Consortium
It is composed of 5 Schools and is involved in 15 research centres – one of them, CDRSP-PL. PREDICTOS results from CDRSP-PL willingness to enhance their performance and positioning in the healthcare field not only at national level, but also at international level, with a more regular presence in international works. CDRSP is a PL autonomous research unit supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology FCT (FCT Evaluation: EXCELLENT – 15/15), recognized by its work in the areas of: additive biomanufacturing techniques, advanced materials for rapid manufacturing and biomanufacturing, biomimetic design, computer aided design of tissue engineering scaffolds, reverse engineering, and sustainable product development. It has multidisciplinary competences in biology, biomechanics, material science, engineering, chemistry, computer sciences, mathematics, and physics.
PhD in Biomedical Sciences, is Vice-Director, PhD Integrated Researcher and member of the scientific board of the CDRSP-PL. She is the PI of two national projects “BioRobotBeads, nº 47081” and “OP-SMARTherapy, 2022.04238.PTDC” and one European project, “PREDICTOS, n.101079372” and is member team of several IDI projects. She has been highly enrolled in management, coordination, and elaboration of national and international projects, is author or co-author of several scientific papers, chapters, author or co-author of 5 national patents and 3 international patent, invited as reviewer of scientific journals and tutoring several young researchers. Her main expertise research areas are biomimetics, synthesis and characterisation of biomaterials, stimuli-responsive biomaterials, handling of mouse and human cells, tissue engineering, biomedical devices for bone tissue regeneration, additive biomanufacturing, IDI projects coordination, management, and elaboration, as well as industry 4.0.
PhD in Mechanical Engineering – Computer Vision, is Coordinator. His research interests are based on the development and exploitation of novel additive (bio)manufacturing, also known as 3D/4D (bio)printing, involving: Predictive models (computational/mathematical methods); (bio)fabrication; complex multimaterial 3D/4D (bio)structures; tissue engineering (e.g. bone/cartilage and skin applications); biomimetics and bioinspiration.
PhD in Biomedical Sciences. Her research interests include biomanufacturing namely electrospinning and additive manufacturing (3D/4D), stimuli-responsive structures and tissue engineering (ECM mimicking).
PhD in Biochemistry. Her main interest areas are additive biomanufacturing, tissue engineering, chromatography, DNA purification, and experimental optimization through mathematical models.
PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His main interest areas are Direct Digital Manufacturing, Reaction Injection Moulding, Rapid Prototyping and Tooling, Virtual Prototyping and Reverse Engineering.
PhD in Physics of Materials. His main interest areas are additive manufacturing, 3D/4D printing molecular texture, biomaterials, the use of in-situ x-ray and neutron scattering.
PhD in Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering. Her main interest areas are numerical analysis applied to biomedical engineering and manufacturing / biomanufacturing engineering, electrical and electromagnetic stimulation on different tissue engineering applications.
In PREDICTOS, CNR will be participating mainly through its centres ISSMC and ITM, which will bring to PREDICTOS their great experience in the study of cell/biomaterial interaction, especially focus on cellular and molecular response to the interaction with nano, micro and macro structured biomaterials for bone regeneration and cancer therapy. CNR-ISSMC&ITM have ongoing several national and European project (PRIN MIUR REGROWTH 2017 Italian Minister of Defence MIS-RIGENERA 2020, H2020 Twinning project NANO4TARMED, EU MSCA-DN project STRIKE,) focus on osteosarcoma therapy and on the development of 3D in vitro scaffold-based model resembling the osteosarcoma complexity to increase the predictivity of the in vitro study. CNR has extensive expertise in the project management, EU policy for R&I and funding opportunities that will be made available to the project consortium.
Senior Researcher at ISSMC, currently leading the Cell/Material Interaction BioLAB with experience in the field of cellular and molecular biology associated with the material science. The research activities concern nanotechnology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine the design and the study of the in vitro 2D and 3D scaffold-based cellular models for the understanding the fine regulation of cellular and molecular events involved in the cell/biomaterial interaction.
PhD in Biology. Her research is characterised by a multi and interdisciplinary approach, at the interfaces between nanotechnology and regenerative medicine.
Master Degree in Business Administration and qualification of accountant. She has more than 10 years of expertise (in academic and public administration sectors) in financial/managerial support for the preparation of project proposals and for the monitoring and reporting of European/national/regional funded projects.
She has expertise in 3D cancer model and cancer stem cells.
She has expertise in biomaterials synthesis and biological characterization.
In concrete, MERLN has extensive expertise in working on skeletal in vitro models and tissue engineered implants with strong historical focus on bone and cartilage. Multiple of their ongoing projects are focused on the use of biofabrication techniques to create bone implants (FAST, Jointpromise, EU project) or to create implants for osteoporotic fractures (Giotto, H2020 project). Furthermore, the researchers of MERLN are also investigating bone metastasis on breast cancer patients within the European B2B consortium where the main aim is to develop on chip models where metastatic events can be investigated in vitro (B2B, H2020 project).
He has a PhD in Biomaterials from the BIOS research doctorate school in Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Pisa, Italy, which focused on the development of new approaches for the fabrication of polymeric scaffolds for Tissue Engineering applications; and a Postdoc focused on cancer therapeutics in vitro and in vivo. He is an elected board member of the International Society for Biofabrication and member of the European society of Biomaterials.
Full Professor in biofabrication for regenerative medicine, and Principal Investigator and chair of the Department of Complex Tissue Regeneration (CTR), at MERLN. PhD in 3D scaffolds for osteochondral regeneration, for which he was awarded the European doctorate award in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering from the European Society of Biomaterials (ESB). In 2014, he received the prestigious Jean Leray award for outstanding young principal investigators from the ESB and the ERC starting grant. In 2016, he also received the prestigious Young Scientist Award for outstanding principal investigators from TERMIS.
The Biomechanics Research Unit is part of GIGA in silico medicine, the most recently established section within the GIGA, the Interdisciplinary Center of excellence for Applied Genoproteomics. GIGAResearch is a center of excellence for biomedical research encompassing 8 thematic research units, with about 600 researchers from 4 different Faculties (Medicine, Science, Engineering and Veterinary Medicine). This multidisciplinarity together with its location within (and strong links to) the University Hospital and with the pooling of technical, logistic and administrative resources are key features of GIGA. The Biomechanics Research Unit focusses on the development of in silico and in vitro tools for skeletal tissue engineering and lymphangiogenesis applications.The in silico models are multi-scale and multi-physics models, often combining data-driven (omics) approaches with mechanistic approaches. Together with their clinical and industrial collaborators, they use these models to investigate the aetiology of non-healing fractures, to design in silico potential cell-based treatment strategies and to optimize manufacturing processes of these tissue engineering constructs.
She is also scientific coordinator of the Prometheus platform for Skeletal Tissue Engineering (60+ researchers). Over the years, she has received various awards, among them 2 prestigious ERC grants (starting in 2011 and consolidator in 2017). In 2018, she was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city of Liège. She is a member of the strategic alliance committee of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society, and current executive director of the Virtual Physiological Human Institute through which she advocates the use of in silico modeling in healthcare through liaising with the clinical community, the European Commission and Parliament, regulatory agencies (EMA, FDA) and other stakeholders.
He holds Master’s degrees in general management, and in bioscience engineering; and a PhD in agricultural sciences and bioscience engineering. He is also a member of the Virtual Physiological Human Institute and the Avicenna Alliance (co-chair of a Task force linking with Notified bodies).