Emilio Andreozzi is assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Federico II University of Naples. He received his Master Science degree in Electronic Engineering and his PhD in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, both with honours, from the Federico II University of Naples. His research interests are in the fields of biomedical devices and instrumentation, and biosignal processing, particularly for cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscle monitoring.

Pietro Renato Avallone, class 1994, received his master’s degree in Chemical Engineering in 2018 at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, with a thesis on the rheological behavior of hydro-soluble cement additives for 3D printing. He obtained the Ph.D., in collaboration with the world leading confectionery company (Perfetti Van Melle) in 2022, with a dissertation on rheological features of gelatin gels and green hydrocolloids.

During the Ph.D., among the most relevant results, through the analysis of the gelation properties of thermo-responsive hydrogels, a strict relationship between gelation kinetics, mechanical and morphological properties was achieved.

In February 2022, he moved to the University of Sannio, where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a project on Rheological behavior of complex systems. As a visiting researcher, recently he spent some months at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands with a project on bubble dynamics in viscoelastic media.

During his research activity, P.R. Avallone has published nine peer-reviewed articles, focusing on complex fluids’ rheology, particularly viscoelastic solutions, gels, and emulsions. His research interests include rheological behavior of gelation kinetics, microstructure, crystallization of complex systems, ultrasound assisted phase transitions, and bubble dynamics in viscoelastic media.

At present, he is a non-tenure track assistant professor (RTDA) since June 2023 at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Materials, and Industrial Production Engineering (DICMaPI), UNINA.

He teaches Transport Phenomena in Lining Systems to students of Industrial Bioengineeering.

Paolo Bifulco is full professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. He received the degree in Electronic Engineering from the Federico II University of Naples and hold a PhD in Bioengineering. He was Visitor Researcher at the University of Southampton (UK). He served as associate editor and as reviewer for several international journals. He participated in many national and international research projects. He has carried out teaching activities in bioengineering by holding, among others, courses in Biomedical Instrumentation and Clinical Engineering. His scientific activity has been mainly developed in the field of biomedical instrumentation, processing and analysis of biomedical signals and images, telemedicine and health telematics.

Davide Cacchiarelli grew up in Rome where he carried out his undergraduate studies in Biotechnology and Biology. He obtained a Master Degree and a Doctorate Degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology from University of Rome “La Sapienza”, working on mechanisms of RNA regulation. In 2011 he moved to The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and The Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University to focus his research on the rules governing cell fate transitions and reprogramming using genomic approaches.

He returned to Italy in 2017 thanks to the Armenise Harvard Foundation Career Development Award and now he leads a young research group focused on understanding the dynamics of cell fate decisions at TIGEM, the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine in Naples.

Davide Cacchiarelli’s work aims to identify the mechanisms controlling cell fate decisions during cellular differentiation, conversion and reprogramming, and how such processed are affected by genetic mutations of key regulatory proteins including transcription factors. To achieve this goal he proposes to integrate descriptive, functional and single cell genomics to dissect how genetic elements and their variants impinge on the temporal and spatial control of gene expression.

Davide Cacchiarelli is leading the Laboratory of Integrative Genomics at TIGEM, bringing together an interdisciplinary approach engaging stem cell biology, cellular engineering, genomic approaches and mathematical modeling.

Filippo Causa is associate professor at Department of Chemical, Materials Engineering and Industrial Production, member of Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Biomaterials, commission of the PhD program Ingegneria dei Prodotti e dei Processi Industriali, University Federico II and associate to Italian Institute of technology, CABH. He received the degree cum laudae in Materials Engineering at Engineering Faculty of University Federico II. He was Visiting Research Scholar at Queen Mary, University of London and achieved the PhD in Biomaterials (2004). He acted as assistant professor (2004-2010) at University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Bachelor and Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering. He appears as author of 60 journal publications (h-index 20), six patents, about 100 conference communications (eight speaker invitations). He was involved as unit responsible or team leader in national and european projects on materials for implants, tissue engineering, drug delivery and biosensing. He is member of an editorial board/appointed reviewer for journals on materials for biomedical and biosensor applications.

…prossimamente…

David Dannhauser is currently a researcher at the ‘Centro Inter-dipartimentale di Ricerca sui Biomateriali’ (CRIB) of the University of Naples, Federico II, Italy. 2013 he received the PhD degree in “Materials Production and Engineering” at the University of Naples, Federico II, Italy. His main areas of research interests include small angle light scattering, viscoelastic particle/cell alignment and manipulation, lab-on-a-chip development for the diagnostic field as well as the spectroscopy of single cells in general.

