Education
Bachelors of Arts (BA), Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, 2022

Biography
Ricardo attended UC Santa Barbara for his undergraduate career and received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the College of Creative Studies (CCS). During his first years at UC Santa Barbara, Ricardo worked in Dr. Max Wilson’s lab, where he was first introduced to biological engineering and built optogenetic molecular tools to control cellular dynamics in a spatio-temporal manner. Ricardo was awarded the two-year UC systemwide research fellowship, UC LEADS, as an acknowledgment for his research efforts. As part of the UC LEADS summer fellowship, he worked in Dr. Song Li’s lab at UCLA. He used polystyrene microparticles and protein-linking chemistry to create a synthetic environment for the SynNotch system to achieve robust gene activation. Inspired by his previous experiences, Ricardo finished his undergraduate research training in Dr. Angela Pitenis’s lab, where he utilized hydrogel-based technologies, clonal pancreatic cell lines and tissue-derived organoids to explore cellular responses to microenvironmental stiffening. His goal was to uncover the role of tumor fibrosis in driving cancer cell metastasis and develop new technologies to mimic the stiffness of the extracellular matrix in vitro.

In the Alliston lab, Ricardo seeks to integrate his previous experiences in biological engineering to skeletal stem cell research. He strives to uncover fundamental skeletal biomechanics while advancing the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Research Interests
• Tissue Engineering
• Biomaterials
• Stem Cells

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Contact
Ricardo.EspinosaLima [at] ucsf.edu