Tecnun doctoral student María Bikuña came second in the award José María Ferrero Corral, aimed at students at Master's Degree and doctorate. These awards cover a wide range of subjects, from signal, image and human movement analysis to more experimental projects in tissue engineering.

Glaucoma is a disease of the eye that gradually robs you of your vision. It usually has no symptoms and can result in sudden vision loss. Without proper treatment, glaucoma can lead to blindness. The good news is that with regular eye exams, early detection and treatment, sight can be preserved. In most types of glaucoma, the eye's drainage system becomes clogged and intraocular fluid cannot drain. As it builds up, it causes increased pressure inside the eye that damages the sensitive optic nerve, leading to vision loss.

Maria's project is about the development of an in vitro trabecular meshwork model based on polycaprolactone, a biocompatible polymer. The application of this project is focused on glaucoma, a disease that causes a gradual loss of vision and for which there is currently no cure. 

As a curiosity, her project was the most experimental, "where we work with cells and the biology/physiology of the human eye", says the Tecnun doctoral student, who is sample very happy with this recognition. The rest of the selected works focused on signal analysis, improvements in predictive technologies or human movements.

In January, María completed her first year of thesis at Tecnun. She is currently working on the"electropsinning" manufacturing process, which consists of applying an electric field to a polymer solution, which is forced to be extruded by a needle to form nanofibres. "I am also involved in the mechanical characterisation of these fibres," says the engineer. "We are trying to use this method to create an ideal environment for cell growth, and to do this we need to control the manufacturing parameters and analyse the Structures that we have created, and then check whether the cells grow correctly. 

María says that this award has given her a push, "a motivational punch to continue with the thesis ". "At the beginning of thesis you are warned that not everything works out the first time and that it can be frustrating. It has been a difficult year, and the pandemic has not helped the progress of project as it is an experimental activity and laboratory is essential. The award has been a recognition of the effort and time dedicated to research, which is often arduous and not entirely rewarding, and a push to continue researching".