One of his achievements, was the developed of a cost-effective microfluidic-based 3D particle/cell alignment device, which can be simply coupled with a wide range of optical investigation systems. Based on the viscoelasticity-induced cell alignment he developed a camera-based static light scattering system, which opens-up the possibility to obtain individual optical signature of passing living cells or bio-molecule markers in continuous flow conditions. Thus, scattering signatures reveal important information about the investigated morphological particle/cell features, such as distinguish different cell types or biomarkers from each other or even physiological from pathological cells. In fact, such simple to use single cell characterization can be generally considered as prospective method for fast and cost-effective human blood diagnostics.

Diego di Bernardo earned his “Laurea cum laude” in Electronic Engineering from the University of Naples “Federico II” in January 1997 and completed his Ph.D. in Medical Physics at the University of Newcastle, UK, in December 2001. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Center, UK (Dr Tim Hubbard), and at Boston University, USA (Prof. James J Collins). Since 2003, he has been associated with the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Naples, Italy, as Principal Investigator and Genomic Medicine Program Coordinator. He is currently a Full Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Naples “Federico II” since 2022. His work spans biomedical and control engineering, with a focus on systems and synthetic biology, leading to over 100 scientific publications.

Fanny Ficuciello received the Laurea degree magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Computer and Automation Engineering both at University of Naples Federico II in 2007 and 2010 respectively.
From September 2009 to March 2010 she was a visiting scholar in the Control Engineering Group at University of Twente, The Netherlands.
Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Industrial Bioengineering at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research activities are focused on biomechanical design and bio-aware control strategies for anthropomorphic artificial hands, grasping and manipulation with hand/arm and dual arm robotic systems, human-robot interaction control, variable impedance control and redundancy resolution strategies. Recently, she is involved on surgical robotics research projects, as a member of the ICAROS center (Interdepartmental Center for Advances in Robotic Surgery) of University of Naples Federico II.
She has published more than 60 journal and conference papers and book chapters. She is Editor of the volume “Human Friendly Robotics, 10th International Workshop” within the Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics. She is the recipient of a National Grant within the “Programma STAR Linea 1” under which she is the PI of the MUSHA project. She is responsible of the research objective “MRI-TRUS fusion algorithms and control strategies for robot-assisted biopsy” for the national project “Bioptic Advanced Robotic Technologies in OncoLOgy – B.A.R.T.O.LO”. Since 2008 she is a Member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and a Senior Member since 2017.
Since 2018 she is in the Technology Committee of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery (EAES). She is involved in the organization of international conferences and workshops. Currently she serves as Associate Editor of Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics (JIST) and she is on the editorial board of prestigious conferences in the field of robotics.

Massimiliano Fraldi is associate professor of Mechanics of Solids and Structures, Tissue Mechanics and Micro-mechanics of Heterogeneous Materials at the Polytechnic School of the University of Napoli Federico II, Italy, where he is member of the Doctoral College of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering and Seismic Risk at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture (DIST). He is also associate to the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Biomaterials (CRIB), a leading European Institution in the field of Biomaterials, to the Center for Structural Composites for Innovative Construction (SCIC) and is affiliated member of the Institute of applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems (ISASI) of the National Research Council of Italy. He is also fellow of the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (AIMETA), the National Interuniversity Consortium for Material Science and Technology (INSTM) and member of the Society for Natural Philosophy (SNP, founded by Clifford Truesdell).

Stefano Guido received a Laurea in Chemical Engineering in 1989 at the University of Napoli “Federico II”, a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1992 at the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Napoli “Federico II” on biased cell migration in oriented collagen gels. He is currently Professor at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering. He is also affiliated at the CEINGE Advanced Biotechnologies Center and at the Italian Institute of Materials Science and Technology. He has been visiting professor at several universities, including the University of California at Irvine, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge. He is currently involved in several European COST actions and in the ESA Topical Team on biomimetic and cellular systems. His main research interests are in interfacial behaviour of complex soft systems, with a special emphasis on cell motility, hemorheology and microfluidics techniques.

Pier Luca Maffettone graduated from the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Naples Federico II and received his Ph.D from the same University in 1993, where he stayed two more years as a post-doc researcher. After research visits at the University of Delaware and at Stanford University, he became Assistant Professor at the University of Naples Federico II in 1994. Four years later he moved to the Politecnico di Torino as an Associate Professor. In 2005 Pier Luca Maffettone returned to the University of Naples Federico II as Full Professor at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering, where he is head of the Department since 2013. He is a member at large of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Rheology and member of the editorial board of “Rheological Acta”.

