Romano Orru completed his PhD in organic chemistry at the Agricultural University of Wageningen, The Netherlands. From 1996 to 2000 he worked at the Technical as well as at the Karl-Franszens University of Graz, Austria on synthetic applications of bio-transformations. In 2000, he returned to the Netherlands, and was appointed Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor (2003) of Synthetic & Bioorganic Chemistry at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he was appointed chair in 2007. End of 2019 he moved to the Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials of Maastricht University as a professor of Organic Chemistry. Early 2022 he became the Scientific Director of AMIBM. His research focuses on the utilisation of one-pot cascade reactions and multi-component reactions to improve the efficiency, sustainability and precision of organic compound synthesis, with emphasis on applications in the field of pharmaceutical science. For that, he develops novel MCRs and employs them in combination with biocatalysts in one-pot processes to access targeted molecules in a stereoselective fashion. In another research line he develops isocyanides as versatile C1 building blocks in (transition) metal-catalyzed insertion reactions towards privileged heterocyclic scaffolds. He is considered a leader in his field and has contributed much to this emerging area.
Thomas J. Webster’s (H index: 121; Google Scholar) degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995; USA) and in biomedical engineering from RPI (Ph.D., 2000; USA). He has served as a professor at Purdue (2000-2005), Brown (2005-2012), and Northeastern (2012-2021; serving as Chemical Engineering Department Chair from 2012 - 2019) Universities and has formed over a dozen companies who have numerous FDA approved medical products currently improving human health in over 20,000 patients. He is currently helping those companies and serves as a professor at Brown University, Saveetha University, Vellore Institute of Technology, UFPI, and others. Dr. Webster has numerous awards including: 2020, World Top 2% Scientist by Citations (PLOS); 2020, SCOPUS Highly Cited Research (Top 1% Materials Science and Mixed Fields); 2021, Clarivate Top 0.1% Most Influential Researchers (Pharmacology and Toxicology); 2022, Best Materials Science Scientist by Citations (Research.com); and is a fellow of over 8 societies. Prof. Webster is a former President of the U.S. Society For Biomaterials and has over 1,350 publications to his credit with over 55,000 citations. He was recently nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In 1993 dr. Raimondo has got a degree in Industrial Chemistry at University of Roma “La Sapienza”. For at least twenty years, she’s Group and Project Leader in Materials Science, particularly on “Smart and multifunctional industrial materials and surfaces”. Her activity mainly deals with the engineering of innovative surfaces, materials synthesis and processes to multifunctional, low wettable surfaces and thin films for many different industrial sectors. Currently, she’s handling scientific projects on the design of hybrid or fully organic coatings aiming at modulating the wetting behavior of surfaces, providing metal or alloys, composites and natural fibers as well, of super-hydrophobicity, amphiphobicity, switchable hydrophilic/hydrophobic performances.
The focus is on the design and fabrication of innovate surfaces leading to friction, drag and noise reduction (main reference industrial sectors: maritime, naval), anti-icing materials (aerospace, electric conduction systems), anti-soiling, and anti-reflective properties (PV and building industry), materials with improved thermal exchange ability (heat exchangers), anti-corrosion and anti-fouling behavior (for biological systems, marine equipment). From this perspective, she acts as coordinator of international research programs with EU in the framework of Horizon programs, Italian Defense Ministry, NATO, European Central Bank and many other Institutions and companies.
Dr. Raimondo has published more than 100 papers on international journals, with more than 50 communications, many of them as keynote or invited speaker at international conferences. She deposited 3 patents and she steadily works as Reviewer and Editorial Board Member for journal and international research programs as well.
Julietta V. Rau (Dr., PhD, Prof.) is currently Associated Research Director, Head of the laboratory and research group at the Institute of the Structure of Matter of the Italian National Research Council (ISM-CNR, Rome, Italy) and Professor at Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Moscow, Russia). She is the author of more than 200 publications in International Journals and about 180 presentations and 45 Invited, Plenary and Keynote talks at International Conferences. She received several International Awards for her research achievements. Her present H-index is 38 (i10-index is 119, Citations about 4600 (Google Scholar)).
She is Ambassador for Italy at the European Orthopaedic Research Society and Honorary Member of several International Biomaterial Societies.
She is the CHAIR and organizer of the biennial BioMaH “Biomaterials and Novel Technologies for Healthcare” International Conference (https://biomah.ism.cnr.it) and the Member of the International Scientific Committees of various International Conferences in the field of Materials Science, Nanoscience, Biomaterials and Medical devices.
She is Associate Editor of the Bioactive Materials (KeAi), of Fronties in Biomaterials Science “Bio-interactions and Bio-compatibility” and “In Vitro Models” (Springer) journals and Editorial Board Member of Coatings MDPI, FRONTIES in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Scientific Reports, Journal of Advanced Drug Delivery Research, Drug Design Development & Therapy, EC Orthopaedics, The Open Biomedical Engineering journals.
Her present research interests regard innovative biomaterials for regenerative medicine, among them calcium phosphates and glass-ceramics based materials for tissue engineering applications. Her recent publications are dedicated to bioactive, antimicrobial nanostructured coatings and ceramics of innovative composition for orthopaedic and dental implant applications and cements for bones, cranial-facial surgery and dentistry applications. She is also involved in research projects dedicated to Raman spectroscopy applications in biomedicine and novel imaging approaches for cancer diagnostics.
Federico Carpi is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florence. His main research interest concerns smart material-based biomedical and bioinspired mechatronic devices. From 2013 to 2017 he has served as the first President of the ‘European Society on Electromechanically Active Polymer Transducers and Artificial Muscles’. Since 2019, he is included in the ranking of the top 100,000 most influential scientists according to standardized citation metrics (source: PLoS Biology). He is an Editorial Board member of several journals, and member of the scientific committees of several conferences. His publications include around 80 articles in international journals, 3 edited books and several contributions to books and conferences.
Filomena Freitas is an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of NOVA School of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon (FCT NOVA), Portugal, and a Senior Researcher at the Biochemical Engineering Group (BIOENG), at UCIBIO, FCT NOVA. She has completed a PhD in Biological Engineering by FCT NOVA in 2004. She has developed research on the development of upstream and downstream processes for the production of value-added microbial products, including polysaccharides and polyhydroxyalkanoates, as well as intellectual property development and technology transfer. Special focus is also given on the biological valorization of agro-industrial wastes/byproducts, aiming at implementing sustainable bioprocesses. She has over 110 papers published in international peer review journals, book chapters and International Patents, which have recently been granted in several countries.
Prof Hidero Unuma obtained his Ph.D in 1993 from Kyoto University. He then spent one year at the University of California, Los Angeles- USA as Visiting scholar. He moved in 1995 to Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan as Associate Professor, In 1999, he joined Yamagata University, Japan. He is member of the Editorial board of the Journal of the Ceramic Society of Japan.
He obtained several Awards including:
The research of Prof Hidero Unuma focuses on: