Meet our Erasmus intern Paweł Kałłas
I graduated with a master’s degree in science from the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland. I did my master’s degree in Chemical Technology, and became interested in biomaterials science. This led me to write my master’s thesis about preparation of antibacterial coatings for application in medicine. Since I have always been very open to new experiences, I decided to apply for an Erasmus+ grant and do my post-graduate internship at the Department of Biomaterials in Oslo (NB: Best choice ever!).
What has he learned during his stay in Oslo?
During my 5 months here, I was given the chance to work on bio-inspired phenolic coatings on titanium surfaces. The project was focused on deposition kinetics of tannic acid coatings, and was supervised by Dr Hanna Tiainen. It was shown that coatings based on tannic acid have antibacterial and antioxidant properties, whilst not being toxic. The coatings were characterized using methods such as QCM-D, UV-VIS and FTIR spectroscopy, in order to understand their chemical structure.
The time I have spent in Oslo and at the Department of Biomaterials has been truly amazing! I really enjoyed every single day in the lab among people I really like and admire. Oslo itself is a beautiful city - if only I could have a chance to do an internship again, I would definitely come back!