Costantino Menna is Assistant Professor at the University of Naples Federico II, where he graduated in Materials Engineering in 2009 and received his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and Structures in 2013, working on damage modeling of advanced composite materials.
He is involved in several multidisciplinary research activities mainly focused on advanced materials for civil and industrial applications, including: finite element modeling of advanced composite materials, experimental and theoretical assessment of innovative materials used for structural retrofit of existing structures, and additive manufacturing in the construction industry. During his academic career, he has been visiting research scholar in several foreign institutions: École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada), Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics of Penn State University (USA), Laboratoire de Mécanique des Solides of Ecole Polytechnique (Parigi), University of Greenwich (UK).
He is a member of several task groups of fib (Fédération Internationale du Béton) and member of RILEM Technical Committee: “Digital fabrication with cement-based materials”. He is a co-founder of the Spinoff FED, Future Environmental Design, providing services on the integration of Building Integration Modeling (BIM) and Sustainability in the construction sector.
He is author of more than 30 scientific papers published in international peer-reviewed journals and 3 national and international patents.

Paolo A. Netti received his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 1994 from the University of Naples Federico II. During his doctoral studies he has worked at the IRC in Biomedical Materials at the University of London and later for his post-doctoral stage joined Harvard University for more than 4 years. He is full professor of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II and he is the coordinator of the Center for Advanced Biomaterials for Health Care IIT@CRIB.
His research interests mainly focus on elucidating the complex interplays between materials properties and biological entities such as biomolecules, cells and tissues. His activities span from the basic understanding of the mechanisms governing cell’s recognition and response to material stimuli, to the technological development of novel class of biomaterials and devices able to control cell fate and functions. He participated to several European Scientific Commission panels for defining a viable European roadmap for the development of novel biomaterials platforms, he is a panel member of ERC advanced grant evaluation committee and has also served as scientific tutor of several research platforms from the Italian Minister of Research and University.

Rossana Pasquino, class 1982, received her master’s degree in Chemical Engineering cum laude in 2005 at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Unina).

In 2005, she started a Ph.D. at Unina on suspensions of hard spheres in viscoelastic solutions. Her Ph.D. program was part of a joint project between Unina and KU Leuven, in Belgium, where she performed half of her studies. She obtained the Ph.D. degree in 2008. After her Ph.D., she worked for one year as Postdoctoral researcher between Belgium and Italy, dealing with flow-induced microstructure in suspensions. After that, she won a Marie Curie fellowship (within the framework of the initial training network “Dynacop”) and she moved to Heraklion, in Crete, where she spent two years at FORTH-IESL, studying the dynamics of complex polymers.

Since 2012, she has been working as a permanent researcher at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering (DICMaPI, Unina). In 2016, she became Associate Professor at the same department. She received the Italian habilitation to Ordinary Professor in 2018.

She teaches Rheology and Transport Phenomena and she is leading a Rheology group involving postdocs, PhDs and Master students. R. Pasquino’s work on rheology of complex fluids is globally acknowledged in the rheology community, especially concerning the use of rheology as a tool to detect morphology and microstructural properties of soft matter. Her studies focus on different aspects of the rheology of viscoelastic solutions, colloids and polymers.

In 2015, she was visiting professor at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, where she worked on microfluidics of micellar solutions. In 2018, she visited Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, to investigate polymer degradation through rheological tools.

She is the author of approximately 50 scientific works on peer-reviewed journals (h-index 16, number of citations>700) and she is involved in various national and international projects.

Since 2019, she is an Associate Editor of Physics of Fluids and she is part of the Editorial Board of Soft Matter.

She was in the Organization Committee of the Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) in 2018, and chairman/invited keynote speaker in various international conferences.

She is the recipient of the Distinguished Young Rheologist Award 2018, given by TA Instruments.

Valentina Preziosi graduated in Chemical Engineering in 2007 discussing an experimental thesis about the “Setup of an in vitro system for the fluid dynamic study of red blood cells in microcapillaries” at the University of Napoli Federico II and received his PhD in Industrial Biotechnological Sciences in 2012, discussing a thesis about “Modeling and development of controlled topography reactors and their applications in the field of industrial biotechnology” in collaboration with Procter and Gamble R&D center in Brussels. In 2022 she became Assistant Professor at the University of Napoli Federico II. Performs educational and research activities in the field of microstructural study and transport phenomena of complex fluids, both of biological and industrial interest, in microfluidic systems. The integration of such microfluidic systems with organic transistors for sensing and monitoring of these fluids is the main focus of study and is published in the majority of his/her scientific articles and awarded projects. She is author of 32 papers on international peer-reviewed journals, (~30% corresponding, ~30% first name, >80% Q1), about 20 conference proceedings, 1 book chapter, and about 40 conference participations. The number of citations is ~800, with H-index 13 (source: Scopus).

