**About the Editor**

#### **Benjamin Gantenbein**

Benjamin Gantenbein, Prof. Dr., Phil.nat., is an Associated Professor of the Medical Faculty and Group Head of the Bone & Joint Program and the biology lab of 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 evolutionary biology/phylogenetics. He completed his Master of Science degree and PhD at the Computational and Molecular Population Genetics (CMPG) laboratory at University of Bern. He then received two fellowships (SNF young scientists and one from Marie Curie) to focus on animal molecular evolutionary rates at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh. Finally, he moved to the Genetics and Molecular Ecology Laboratory at Cambridge University, focusing on recombination in animal mitochondria. Before the current assignment, Prof. Gantenbein entered the field of intervertebral disc (IVD) 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 tissue engineering and stem cell research. He is further involved in bioreactor designs to culture ex vivo bone and joint tissues under physiological conditions. Since 2009, he has been teaching tissue engineering in the Biomedical Engineering Masters course program at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern.
