
  • LM Advanced Therapeutic Medicine Products

Postgraduate supervision

Please contact Alexandra directly for collaborations and project supervision.

Research

Research interests

Artificial organs; Biomaterials; Biomechanics; Biomedical instrumentation; Bionics; Health systems engineering; Medical devices & technology; Microgravity; Molecular and cell engineering; Orthopaedics; Precision medicine; Regenerative medicine; Systems physiology; Tissue engineering; Translational medicine.

Current projects

  • The application of trabecular bone organoids to investigate mineral-sensing in skeletal physiology and disease.
    Iordachescu, A. Funded by the NC3Rs
  • From ageing to space travel: Developing an organotypic model of skeletal tissue disuse for understanding degeneration in altered environments
    Iordachescu, A. Funded by the NC3Rs
  • On the failure of composite panels under hyper-velocity impact. Funded by EPSRC & Cranfield University
  • Project Bio-SPHERE (UKRI STFC Boulby UGL partnership)
  • Consortium for Organotypic Research on Ageing and Microgravity

Publications

Iordachescu, A., Eisenstein, N. & Appleby-Thomas, G. (2023) Space habitats for bioengineering and surgical repair: addressing the requirement for reconstructive and research tissues during deep-space missions. Nature NPJ Microgravity 9, 23, doi:10.1038/s41526-023-00266-3.

Iordachescu A. et al. (2021) Trabecular bone organoids - A micron scale ‘humanised’ prototype designed to study the effects of microgravity and degeneration. Nature NPJ Microgravity, 7, 17, doi:10.1038/s41526-021-00146-8.

Iordachescu, A. et al. (2019). Organotypic culture of clinically-relevant bone using composite ceramic-fibrin scaffolds. Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology, 48, e79, doi:doi:10.1002/cpsc.79.

Iordachescu, A., Hulley P., and Grover L. M. (2018). A novel method for the collection of nanoscopic vesicles from an organotypic culture model. Royal Society of Chemistry Advances, 8(14): p. 7622-7632.

Iordachescu, A., et al. (2017). An In Vitro Model for the Development of Mature Bone Containing an Osteocyte Network. Advanced Biosystems, 2(2): p. 1700156, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/adbi.201700156.