She is/was Principal Investigator and Scientific Responsible for the following projects:
– ISSNAF and Easydial – “Evaluation of microfluidic technology for blood filtration and renal replacement therapy”.

– Star- Linea 1– “Biosensing through Immuno-microfluidics”.

– FISR 2020 – Covid-19 – “Detection and amplification of immunoglobulines in blood affected by COVID-19 through biosensors”.

–PRIN 2022–“A lab-on-a-chip integrated with electrochemical transistors for cardiac biomarkers evaluation in human blood”.

Margherita Ruoppolo graduated in Chemistry in 1990 and got her PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1997 at the University of Naples “Federico II”. From 1993 to 1994 she carried out research at the Biological Laboratory of the University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom.

She began her university career in 1996 as Researcher (SSD BIO-10 “Biochemistry”) at the University of Salerno. In 2001 she became Associate Professor (SSD BIO-10 “Biochemistry”) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Naples Federico II. Since 2007 she is Full Professor (SSD BIO-10 “Biochemistry”) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Naples Federico II. Since 2003 she has been responsible for the INTERDEPARTMENTAL PROGRAM: Development of innovative spectroscopic technologies for the screening and diagnosis of diseases of the Laboratory Medicine DAI, University Policlinico, University of Naples “Federico II”. Since 2018 she has been responsible for the laboratory of newborn screening at CEINGE.

She teaches Biochemistry courses at the School of Medicine of the University of Naples “Federico II” and she is in charge of the teaching of Proteomics (CdL Biotechnology of Health – University of Naples Federico II).

 From November 2011 to October 2016 she was President of the Council for the Degree Course in Audioprosthetic Techniques

The scientific activity of Margherita Ruoppolo has focused on the themes listed below:

-Characterization of post-translational modifications with particular regard to the dynamic characterization of disulphide bridges and to oxidative folding processes.

-Differential and functional proteomics methodologies in molecular medicine

-Metabolomics methodologies in the study of inborn errors of metabolism

– Definition of altered intracellular pathways in hereditary diseases of the intermediate metabolism.

Enza Torino gained a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering on the development of novel technologies for the production of nanoparticles for nanomedicine. Lifetime goal of her research interests has always been obtaining nanostructures and exploiting their fascinating properties using thermodynamics. She spent part of her Ph.D as at University of Texas at Austin – Texas (USA), to research emulsion and microemulsion formation for pharmaceutical products to study how nanoparticles can be modified using surfactants to enhance their delivery properties in a biological environment. After her Ph.D., she worked as Guest Scientist at the “School in Advanced Optical Technologies” (SAOT) established at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg – Department of Chemical and Bioengineering, within the framework of the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments. Here, she studied the mechanism involved in drug-polymer nanoprecipitation using on situ laser diagnostic technique and the manipulation of pharmaceutical emulsions to produce nanospheres or nanocapsules by Microfluidics. From 2010 to 2016, she worked as Post Doc Researcher at Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in the Theranostic Engineered Nanoshuttle (TeNs) Platform, where she designed novel polymer-based engineered nanostructures for in vivo application in diagnosis and therapy of several pathologies. She is currently working as a tenure-track researcher in Bioengineering at the University of Naples “Federico II” at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering on the design of multimodal imaging nanoparticles for theranostics and she teaches “Diagnostic Devices and Drug Delivery” in the framework of the International Master Degree in Industrial Bioengineering. She is also leading 3 spin-off and start-up projects in Life Sciences based on patented technologies. Currently, Enza Torino is also involved as a Principal Investigator in several projects to develop theranostic systems for the nanobiotechnology field and in several national and international collaborations with industrial and academics partners.

Maurizio Ventre received his MSc degree in Materials Engineering in 2003 from the University of Naples Federico II and his PhD in Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering in 2006 from the same Institution. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting scientist at the University of Northampton, UK to study the relationship between tissue composition and structure and its functions. From 2007 to 2010 he was post doc researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Biomaterials of the University of Naples and then moved to the Italian Institute of Technology as Senior Post Doc until 2011. On December 2011 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II. His research interests encompass cell-mterial interaction, mechanotransduction and morphogenesis. Maurizio Ventre is author of 30 articles, 3 book chapters and several conference proceedings and abstracts that cumulate more than 300 citations.