Melvin Gurian is a biomedical engineer whose career combines fundamental research  and clinical translation, that led to an entrepreneurial  Journey. His academic journey as a biomedical engineer started in 2012 at the University of Twente,.where his early early work , under the supervision of Dr. Tom Kamperman laid the foundation for his long-standing interest in advanced biomaterials and engineered living systems.

Eager to broaden his international experience and to get acquainted with translational biomedical research, he pursued an internship in 2017 in the United States at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Returning to the University of Twente, Gurian completed his Master’s degree in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jeroen Leijten. His work focused on advanced organ-on-chip technology that contributed to more physiologically relevant in vitro disease models.

Gurian then continued working under Leijten’s supervision, pursuing a PhD. His doctoral research focused on developing and discovering novel nutrient-releasing strategies to enable the scale-up of engineered living matter. Having found metabolic batteries as surprisingly simple and effective solution to address clinical scalability of engineered tissues, he decided to translate his findings toward clinical applications, co-authoring multiple fundamental and valorization grant proposals that together secured approximately €2 million in funding.

Today, he is channeling his expertise into entrepreneurship, aiming to bring the concept of metabolic batteries to market through a spin-out company, called NuNa Bioscience. In this early venture phase, he was named a finalist in the Venture Challenge and successfully completed the BioBusiness Masterclass, further strengthening his transition from academic science to technology valorization and business development.